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When lockdown hit in March 2020, journalist-turned-filmmaker Alexandra Pechman couldn’t help but get a little nostalgic for the good old days. Who didn’t?
“We couldn’t really look forward, so a lot of people were looking back. We were all inside and everyone was feeling so nostalgic and reading old journals and diaries and talking to people from the past,” Pechman told IndieWire in her first long-form interview for her first feature film, “Magazine.” “I was also looking back at what my career had been, and I kept going back to that kind of cusp-y time at the beginning of my career in magazines. It was the last gasp of the Old World, and so it was that feeling of this complicated nostalgia of, ‘Oh, I really miss that time, but also that time was not great for me or people like me, and why do I miss that?’”
The world of “Magazine” was pulled from Pechman’s own early career in journalism, notably pre-#MeToo. As a young writer in the late aughts, she published stories in Vogue, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, and was a staffer at The Paris Review, Aperture, and W magazine. By 2019, Pechman had sold her first script and joined the WGA. And she was trying to get comfy with the idea that, as her filmmaking career was on the rise, she was going to have to say goodbye to journalism.
Her big farewell: a delightfully winsome, extremely smart first feature, captures the specifics of the time (it’s set in 2011) while hinting at what very much needs to change in the years to come. The film stars Lily McInerny as starry-eyed poet Nora, who alights on a summer internship at the lauded lit mag Platen, where she meets fellow interns, played by Lukita Maxwell, Ruby Cruz, and Daniel Zolghadri, plus an alluring older editor, played by Joshuah Melnick.
The film will debut this week at the Toronto International Film Festival in its Discovery section, and what a discovery it is. Ahead, Pechman and her cast tell IndieWire about not just building a world, but finding the characters that truly make it feel real. And worth remembering with genuine affection, if not the reflection that comes with age.
Before mounting “Magazine,” Pechman wrote and directed a pair of well-received horror shorts — “Thumb” and “Sleep” — and while she’s sold other scripts around town, she was not eager to let this one go to someone else. “I had already been writing for other people when I started writing this, and it was the first thing that I had written where I thought to myself, ‘I really couldn’t ever give this to someone else because no one would know this world as well as I do,’” Pechman said.
Pechman is quick to stress that the film is semi-autobiographical. That doesn’t dilute its personal power, though. “If you were going to talk about it like a piece of music, my own experience is maybe a guitar lick or a bass line, but there’s a lot of different layers,” Pechman said. “It’s 10 years of my own experiences, my friends’ experiences, things I saw, things I heard about, condensed into one summer. There’s little riffs or elements of things that I pulled from different magazines that I worked at or wrote for or interned at.”
She really loved writing the characters that populate it — the film is the rare indie that boasts a truly ensemble cast, with supporting turns from Iris Apatow, Jake Lacy, AnnaSophia Robb, and Delaney Rowe, in addition to its core performers.
“What was really fun about it was pulling details from people that I met,” Pechman said. “So many people have said to me, ‘Oh, I know who Daphne is. It’s this person.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know that person. I’ve never met them.’ Every generation has its own Daphne. We all encounter that girl. We all encounter a Greer. I feel very humbled and flattered that people think every character is so visceral. There are a lot of details in the script about people that are so hyper-specific that I knew that I wanted, because those are the things, when I wrote or edited a magazine article, I’m like, oh, that really jumps off the page and makes you feel like this is a real person and I’m in the room with them.”
But she wanted Platen to be a fictional magazine, so that her audience could “enter it the way Nora does, without any preconceived notions of what is the culture of that place and to really learn it alongside her.” She added with a laugh, “And it’s also fun to create your own magazine, obviously.”
While the film’s logline hints at something a bit darker — a young woman makes her way through the rarefied world of New York literary mags in the years before #MeToo is even a glimmer — there’s a real lightness to the final film. While Nora does encounter some icky men, she also finds her people, in the form of the other Platen interns.
“I wanted to make the kind of movie that I grew up loving, and also the kind of movie that you want to watch again,” Pechman said. “I feel like that is such a rarity now. I’ve made a lot of genre movies, which I love and really enjoy, but I also have this deep love of movies like ‘Almost Famous’ and ‘Last Days of Disco’ that make you feel a certain way. Maybe in the same way that as a horror filmmaker, you’re chasing a jump scare and getting that reaction from this audience, with this film, I was sort of chasing a warmth and a lightness and a sigh of recognition.”
“And that’s exactly what first sort of attracted me to the script, finding a way to tell stories that include some certain confronting subject matters with a level of levity and fun and excitement and this sense of potential that you’re sensing parallel to Nora’s journey,” McInerny told IndieWire.
Added Pechman, “The structure of it is meant to reflect what coming of age is like, where you think the job is the most important thing that’s going to help you find yourself, or maybe love or romance or sex. Ultimately, what do we all remember from being 21? Our friends and the relationships you make, and that’s how you create your identity and your sense of self.”
Within that framework, there’s plenty to play with and lots of perspectives to tap into. As the lone male intern, Leonard, Zolghadri gets to be a bit more sardonic and removed, but the actor loved watching how every character’s journey unfolded in hyper-specificity.
“I thought of it as an office drama, and everyone has a different part in that. My character has some humor and then you come to understand him a little bit later,” Zolghadri said. “You start to read it with a group of people, and everyone just sort of uses their imagination to come up with their own backstory and what it should be. … Everything was on the page. When you read it, you got a very clear sense of the tone and the part that you and all the characters are playing in that. Then I had a conversation with Alexandra about it and I came to understand that it was a personal story and I was on board.”
Maxwell had just wrapped Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms” before she decamped from Vancouver to New York City to film Pechman’s film in the summer of 2025. As different as those films are, the actress saw similarities that really appealed to her.
“The first thing that was really apparent to me was her world was very specific and it was very built,” Maxwell said. “And that was a similar thing that I really appreciated from Kane with ‘Backrooms.’ When I saw the visual deck for that and I had a conversation with Kane, I was incredibly impressed with how meticulous the world had been built and how much detail there was in every single dark corner of this film that he was about to embark on. It was a similar thing with Alexandra. I remember I got a visual deck with my audition, which is not a common thing to get, and she painted a very clear picture of exactly the style that she wanted the film to be in, and it was very clear that it was something personal to her.”
Added Cruz, “It’s just beautiful to find someone like Alexandra who’s been a writer and been an artist in other ways, finding her voice through film about her own story. This is somewhat of a return to a memory, which I thought was really such a cool thing to go down together.”
As Nora, the closest the film gets to a Pechman surrogate, McInerny was thrilled by the ways in which she connected with the filmmaker. McInerny’s agents originally brought her and Pechman together, guessing their backgrounds and sensibilities would be a match. “Shortly after sitting down together, we connected on a lot of different subject matters that the script covers. Before even reading it, I could tell that this was for me,” the actress said.
Much like the film itself, McInerny has a lightness that’s not readily apparent in her previous two films, the dark drama “Palm Trees and Power Lines” and the frisky remake of “Bonjour Tristesse.” “I was really surprised because I had maybe expected someone much more serious, because the roles that she had played were much darker and somber, and then I met her and she’s so delightful and sparkly and magical,” Pechman said.
That appealed to McInerny, too. “That was something that also really attracted me to the project, being able to express a side of myself that a lot of people in my daily life recognize, but I hadn’t yet really portrayed on screen yet,” McInerny said. “This level of fumbling that you couldn’t really see in the precociousness of ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ or this level of silliness or goofiness that there wasn’t really a place for in a film like ‘Palm Trees and Power Lines.’”
While Pechman had imagined the film’s world with impressive specificity, she was keenly aware it would not work without the right cast. “I only take half the credit for writing and directing, but they really brought these characters to life,” Pechman said. “I think all of them had a really strong understanding of who they were. … It was non-negotiable that they needed to chem read from the beginning, I just knew that if that didn’t work, the movie won’t work.”
Cruz ad-libbed bits as her character Greer. McInerny and Maxwell read together over Zoom, where they became instant BFFs much the way their characters do in the film. “Within the first 10 minutes, they were talking about how they were both in Shakespeare Club in high school, and they were kind of wearing the same outfit and they were laughing,” Pechman said with a laugh.
“I feel like she cast the coolest group of people in the entire world,” Cruz told IndieWire. “Immediately, it was the most welcoming — I will stress this! — the most welcoming and most lovely. I made actual, genuine friends. And, as Greer, I was able to tap into this feeling of, ‘Oh my God, these people are so cool. I am intimidated by them,’ and that was really helpful because they are just some of the coolest, nicest, most talented people.”
But while the BFF-bonding that unfolds throughout the film is its heart and soul, there are a pair of romantic entanglements tucked inside the story. And, yes, they are disarmingly pre-#MeToo in the ways they play out, the ways they feel.
“We really talked about toeing this line of sexuality as a young woman in a workplace environment especially, but everywhere you go, there is this very sort of fine line of behavior that is deemed attractive enough to gravitate toward, but pious enough and guarded enough to always be unattainable and respected,” McInerny said.
When Nora lands at Platen, she’s instantly smitten by young editor Thomas (Joshuah Melnick), who initially seems to be very interested in the young poet. From Nora’s perspective, they’re starting a new relationship. From Thomas’? Well, it’s a little different.
“It was really important that Alexandra and I made clear that Nora really enjoys sex, and she is somebody who craves a passionate sexual relationship in her life, and yet keeps bumping up against this paradox, this bind in not really feeling safe or able to express that,” McInerny added. “And then she starts discovering that dating as a young woman can become a lot more just about control and power than just pure, authentic desire.”
Thomas shows his true colors early and often, but that doesn’t make them smart any less. But, as with the rest of the film, the role is treated with care and consideration. He’s not the bad guy, but he’s a part of a world built on bad behavior that keeps being rewarded.
“I think the antagonist of the film is the culture of this world and he is the mascot of that, if you will,” Melnick said. “He’s a bit of a tragic figure, it’s a pretty tragic arc and life. He sees himself as a person who, in many ways, has a lot of power and yet does not see the power in himself, so he is consciously and unconsciously wielding this power in ways that are destructive to those around him. He has all this ambition and desire for the power, but is quite insecure at the end of the day.”
But Melnick had plenty of fun, too. While Pechman didn’t name names, she shared some of her own experiences with men like Thomas with the young actor, including a moment that takes shape during an early date with Nora. Nora has a beer with dinner, while Thomas opts for an apple juice… that comes in a box.
“And then the apple juice, she had a real story! And it’s about him just infantilizing himself and maybe he’s not even conscious of it,” Melnick said. “But she went on a date once with somebody who drank milk at a date. So that was real.”
Melnick also did some of his own research, including reading “a lot” of Graydon Carter interviews, during which he discovered the legendary editor’s cologne of choice: Eight & Bob. Melnick bought a bottle, which came in luxe packaging made to look like a book — perfect! — to add to his Thomas prep. Only later did Melnick realize that John F. Kennedy also wore the cologne, which made preparing for his next big role even easier: he’s playing JFK in the upcoming miniseries “Kennedy.”
Maxwell’s Tabitha also finds herself in an inter-office relationship best termed problematic. The reveal of it partially upends her bond with Nora, just as she’s grappling with what all these incestuous Platen entanglements really mean.
“It is that painful naivete of somebody, in all of their position as interns, in this echelon of power dynamics where they’re at the bottom of this situation,” Maxwell said. “That’s what the whole film is about, is just trying to get to swim with the big fish. In Tabitha’s mind, there’s not a lot of thought to consequence. It’s almost like, even if something bad happens, it’ll make me stronger because then I’ve learned something or I’m taking something out of the situation.”
That’s coming of age, the hard way. But as hard as some of those relationships end up being, as painful and formative, “Magazine” finds a soft place to land in the form of the intern friend group. Over the course of the film, they go from wary competitors to dedicated compatriots.
“We really talked about writing a love letter to friendship and the ways in which you can really romanticize these platonic friendships, that have such passion and joy and affection that they almost hold a romantic place in your memory,” McInerny said. “The chemistry was created really organically, we really immediately got each other as a cast. We didn’t have that many days to shoot, there wasn’t really an intense rehearsal process. Any time we weren’t shooting, we were all sitting around on a floor, just laughing and bonding and sharing and just really immediately loving one another.”
They also loved the physical world that Pechman built for them, one that feels instantly, viscerally like being teleported right back into NYC, circa 2011. Pechman and her team trawled The Real Real for clothes (Peter Pan collars, ahoy!) and eBay for Blackberries and iPod Nanos. The interns tapped away on one laptop, loaded up with Myspace.
“We were all kind of coming of age on the internet at this time, and fashion maybe wasn’t as homogenized, and people were still building their references from the internet, but in a way less algorithmic way, so everyone’s references are so different,” Pechman said. “And it was really fun to build because the office of Platen is meant to be layers of history and layers of references that all come together and look effortless.”
Every book in the Platen office was handpicked by Pechman and “borrowed, donated, or discounted from her friends and former colleagues.” Artwork is by her friend Math Bass. Thomas’ apartment and Greer’s apartment belong to friends. They shot other scenes at friends’ bars and event spaces.
“It’s nostalgic because it’s right there, it’s close enough that we have a familiarity to it, but it’s distant enough,” Melnick said. “And the Blackberries! The texting of the Blackberry is funny, and the way they make the dates and the plans, there’s more of a commitment. You can text me back out, but it’s like if you set a plan in motion, you’re going to show up.”
Added Cruz, “What I really loved about working with her is she’s so clear about what she wants. The way she communicates it is very clear, but there’s still room for you to interpret it and for you to try things and for us to play. Everybody she brought on, all of the heads of department too, collaborated so beautifully. I just can’t wait to see the world for myself because living in it was one thing. I can’t wait to see it put all together.”
When the film premieres at TIFF this week, Pechman will be joined by the majority of her cast and crew, all of whom seem overjoyed at the prospect of reuniting. And, of course, celebrating, which remains at the center of the film’s creation and execution.
“I wanted to make something celebratory and joyful not just about being young, but about a complicated time and to be able to look at this 2011’s coming of age, early twenties time and to celebrate the messiness and find the joy,” Pechman said. “There is an undercurrent of some darkness there, but that’s not the focus and that I would hope that as I do, for most people, when I look back on my early twenties, it was complicated and messy, but mostly fun. To make a movie and you’ve already lived through that? Now you can look back and see it clearly and enjoy it.”
“Magazine” will premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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