Top 8 Questions With The Academy (Oscars®) Member: Actress Rutanya Alda
You’ve seen her shining on Hollywood’s big screen, but her life started amidst war and devastation on the other side of the planet (you may get emotional.)
Rutanya Alda
HMU -shoot for "Mommie Dearest Diaries" book sleeve - Photo: Bart Mastronardi
The Kraken Film Festival chats with the Academy veteran to discuss her deeply personal docu-film.
For Academy member Rutanya Alda, the 2020’s COVID lockdown wasn't a time of fear; it was the catalyst to finally tell a story that had lived within her for over 50 years.
Fleeing Latvia as a child during WWII, Alda understands the lasting impact of conflict on children – a theme echoing in her powerful new docu-film, Land of The Mustaches, directed by Academy member Leon Joosen.
Kraken's Sharon Grace Badia sat down with the esteemed actress to discuss this remarkable project, her extraordinary career spanning six decades, and the simple joys that sustain her.
By Sharon Grace Badia
Published on June 23th, 2025
Mommie Dearest (1981)
"For the children and women of all wars, it never leaves."
This chilling truth fuels Academy member Rutanya Alda's docu-film Land of The Mustaches – an urgent visual memoir that bridges her WWII displacement and today's millions global refugees.
The film unflinchingly explores how war shreds childhoods, a reality Alda knows firsthand after fleeing Latvia.
Land of The Mustaches traces two intersecting tragedies:
‘The Ghost Child’ or, young Rutanya's journey through post-WWII Displaced Persons camps with her mother and grandmother – starving, stateless, and surviving in converted concentration camps.
And her father's abduction by Stalin's NKVD, dragged to Siberia's Gulags with only the clothes on his back – his mustache the last memory Rutanya clung to.
As you may know, camps were often established in former concentration camps or military barracks, forcing some survivors to live behind barbed wire again.
By the spring of 1945, the war had displaced approximately eight million people from their homes.
In these camps, conditions were often unsanitary, plagued by severe overcrowding and shortages of essential supplies during the difficult post-war period.
Initially, all displaced persons—including military personnel, concentration camp survivors, prisoners of war, and forced laborers—were grouped together in the camps based on their nationality.
This arrangement sometimes forced Jewish survivors to live alongside their former oppressors, simply because they shared the same country of origin.
8. How was ‘Land of The Mustaches’ born?
A. Land of the Mustaches was made in two back-to-back, 18-hour days. In NYC, we were in lockdown, and it was a very fearful time due to the governor of NY.
It was all over the airwaves—if you were 78, you were going to d*e. That was the thinking, as it was everywhere; an atmosphere of fear permeated the air.
I was 78 and had been wanting to write this story since I was in my 20s, when I was working with Paul Mazursky on Next Stop, Greenwich Village. I had told Paul my story, and he said I had to write it.
Fifty years went by, and because of COVID, I realized I was going to d*e without telling my story. I was very calm. I sat down and wrote the story in two weeks—I knew the story by heart.
When I finished, I was called by two DP friends, Mert Erdam and Michael Wilson (a team), my director friend Leon Joosen, and my makeup and hair stylist, Alan Rowe Kelly, and I asked, “Do you want to break the lockdown and come over to make a movie?” Lucky for me, everyone said yes.
Next, we needed to find a film rental company that was open. We found one open for two hours. My son and actor, Jeremy Bright, went down and hauled all the equipment back. Leon came over and looked at everything I had in my apartment (since we were shooting in my spare bedroom) and came up with the white box design of the film. Everything we used in the film is from my apartment, so we had the set set up before we filmed—it took one day.
I used the approach to filmmaking that I learned from working with Brian De Palma in the '60s and '70s, when I worked on Greetings and Hi, Mom (the famous Black Baby scene): one take and move on—minimalist filmmaking. John Cassavetes, whom I knew, did the same.
7. You met the film’s director through the Academy, how long have you known each other?
A. Leon Joosen, the director, and I had known each other for about 10 years before. We met at an Academy screening, which we both attended a lot, and we hit it off. Leon is a lot of fun, and we had some fun adventures together. He's a great friend.
6. Would you like to share when and how you became a member of the Academy?
A. In the days when I applied to the academy the rules were very strict. You had to have a certain number of films ( five at least) with front credits. The Deer Hunter solidified all the requirements and I got voted into the Actors branch in 1977.
Rutanya Alda and Meryl Streep in “The Deer Hunder” (1978")
John Wayne
5. With your impressive 60 years of experience in the film industry, what is one unusual or memorable moment you’ve experienced on a movie set?
A. It wasn’t on my set. I was visiting John Wayne’s set in Durango, Mexico, when I was filming Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. I became friends with him, and he invited me to visit the set. John Wayne was so gracious and charming, like I was family—that surprised me.
But he did something that I had never seen before or since. He was doing a scene with a young actor and turned to the director and said, “Give him the close-up.” This was such a shock to me, and I promised myself if I ever had the opportunity to do this, I would do it too.
I had three opportunities, and the director asked, “Are you sure?” I said yes—I wanted a younger actor to have a piece of film, his close-up.
4. Can you share a quirky habit or daily ritual you have that most people don’t know about?
A. I meditate with my cat ....who is by my side. I often look in store windows as I pass by to make sure I exist.
3. What’s the most unexpected place you’ve ever found inspiration?
A. I think the Grand Canyon South Rim... we were scheduled to walk down—four hours or longer—to the bottom of the canyon. But it had rained for days before, and when my son and I arrived, the Colorado River was flooding, and no one was allowed to go to the bottom.
So, we walked about a mile down into the clouds and mist. It was like I had arrived in Shangri-La—so mysterious, powerful, and peaceful... another dimension.
2. If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
A. Tolstoy: he wrote great stories and unforgettable characters, and he embedded lessons of life in them. He was a spiritual man. I would have loved to have a conversation with him.
I read War and Peace to my son when he was 12. I acted out all the parts—it was my greatest performance. My son said, “Mom, I want to read everything that Tolstoy ever wrote.” And he did.
1. What’s a song or piece of music that instantly transports you back to your childhood?
A. When I came to America, I was lost and alone, and there was a song that I used to sing every day when I walked home: “When you walk through the dark, hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark.”
I think Josh Groban has it on video. I must hear it again... although I’m sure I will have a big cry.
Conclusion:
Six Academy members came together to make this unique, truly independent film:
Actress Rutanya Alda (The Deer Hunter, Mommie Dearest, Amityville II, among 110+ film and TV credits), writer, producer, and performer of Land of the Mustaches;
Acclaimed Emmy-nominated editor, David Ray (Scarface, Reds, All That Jazz, the Bronx Tale);
Brilliant Emmy-winning composer, Charles Bernstein (ASCAP Deems Taylor award, 140+ films);
Director and award-winning filmmaker, Leon Joosen (Disney's The Little Mermaid, Scooby-Doo, Muppet Babies);
Emmy-winning animator, Candy Kugel (MTV, Sesame Street, Berenstain Bears, A Warm Reception in L.A.);
And producer Donna Dickman (who publicized Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist, and The Motorcycle Diaries.)
By framing her childhood trauma, Alda brings her strenght and honesty on a very delicate situation and memories. These fragments scream what statistics cannot: War devours childhoods whole, but the human spirit refuses digestion.