Löwensohn: Which I enjoyed. The closer it got, I was ready for my close-up.

Do you still have those cameras?

Almereyda: I do, but I’ve been trying to get them to work again. They’re kinda beyond repair. I’ve been with a technician who’s a kind of camera surgeon. He’s been trying to help me revive them, and so far, he’s been defeated. I bought mine for $45 each from an 800 number.

Have either of you been to Transylvania?

Löwensohn: Passing through. I never visited the actual castle of Vlad Țepeș, but I’ve visited Transylvania and it is very beautiful. What I love in Michael’s film is the talent of invention and ingenuity with no money. It was Central Park for Romania.

Almereyda: I haven’t been to Romania, but I have a new friend: my shy Romanian brother Radu Jude, who is a great filmmaker. He’s given me his blessings that Nadja had meaning for him when he first saw it. It’s mind-blowing to think that the film can translate. But I guess I have an open invitation to visit Radu.

There’s a funny scene in Nadja where the characters say they’ve never been to Brooklyn. Today, of course, downtown Manhattan is all banks, and anything underground would be found in Brooklyn, if even there. Where would you set a movie like this today?

Almereyda: I think New York is inexhaustible, but I also think there are many great places.

I was in the audience at Cooper Union when Patti Smith gave a reading of Just Kids when it just came out, which is already a long time ago. [Smith’s book was released in 2010.] A young person said, “I’ve just moved here, and I’m trying to have a life like yours and make art in the city. What’s your advice?” And she said, simply, “Find a new city.” And then she leaned into the microphone and repeated: “Find a new city.”

But I don’t know what that city is. Part of the magic of New York is that everyone’s saying, “Oh, you just missed it. You missed the golden age.” Every generation feels that way, and every generation finds their way.

Elina, did you enjoy performing with a tarantula?

Löwensohn: It was very delicate and kind of sleepy. I don’t know if they got the tarantula to be sleepier than usual, but I thank God I don’t have a phobia of spiders. I have a phobia of flying birds.

Elina, after making this film and the other New York movies with small crews, you went to Europe and had a very memorable scene in Schindler’s List. Was that a culture shock?

Löwensohn: It was a culture shock when the producers scream at you on the set like you are cattle, and then they realize, Oh no, you’re one of the actors that has actually two or three lines. What was a shock was to see how much those extras that spent so much time in the cold were paid. Because they were paid $8 a day. And I asked the Polish people, is that a lot of money in Polish money? And they said, not at all. It’s just that they were thinking, Oh, we’re going to be in an American film.