In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director Alexandra Pechman discussed her directorial debut, Magazine, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Friday. Set in New York City in 2011, the film follows Nora (played by Lily Mclnerny), a recent graduate who lands an internship at the fictional Magazine publisher Platen. There, she navigates multiple struggles, including an affair with an older editor at the company.

“This was the first thing I ever started writing where I was like, ‘I can’t let anybody else [direct] this, Pechman said about the film, before also discussing many of her influences, which include Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous and Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco, both films notable for their depictions of journalism and life in the city.

Pechman also discussed her choice of setting and subject matter, choosing a magazine firm instead of another journalistic setting, like a blog or newspaper company. As Pechman explained, she wanted to explore a setting with an elite publication style “that gets its notoriety from it being a throwback, from it being a little bit encased in amber and a little bit trapped in the past.”

The director also discussed how surprised she was to see the reaction from Gen-Z viewers to her film, which features a lot of 2010s iconography, saying, “In starting to talk to younger people about the movie, in a lot of ways they key into the nostalgia of the movie even more. Especially because Gen Z is so starved for that authenticity and that tactility and culture.”

Magazine premiered at TIFF on Friday. Distribution deals are still ongoing.