WomenCinemakers, Special Edition, Vol.35 by WomenCinemakers

w o m e n LAURA REMBAULT ELLIE FOUMBI JODY CHRISTOPHERSON HELENA SANTÍN ANJOUM AGRAMA LIZA BOLTON KAKI WONG LUCIA LUPU ANN BRITT PEDERSEN MATHILDE DRATWA MIHAELA POPESCU

INDEPENDENT

WOMEN’S CINEMA

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Contents 04 Mihaela Popescu

122 Liza Bolton

Yet to Rule

Topographia Hibernica

146

Mathilde Dratwa Peta Pan

Anjoum Agrama See You Later

174

Ann Britt Pedersen

Helena SantĂn

An Old Piano

Ver

196

Lucia Lupu

Ellie Foumbi & Jody Christopherson

Paparuda

Uniform

220

Kaki Wong

Laura Rembault

REVOLVE

Upir

Women Cinemakers meets

Mihaela Popescu Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

Mihaela Popescu is a Romanian filmmaker, based in London, UK. She started as Associate Producer for OUTBOUND (2010), a feature film directed by Bogdan George Apetri and produced by Saga Film, premiered at Locarno International Film Festival. She worked as Story Editor and Executive Producer for THE UNSAVED (2013), a feature film directed by Igor Cobileanski, premiered at Karlovy Vary IFF in 2013. During the same year, she made her directorial debut with THE WALK, a short film selected at Locarno IFF, Slamdance, Brussels, Thessaloniki, FIFF Namur, Transilvania, Ankara and other international festivals. In 2014, she won the Romanian National Cinema Center production support competition, receiving the biggest funding for her feature debut, YET TO RULE, a surrealist drama. She has also directed, shot, edited and produced ON ANOTHER CORNER, a short documentary about the rampant gun violence in Chicago affecting black communities, a film premiered in 2017 at the 60thInternational Leipzig Festival for Documentary Film. In 2018 she had her feature debut as director, writer and editor with YET TO RULE, which had the world premiere at Berlin Criticsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Week.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Captivating and refined in its balanced and effective storytelling, Yet to Rule is a stimulating a surrealist drama by London based Romanian filmmaker Mihaela Popescu: featuring brilliant

cinematography and keen eye for the details, this captivating film offers an emotionally charged allegory of the struggle between the animal within the rational side: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Popescu's captivating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Mihaela and welcome to : to start this interview we

Mihaela Popescu

would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production. In the meanwhile, we would ask you a couple of question about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly direct your trajectory as a filmmaker? Could you tell us your biggest influences and how did they affect your work? First thing that comes to mind is that I grew up with the cinema in front of my house. I come from a small town by the seaside, nice and quiet, but without much going on and so the cinema was pretty much all I had. It was my refuge, in a time when the communist regime was falling and where I formed my first memories, in a time when the country was convulsed by the birth of democracy, which was harrowing and hopeful at the same time. But as much as I loved films, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never dared I could make them, it was something far beyond my reach. I went to college pursuing a degree in economics, which my parents deemed suitable, but even there all I did was watch films. When I was on my own, I did a master in Media Communication and went for one semester at Nouvelle Sorbonne with a scholarship. There I studied film and though it was short, it was transformative. I was like a kid in the candy store, I tried to take almost all classes of all the years. When I returned, I quit my job after a while and got a job at a film production house, and so I became an associate producer at Saga Film. I was lucky because I worked with first-time directors and I had the chance to get more and

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

interview

Women Cinemakers more involved creatively. It took me a few more years to dare to think I can make a movie, but eventually it happened with the same production house. For this special edition of we have selected , a surrealist drama film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your sapient narrative is the way it provides the viewers with such an intense visual experience. While walking our readers through the genesis of , could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? I can say it all started with a courtroom, but there were many things accumulated over time, nothing came easy with this film. In 2012 I was filming my first short story about a woman. I knew I wanted to keep making movies about women, I was reading a lot of history, and I wanted to externalize the unfair destiny of women that I began to notice more and more often not only in history, but also in everyday life. During that year, there was a highly publicized case of a Japanese student who was raped and murdered near the Bucharest airport, right after she landed there for the first time. I struggled to see how the case was presented in the media as exceptional, and then realize that it was not at all like that. The only exceptional thing was our sudden interest in Japan and our image as a country, but the road to crime was as trivial as possible. If you were taking two steps back, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d see how a man accused of two killings, seven rapes and five robberies had

A still from Yet To Rule

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

been released by some police officers unimpressed by his deeds, because the victims were only some poor Romanian women. You’d see how a taxi driver without a driving license drove them to a forest, saying nonchalantly after the killer was caught how “he fooled that sucker that he’d carry her luggage. He raped others before”. Then you took some other steps back and you’d see how an international airport

was operating quietly with such corrupt taxi drivers, and you kept going back until you came to see a whole country indifferent to the abuse against women, minorities, marginalized people, left without education and opportunities, to get into a pathological vortex. During that year, I also received a parking fine that led me to a trial for the first time in my life. I got there and it seemed such an absurd

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

place, so surreal, that I had to come back to understand more. So, in 2013 I came back as a mere spectator, I began to follow criminal cases, see more and more cases with women, and start thinking about this movie. Elegantly shot, features stunning cinematography and from a visual point, we have been fascinated with your clear and effective

approach to narrative: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? First, I would like to say I had a wonderful Collaboration with the director of photography for this film, Marius Panduru, with whom I worked before on a couple of shorts. As soon as he read the script, he knew

exactly what I had in mind, he understood very well the mood, the atmosphere I wanted to convey. It was very easy for us to decide about the camera. We both agreed immediately on RED, which helped us with the noir look we wanted. As for the lens, it took us a longer time. We did several tests and weren’t sure what to choose until we saw the footage with the Cooke 14 mm lens. We realized immediately this was what we needed for the film, it had the distortion and the alienating feeling we wanted to convey, while giving at the same time a sense of urgency, of immediacy. It reminded me of Kieslowski’s film, “A short film about a killing” and I knew I wanted that lens for almost the entire film. We like the way you created entire scenario out of psychologically charged moments: in this film you leave the floor to your characters, finding effective ways to create a channel of communication between their epiphanic journey and the viewers' emotional sphere. What are you hoping will trigger in the audience? I hope it will trigger some questions about how we look at the others and at ourselves and how we think about justice. Your approach to the research of the characters seems to be very analytical, yet your film strives to be full of emotion: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your shooting process?

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

interview

Women Cinemakers

Well, in my case it’s both actually. I do prefer to prepare the shooting in as much detail as possible and I rehearse a lot with the actors before that. For this film, we had over two months of rehearsals. That said, when the shooting starts I prefer to forget all about it and see what happens. During the shooting, when you’re in a real location and have all the costumes, the people and everything in place, the mood changes, sometimes the actors react differently. We’re all open to these stimuli, we let them sink in, but we’re not overwhelmed, because by that time we know who we are and we just go with the flow. escapes Featuring brilliant storytelling, the boundaries of narrative, to inquire into an ever shifting internal struggle: would you tell how did you develop the script and the structure of your film? The first draft was very different from the final version. It was a story told in almost real time, much in the well known style of the Romanian realist films, about a woman who spends a day in a courtroom seeing other trials until she is asked to testify against her abuser. I’ve written that first draft, but I knew it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it didn’t dig deep enough. I put it aside for a while and I decided to have a closer look at the judges. I spent a lot of time on documentation, a lot of time in courtrooms until I began to see everything like a

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

canvas. I looked and I looked until everything permeated and then after more than one year I wrote everything down in a couple of weeks, created an entire new structure. We daresay that unveiling the struggle between the animal within the rational side

could be considered an effective allegory of human experience: how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? As I said before, my inspiration comes from real

Women Cinemakers

A still from Yet To Rule

events, real experiences. I have a documentarian approach in everything I do, including in fiction, and I like to collect these experiences, melt them together and create a new chemistry, give them some sense.

would like to introduce to our readers is

Your artistic inquiry is also committed to social themes and another interesting work that we

differs depending on which part of the world

, a short documentary about the rampant gun violence in Chicago. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in. It depends on the political system youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re

A still from A still from Yet To Rule

Women Cinemakers

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living under". How do you consider the relationship between a political system and an artist's creative process? Moreover, what could be in your opinion the role of filmmakers in making aware people of a variety of issues that affect our unstable societies? I very much agree with what Gabriel Orozco said, artists are defined by context, as much as anyone else

I think. But also as an artist you can choose what you want to show, most of the times you can choose the political system you want to live in or you want to portray and I think this is what sets the artists apart. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re restless by nature, they look for something and they become wanderers of lands, of politics, of peoples and of the soul. In their search, they see things, they become witnesses and it becomes their

Women Cinemakers

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obligation to testify, to tell people what they see and feel through the filter of their artistic conscience. Over the past few years your films have been premiered at important festivals, as Berlin Critics' Week and the 60th International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film: how much importance has for you the feedback that you

receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? I had lovely experiences with the audiences for both films. As a filmmaker you spend a lot of time with people from the industry and get a lot of feedback from them and in a way you end up trusting them more than the real audience, which you come to think of as a remote monolith. But now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve found out how

Women Cinemakers wrong I was. They see your film with a fresh eye, without any expectations, especially if it’s your first feature and I think that is the most genuine experience you can have. I really appreciated it.

I am working on a documentary right now about

Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema?

they feel confused, uncertain about their future, and

When you look at all the progress that was made in the last years, I think it’s clear by now that there’s no going back. Women are fighting for their rights, for equality, and I’m sure they will get there, sooner or later. The question is how long will it take and what is at stake? Will they be able to transform audiences as well in the process, make the world a more feminine place, a less aggressive one? Or will they let themselves be transformed and perpetuate the status quo?

left a very deep impression of frustration, disbelief

European migrants living in UK in the time of Brexit. There are currently 3 million people living there who have built a life, a career, some have families, and now even their identity. Many have never seen themselves as immigrants, but as citizens of a European space where they were free to move and work. This new status they face, the limited rights they might have, the hostile attitude they felt overnight through that vote, and who took many by surprise, the way in which their lives are being negotiated by bureaucrats and cynicism. In spite of these feelings, there is also a struggle to keep a trace of positivism, to hope that things will be alright. I am attracted to this struggle and confusion and I try to document it now. At this point I gather information and interview people, capture stories and emotions and try to figure out the artistic way to go. In other words, I’m still in the development stage with this film, just as I am with my career.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Mihaela. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Mathilde Dratwa Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York City, USA PETA PAN is a short film about the power of stories to bring us together. It is a story about storytelling, especially in relation to ritual, intimacy, magic and language. The film is inspired by my relationship with my own mother. I spent a lot of time thinking about our nighttime routines; the repetition of certain stories that quickly became a part of our own private family folklore, the intimacy of those moments shared at dusk. I was heavily pregnant with my first child by the time we shot the film, so it's natural that motherhood is at its center. When I found out I was pregnant, I started collecting children's books to share with my soonto-be child, old classics and new best-sellers, imagining myself reading them just as my mother had. But I found that most of these stories were about male characters - male frogs, male monsters, male dragons, male children, male princes, male dogs. And it irked me. I did some research and found that my experience wasn't anecdotal; studies found huge gender imbalance in children's books. It planted a seed in my brain. I thought about re-telling a classic story with a female central character instead of a male one. My interest in language acquisition led to a realization that I wanted the gender switch to happen not by design but because of a name mis-pronounced or mis-heard. My mother was born "Without a Fatherland" and later became a "United Nations Refugee." It wasn't until much later that she became a Belgian citizen. While she speaks unaccented French, which is my mother tongue, many older members of our family had strong accents. I decided to incorporate this into the story. A Palestinian immigrant is learning English at a much slower pace than her first-generation American daughter. Following a miscommunication, they re-write the story of Peter Pan, together, recasting Peter as a girl. I knew that I wanted the visual landscape to highlight the magic of a young girl's fanciful imagination, and decided to use animation and motion graphics to bring this vision to life. While the mother speaks heavily accented English, the young girl is the one who misunderstands certain English phrases. I often work with language learners and delight in their literal interpretation of idioms. I thought this would be a great avenue to explore magic, especially the magic of childhood. I had long wanted to make a coming-of-age film that didn't show a young girl's fall from innocence as much as a growing awareness of her own responsibilities. I decided to make the journey one of understanding. Instead of taking something away from the girl, I wanted to give her a gift, and in turn wanted to see her give it away. It's a small, simple story about a Palestinian woman and her daughter, one of the few immigrant stories which is not about hardship but about love.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

blending reality and fantasy in such a brilliant mixed

and Dora S. Tennant

technique, this stimulating film offers an emotionally

womencinemaker@berlin.com

charged visual experience: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Dratwa's captivating and

is a captivating short film by Brooklyn-based Belgian filmmaker and playwright Mathilde Dratwa:

multifaceted artistic production. Hello Mathilde and welcome to

: we would like to invite

our readers to visit in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training; after having earned your BA in English Literature and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education as an English and Drama teacher, both from Cambridge University, you received a Masters Degree in Classical Acting from Drama Centre London: how did these early experiences influence your evolution as a filmmaker? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to the years that you spent in different countries address your artistic research? I’ve been described as “an actor’s director,” and I credit my training at Drama Centre for that. It’s the part of the job that I like best, working with actors, speaking in a language that they can understand, giving them freedom to create the characters within the framework that I provide. Because I was an actor for several years, I have a large network of talented actors to draw from when casting my films, and don’t always have to start from scratch - although I’m always interested in casting a wide net and meeting new actors. My nomadic lifestyle lent itself to teaching English, teaching French, and even on occasion teaching Spanish (the language I speak least fluently), as a day job. I often used drama and acting exercises as a means of language acquisition. What I learnt from my students is that there’s poetry in translation. Often they would get idioms just a little wrong, or translate literally from their mother tongue, and there was beauty and poetry there. I hadn’t thought about it, but I’m sure my experiences with these language learners made its way into my film, especially in all the ways that the girl interprets idioms too literally.

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

interview

Women Cinemakers For this special edition of we have selected , a captivating film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. As you have explained in your director's statement, this film was inspired by the interstitial point between your relationship with your own mother and the gender imbalance in children's books: when walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us how important it was for you to make a personal film, about something you knew a lot? I remember my mother reading me stories at bedtime - and making up stories with me during the daytime. She is a natural storyteller and has an infectious laugh. Peter Pan was one of my favorite stories - in fact, I made my poor parents see it with me in the movie theater no less than seven times! Since then, though, my attitude towards Peter Pan has changed - in particular in relation to the gender politics. Wendy is a young girl who, instead of going on all the adventures, takes care of the boys. The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has a slogan: “If she can see it, she can be it.” Girls and women need to have role models in media. When TV shows started showing female forensic scientists, female applications to forensic science training programs shot up. There’s a direct correlation. But it doesn’t start with films and TV shows - which we know have far too few female characters. It starts with children’s books. Why does a turtle have to be a “he”? Why are there still so many stories about knights saving princesses? My mother and I have both, like almost all women I know, struggled with our weight at various points in our lives, and so that became part of the narrative as well. In Peta Pan, the mother’s weight gain is tied to the candy that she eats to maintain the illusion that Peta Pan came by and took it. It was important to me that from the daughter’s perspective, the mother is perfect. Elegantly shot, features essential still stunning cinematography by Mark Sasahara: what were your aesthetic

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? The budget made some of the decisions for us. My friend Ramazan Nanayev was incredibly generous, and let us borrow his RED camera and lenses. The small size of the girl’s room also created some restrictions, in particular with regard to lens size. But I embraced these challenges. A longer lens might have created very beautiful images, but I like that the relationship between the mom and daughter feels genuine. The room behind them is in focus, which pays off at the end when the girl looks around and uses the items around her to

create a new story for her mother - even though it doesn’t come as naturally to her anymore, she’s able to use her surroundings as inspiration. We knew that we wanted to have a pretty static camera; that was a deliberate decision we made when we saw that the actors could hold our attention without needing the camera to do much of the work. It’s a quiet, intimate film, it’s not flashy. We had a wonderful gaffer, Mike Sutter, who really helped build the world and show the passage of time. I love the shots in the mom’s room, with the daylight coming in from the windows, as well as the moment at night when the two girls

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan are in bed, and the moonlight is coming through their window blinds. With its brilliantly structured storytelling Peta Pan imparts unparalleled psychological intensity to the narration, to unveil an ever shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way the dialogues of your film seem both natural and surreal: how did you develop the script and the structure of your film in order to achieve such powerful results? I’m both a filmmaker and a playwright. The gift of the playwriting world is that you get to spend a lot more time in

development. (It’s also a curse, because plays can get stuck in development limbo!) You get to hear words spoken aloud so often that you develop a different ear for dialogue. I always try to create a similar process for myself in film. While in theater I belong to writers’ groups, in film I joined the FilmShop collective, and workshopped Peta Pan there. I was also a member of the Independent Film School’s writerdirector lab, which is where the short film was conceived. I am a strong believer that many brains are better than one brain, so I am grateful to my friends, peers and mentors for their help shaping the piece.

A still from Peta Pan

One of the big shifts in the script was in relation to time passing. For some reason, at the beginning of the process, I was really interested in more time passing - in showing the evolution of the mother-daughter relationship starting with a prepubescent girl and ending with an adolescent one. When I think of my relationship with my own mother, those adolescent years were some of the hardest, and my poor behavior placed a strain on us that was difficult to recover from. I’d also recently seen Boyhood, and was so impressed by that film, made over a 12-year span. But that was too difficult and expensive of a process for me to replicate, unfortunately - especially for a short film, and especially given that I had my heart set on a lead actress who lived abroad so we made a compromise, and I think the film works just as well within a compressed timeframe. As you have remarked once, the initial idea of sprung from the huge gender imbalance that you recognized in children's books: we have particularly appreciated the way you have elegantly conveyed such subtle socio political criticism about the notion of female identity in our globalized still patriarchal and male-oriented age. What do you hope will trigger in the audience? In particular, do you think that your being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value? I hope that it moves the audience. If viewers were to walk away with anything more specific than that - I hope that parents will feel free to change the gender of some of the characters in the children’s books they read to both their daughters and their sons. I don’t think that being a woman gives the work any special value, but I do think it offers a different perspective. Have you seen the film Bad Moms, for example? That film was made by men, and why there’s nothing wrong with the film - and the actresses have great comedic timing - the perspective on motherhood is so incredibly generic. I think that audiences of all genders are craving

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

interview

Women Cinemakers more diverse content. There are so few films that pass even the most basic of tests - the Bechdel test, which stipulates that two female characters have to speak to each other about something other than a man. Audiences are hungry for more inclusive storytelling, and the path to get there is so clear in my mind: hire more diverse storytellers, and the stories will inevitably cover a broader spectrum of experiences! To quote your own words, your coming-of-age story, — instead of taking something away from the girl, she receive a gift. We daresay that this could be considered a 'political' aspect of the narrative perspective about the epiphanic journey of firstgenerations: could the concept of the magic of childhood be considered a metaphor for describing the growing force of a new generation? Moreover, did you to provide your story with allegorical qualities? I do think that Western culture doesn’t value our youngest or oldest generations, or take their contributions seriously. We belittle children. In the age of Trump, I look at the young generation, and they’re the ones who give me hope. Their advocacy for gun control laws is inspiring. Right now, survivors of school shootings are traveling around the country on a bus to encourage their peers to register to vote. That’s pretty incredible. I live in New York, so I’m surrounded by immigrants. I see their contributions to our city, and it makes me particulary angry about the rhetoric coming from the federal government. I didn’t intend to make an allegory. My film is a very small, intimate film about one daughter and one mother. But I made a deliberate decision to cast women of color, to include Arabic in the film, and to show that the imagination - and art - can build bridges. I suppose it’s a hopeful tale, and hope can be a political act. In you leave the floor to your characters, inviting the viewers to develop a bridge between their own inner spheres and their epiphanic journeys: what was your preparation with

actors Nisreen Faour, Agapi Bakopoulou and Sophia Smythson in terms of rehearsal? Can you say something about the collaborative nature of your filmmaking style? I work as a teaching artist for the New Victory and the Roundabout Theatre Company on Broadway, as well as being an Instructor of Film for the School of the New York Times. I’ve been working with young people for a long time in a number of capacities, and so I had a pretty good idea of the way that I wanted to work with Agapi and Sophia. I think that we often underestimate children. I think the key was to give them one note at a time - just one thing to work on - which actually, is also good advice when working with adults. When I was an actor, directors would sometimes give me too many notes, some of which conflicted with each other, and the result was muddy. So I made sure to keep my notes simple. Really the key was also to cast the right children, and casting director Kate Antognini was wonderful and patient as we saw many yong actors until we found a wonderfully vulnerable young girl (Agapi) and one who had a natural sense of humor (Sophia). Working with Nisreen was tough because she lives in Palestine; so we had to work via Skype for any ‘rehearsal.’ She landed in New York and we started shooting the following day; in fact, she stayed in the house we used for our set. She was incredibly flexible, and because she’s a pro, she jumped right in. I encouraged her and Agapi to spend as much time together as possible between takes, during lunch, etc, so that they could develop the level of comfort with each other that was required to create a believable family bond. Because Nisreen is a mom, she understood that this was crucial. My favorite moment in the whole film, when Nisreen tickles Agapi, who is dressed as Peta Pan, and Agapi falls backwards on her mom’s bed, was completely improvised. I love making films in as collaborative a way as possible. I think actors are under-utilized in a lot of films. I’ve learnt to really listen and watch for the parts that fly off actors’ tongues, as well as the

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan parts that keep tripping actors up. Actors have an instinctual relationship to text from the inside and if they are cast well, and are good actors, and are still having trouble with a section of text, it’s usually not their fault, but the writer’s. we have been From the first time we watched deeply impressed with the way you include animation techniques, unveiling sort of coexistence between perceptual reality and the realm of imagination: how would you characterize this aspect of your filmmaking style? And how do you consider the relationship between the real and the imagined playing within your work as a director and an animator?

I’m interested in juxtaposing different realms, such as the real and the imagined, but also other contrasting styles as well. A lot of my work places the highbrow right up against the lowbrow, for instance. Because of the work I’ve done in animation - I produce animation for good causes and pro-social campaigns - it made sense to use that kind of visual language for Peta Pan. I knew that I wanted the main narrative to happen exclusively indoors, in the family’s house. The animation moments place us right in the girl’s imagination, that’s when we get to go ‘outside’ - and her imagination is indeed boundless, so we contrast the cozy interiors of the girl’s house with the limitlessness of her imagination.

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan My first short film, Escape from Garden Grove, included a couple of live-action cutaways where we got to see moments that were referred to in the dialogue with varying degrees of naturalism. I remember that I wrote these cutaways in the script and a few of my mentors encouraged me to remove these moments, but I was pretty wedded to my vision for them. Those are some of my favorite moments in that film. My writing for the stage is similar in that it often will juxtapose the surreal and the mundane, often for comedic effect. It's important to remark that you are the the co-founder of , so before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the

future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? This is such a loaded question, and obviously a timely one. Women have been shut out of cinema for so long that of course we have complaints. There are many, many articles that have been written about the issue, and about unconscious bias, and about systemic sexism in the industry. The same goes for other marginalized groups: people of color, people with different gender identities or sexual orientation, different abilities, etc.

I’m interested in finding solutions, problem-solving, fixing what is broken. I think that love of problem-solving is what drew me to filmmaking in the first place. And I do think that some of these problems are fixable. I think, for instance, that we need to figure out how to have HR departments for productions. It might not look the same as what an HR department looks like in the corporate world, but there has to be a place to report issues of harassment and abuses of power. In the current system, the only person you could report an issue to is probably the person that could hire or fire you. So that’s a problem. We need to help those who are coming forward to speak out, not make it harder on them, not endanger their future career prospects in a gig economy. Hiring practices are of course under scrutiny now that the EEOC is in settlement talks with the major Hollywood studios to resolve charges that they systematically discriminated against female directors. There are a number of measures that could be taken to make hiring practices more equitable, and these could be expanded for hiring of crew both above and below the line. There are some wonderful grassroots organizations compiling databases of women working in film and television, and connecting these women with decisionmakers at every level. It’s a long road, but of course, women get shit done, so they’re on it. Now we just need to make sure the men come on board for the ride. I think one of the biggest issues in film right now is the length of the hours. Here in the United States, it’s not uncommon for shoot days to last anywhere between 12 and 16 hours. That’s actually the norm. But it’s unsafe for so many reasons. It’s unsafe for any crew member to be driving home after a 15 hour day. It also creates an unsafe environment, where everyone is tired. It breeds dysfunctional relationships and allows tempers to rise. It also makes it very difficult for

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

interview

Women Cinemakers working parents to maintain any kind of family life during production. This is tough for parents of all genders, but we know that parental responsibilities continue to fall disproportionately on mothers. The difference between a 10hour day and a 15-hour day is the difference between putting your child to bed, and not seeing your child at all. Second-wave feminists made a conscious decision to leave motherhood off of their platforms. Their mission was to prove that women could show up to the workplace as men, and perform as well as men, and deserved equal opportunities and equal pay. However, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a shift happening now, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m excited about it. The link between gender equality and parentfriendly practices is becoming less obfuscated. There are a number of solutions that would help working parents and have the added benefit of increasing the number of women working in film. Providing on-set childcare is one. Providing safe and accessible places to pump and store milk is another. Jobsharing (where possible) would be a great way to ensure that parents have the flexibility they need to return to work without immediately sacrificing the time they need to bond with their babies. Return-to-work schemes providing assistance - financial or otherwise - to parents coming back to the industry after a hiatus would also be invaluable. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Mathilde. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m ready to move on to feature-length projects, and have one script currently in development. Raising a magnifying glass to the experience of being a new mother under Trump, Milk and Gall opens as Vera, a liberal New Yorker, gives birth to a shapeshifting baby on election night. Over the course of one seemingly unending year, tensions mount between Vera and her second-wave feminist mother, she struggles to connect physically with her husband, and her friendship with her Syrian-

American best friend Amira falters. A surreal and fragmented piece mimicking the experience of sleep-deprived new parents, Milk and Gall explores the terror of the mundane: Vera is stuck in the world of diapers, breast pumps and padsicles while everyone else she knows is out marching. I’m also working on a play for the theater, called A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein. It’s a play about female rage. It’s still in its very early stages, but I’m really excited about it. It’s true, by the way. David Mamet is the playwright who wrote Oleanna, about a female college student who falsely accuses her professor of sexual harassment. That guy, the guy who writes plays largely devoid of female characters, is writing a play about “Harvey.” (David Mamet knows Harvey Weinstein personally, so he refers to him by his first name.) Mamet writes plays about tragic heros, that’s his whole ‘thing.’ I’m not interested in Harvey Weinstein as a tragic hero, I don’t believe that he needs any kind of platform right now, and I don’t think that David Mamet should be the person to write this story. So I got really, really mad, and I started writing this bizarre play about women connecting to their anger. It’s also a play about what we should do with the art of monstrous men, and about the tired and dangerous trope of the ‘art-monster’ or the ‘genius-asshole.’ Since I started writing the play, it’s been announced that Brian De Palma is making a horror film about Harvey Weinstein, so maybe I should make a companion movie to my theater piece: A Film about Brian De Palma Making a Film about Harvey Weinstein… An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from Peta Pan

Women Cinemakers meets

Ann Britt Pedersen Lives and works in Oslo, Norway

I have always been observing, curious and restless. Growing up I absorbed my surroundings and imitated the people I observed. I have a multicultural background, my father is from Norway and my mother is from Thailand, so I have grown up with both cultures. I think that helps me understand people with different backgrounds better which is a nice quality to have when making films. I love the way I can express myself through the film medium. Moving images and sound – especially music, is for me an intuitive way to tell stories, convey feelings and atmospheres that can’t be expressed though other art forms. I made my first film in 8th grade when we had a film assignment about drugs. It came naturally to me! I had never been so enthusiastic and inspired about a group project before. A vision of how the film could be quickly came to my mind, and I made a storyboard that we shot later that week. The result was a quirky and creative montage without any dialogue and with music from Carl Orff’s O Fourtuna (from Carmina Burana) and The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever. We had no first-hand experience with drugs, but we had somehow been influenced by popular cultural TV-shows and films like Requiem for a Dream (Aronofsky, 2000). Our teacher was over herself with delight. I made short films whenever I could in school projects, but I didn’t pursue a film carrier before I started studying film production at the age of 24. Before that I studied music (bachelor’s degree). I started a master’s degree in film music composing at the same time as I started studying film production (bachelor’s degree). During my studies, I developed my craft, tested my ideas, and I got a deeper insight in film history and the film making process. After I finished my studies I started working for a film production company in Oslo as an intern and later a post-production assistant, but I wanted to create my own films. I heard about a TV-series pitching contest in Oslo, Greenscreen pitching contest, that required a pilot to enter the competition. Therefore, I made a TV-series pilot and got picked out to pitch in the finals. I eventually won the pitching competition, and that gave me the confidence to start on my own. Now I’m working on developing the TV-series I pitched in the competition with support granted from The Norwegian Film Institute (in April 2018). My films and stories tend to be about loneliness, about the outcasts that doesn’t find their place in society, and their inner struggles. When I feel misunderstood, alone or sad I watch films that reflect the way I feel, and that usually makes me feel better. It’s like a form of catharsis. I make films to express myself and my feelings, and to process my thoughts and fears and share them with others. If that can make someone feel better or less alone I’ve reached my goal. I think actions speak louder than words so I rarely use a lot of dialogue in my films. In An Old Piano the main character, Hannah, speaks only a few sentences, and in my newest TV-series pilot the main character says almost nothing. I think you can tell a lot just by how the characters look at each other, how they glance at things, and the way it’s edited to make a context. I am passionate about telling stories, and making films, but I’m also an advocate for more female filmmakers and auteurs. We need more female role models in the film industry! A lot of the stories that have been told and are told today is by, and often for, men. I don’t mean that all male filmmakers only tell stories about men for men, but 50% of the world’s population is female so why aren’t the stories that are told reflecting that? We need more stories told by women and their perspective because films and TV-shows influences the viewer and reflects the world view. I will do my best to change this in the future and will strive to lift my fellow filmmaking sisters and challenge established thoughts and views about how the society works and how women are perceived.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

An Old Piano is a captivating short film by writer

and director Ann Britt Pedersen: shot with elegance and inventiveness, her film offers an emotionally complex inquiry into the notion of memory, demonstrating the ability to capture the

Women Cinemakers subtle dephts of emotions: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Pedersen's multifaceted artistic production. Hello Ann Britt and welcome to WomenCinemakers: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to ask you a couple of questions about your background: are there any particular experience that did particularly direct your evolution as a filmmaker? Could you tell us your biggest influence and how did they affect your work? Thank you for your kind words about An Old Piano. I can’t recall a particular experience that has direct my evolution as a filmmaker, but a lot of different films and art has inspired and influenced my work over the years. I can mention a few films since it’s difficult to pick out only one. I love the way the heart-breaking and hilarious film Castaway on the Moon (Hae-jun Lee, 2009) uses comedy to describe the struggles and tragic life situations of the characters in the film. I often find that the funniest films have struggling characters in tragic and difficult situations. Under the Skin (Glazer, 2013) starring Scarlett Johansson, is a deeply moving, seducing and intuitive film that speaks directly to my emotions. In Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise-trilogy we follow three women in search for love, faith and hope. It’s realistic and devastating. Dancer in the Dark (Trier, 2000) is soul crushing, and

A still from An Old Piano

the music and performance of Björk is unforgettable. The Kill Bill-films became a huge inspiration to me when I was a teenager. I love the way Uma Thurman’s character The Bride is a strong, badass, literally kickass woman –the most dangerous assassin in the Deadly Viper

Assassination Squad â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that seeks revenge for her unborn daughter. The list is diverse and goes on and on, really. For this special edition of we have selected

, a captivating

short film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once impressed us with your brilliant storytelling is the way it sapiently walks the viewers to explore the concept of memory, through a multilayered and clichĂŠ free narrative.

Women Cinemakers

A still from An Old Piano

While walking our readers through the genesis of

, Could you tell us what did

attract you to this particular story? I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interesting to explore how we remember things, and how some triggers like different smells,

places, tunes or objects can bring old memories back to life. In An Old Piano Hannah is forced to face her past while cleaning up her decayed childhood home. The piano in the middle of the room is like the elephant in the room that grows bigger the more she tries to ignore it. In the

Women Cinemakers she fights her memories, the more pressing they become. One of my greatest fears is to regret not having said what I wanted to say before someone I care about passes away because I’m too proud or I didn’t find the right moment or it just didn’t turn out that way. Would I ever get over that, and how could I move on if I didn’t get to tell them what I had on my mind? features stunning Elegantly shot, cinematography by Ulrik Wigenstad: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting?

process of cleaning up the house (and her mind) and all the garbage and mess, she recalls good memories from her childhood she has forgotten. As the house gets cleaner, her mind is starting to open. But it’s one last item she can’t get rid of: the old and heavy piano in the middle of the room. The more

I didn’t want the memory sequences in An Old Piano to be typical flashbacks like the ones where they cut to twenty years earlier because I didn’t want them to disrupt the atmosphere in the scenes. I wanted Hannah in the same room as her memories as if she went back in time, so we decided that the best way to do that in this case would be to shoot everything in one take. We worked a lot on blocking scenes with both the camera and the actors, especially the piano scenes. We chose to use dolly shots in those sequences. We used static shots in the beginning of the film to create a feeling that time has stood still and that Hannah is feeling trapped or claustrophobic when she enters the house. We also wanted the static

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Women Cinemakers “real” shots to contrast with the dreamy memory sequences. In your film you leave the floor to your characters, finding an effective way to walk the viewers to develop an emotional bridge between their own inner spheres and the character of Hannah, brillantly performed by Anne Wiig: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticolously schedule every details of your shooting process? An Old Piano has very little dialogue so Anne Wiig and I talked a lot about her character’s backstory and what her inner journey, character motivations and intentions are throughout the whole movie and in each scene. That way she had something to work with in each scene and create continuity on the inner journey of her character. We had a day for blocking rehearsals so we went through the shooting schedule and the timing in each scene. Anne, whom at the time was an acting student with background from physical theatre, said she uses music to prepare herself emotionally before each scene, so we made sure she got some space between takes to prepare. We also worked physically before the scene when she hammers on the piano to get the energy up.

A still from An Old Piano

I usually like to have as much as possible planned before a shooting, but sometimes spontaneity can create some of the most beautiful and funny scenes and shots. It depends on the project and what feeling we want to have on the production. In An Old Piano we didn’t have much time or money and

we had to dress the location, have blocking rehearsals with the actors, lease the camera and technical equipment and shoot the film in just four days. Since it was a lot of difficult technical shots we had to plan things very carefully. Even then, it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t turn out exactly the way we

planned, but that is part of the creative process. You start the process with an idea, then you (hopefully) shoot it, and then maybe it becomes something different in the editing room. I love the feeling when a film Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m working on is starting to take its shape.

A still from An Old Piano

With its brilliantly structured storytelling imparts unparalleled psychological intensity to the narration, to unveil an ever shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way your film gives to the viewers the sense they are watching excerpts

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from real life: would you tell how did you develop the structure of your film in order to achieve such moving autenticity? Moreover, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories that you tell in your films?

Women Cinemakers perception of her father. The more she tries to push her feelings away the more pressing they become. She only finds peace when she decides to acknowledge, accept and embrace her memories and feelings. Then she can finally go on with her life. The themes of my stories are inspired by everyday life and observations of other people and how they communicate. I think it’s beautiful whenever I catch a glimpse of vulnerability in another person because that’s what makes them human and I find it pure and honest. I like when people express themselves through their actions, and I find inspiration in all the different ways people do so. Inspiration also comes from within myself. Creating stories through film is a way for me to process and understand my thoughts and feelings and to share them with others. We like the way you created entire scenarious out of psychologically charged moments: what are you will trigger in the audience? hoping

I find that we often do things automatically. We don’t think about why we do what we do, and sometimes it’s easier to shut feelings out than to face them. That’s what Hannah is trying to do, but she finds it difficult because of all the memories that are coming back to her, challenging her existing

I hope the film triggers a reaction from the audience. Any reaction is good. It’s the worst when people are indifferent. It’s always interesting and nerve-wracking to observe how the audience reacts the first time I show something I’ve made. In the last piano sequence in An Old Piano, I heard people gasping in the audience. I live for that reaction. My hope is that someone can relate to the story and that it gives the audience something to think about afterwards.

A still from An Old Piano

Women Cinemakers has drawn heavily from the specifics of its domestic ambience and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such powerful resonance between the intimate qualities of its ordinary location and the atmosphere that floats around the story: how did you select the locations and how did they influence your shooting process? We wanted the house (Hannah’s fathers house) to look old and worn down, and to give the impression that it hadn’t been changed since she was little, only decayed. I wanted the scenography to reflect the way Hannah is feeling inside: enclosed and messy to start with, but open and lighter at heart at the end. We searched for an old house and came by one that was uninhabited and was planned to be demolished. We seized the opportunity even though the house was completely empty and dressed the location with furniture from second hand stores, craigslist and my producer’s (Ingvil Sæther Berger) childhood home. It goes without saying that music play crucial role in your film and we have really appreciated its minimalistic quality: how did and you select the music for how do you consider the relationship

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between music and the flow of the images playing within your cinema? Music is and have always been an important part of my films. I love to explore the possibilities with music in combination with moving images. I have a

Women Cinemakers

masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in film music composition so it was natural to write and play the music to An Old Piano myself. I wanted the musical theme to be simple and childish â&#x20AC;&#x201C;something Hannah could have learned from her father when she was younger. The music creates a

certain atmosphere and ties the film together, and has a narrative function as a catalyst for Hannahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memories. The main musical theme is introduced in the memory where Hannah finds her old teddy bear in the sofa. She remembers the time her father taught her this little piano tune. Later in the film

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Women Cinemakers Hannah plays the tune with her father in the piano sequence in the film, but this time as an adult. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? I am passionate about telling stories, and making films, and I’m also an advocate for more female filmmakers and auteurs. We need more female role models in the film industry. A lot of the stories that have been told and are told today is by, and often for, men. I don’t mean that all male filmmakers only tell stories about men for men, but 50% of the world’s population is female so why aren’t the stories that are told reflecting that? We need more stories told by women and their perspective because films and TVshows influences the viewer and reflects the world view. I think we’re slowly moving towards a more gender equal film industry in Norway because of the focus on gender representation both in front and behind the cameras. But we still have a long way to go and it doesn’t just happen by itself. I will do my best to

change this in the future and will strive to use more women in my own productions, and challenge established thoughts and views about how the society works and how women are perceived. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Ann Britt. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I’m currently working on developing a TV/web-series that recently was granted support from the Norwegian Film Institute. Themes such as identity issues, how traditions can maintain outdated gender roles, and loneliness (how one can feel lonely when surrounded by people in a city like Oslo) is something I want to explore. The style of the series is more realistic in terms of hand held cameras and more improvisation from the actor’s side. I want to explore a looser form and push the boundaries between fact and fiction, to use inexperienced actors and real people playing themselves. In this series music plays a big (supporting) role because the main character is a struggling musician that is torn between his father’s expectations for him to take over the family business and following his own dream and creating his own future. I’m really excited about the process and how it will turn out in the end. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Lucia Lupu Lives and works in Chisinau; Moldova

Ambitiously constructed and marked out with gorgeous cinematography, is a captivating work by filmmaker Lucia Lupu: when walking the viewers through Ioana's and Dumitru's quest for water, she triggers their perceptual categories with such a tapestry of sound and images, creating effective mesmerizing narration: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Lupu's captivating and multifaceted artistic production.

what are your biggest influences and how do they affect your artistic research?

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Lucia and welcome to

before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would ask you some questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and after having graduated from the Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts you earned a license in Film Direction and a MA of Animation Film : how did these experiences influence the evolution of your practice as a filmmaker? Moreover, could you tell us

My film studies in Republic of Moldova, a country without cinema industry, with limited interest in culture due to a low life quality, was a big challenge, but, in the same time, these circumstances made me understand how lucky I am to live in this country as a director. I also realised that Moldovans show great interest to cinematography and have a very positive response to new films created by local directors. I didn't have almost any access to technical equipment, but there was something so spiritual about my studies, that something showed the sadness and the beauty of life walking hand in hand, in the

Women Cinemakers

Women Cinemakers eastern part of Europe. Besides film culture we were talking a lot about history, anthropology, psychology, sometimes even biology (one of our teachers really wanted to show us how our body works and how beautiful it is.) because we, as directors, â&#x20AC;&#x153;have to know everythingâ&#x20AC;?. I felt like a child who was thought once again how to live. One of the most important things that I understood during my years in film school was to be in a continuous state of study, to absorb everything around me and pass it through my own mind filter. I had to develop an artistic vision about the world, I had to be in touch with everything that happens and be an informed person. For this I am very grateful to every teacher that put his piece of his wisdom in me. Sure there are teachers that thought me without knowing it, like Tarkovski, Bergman, Truffaut, Bella Tarrâ&#x20AC;Ś They always inspired me with their silence that speaks, the beauty of their silent words made me understand the inner state of their characters. They showed me that cinema is more than words, cinema is image, is sound is body language. My film school master, a great Moldovan documentarist, Mircea Chistruga, always screened movies without or with very little words in the class. His attitude towards dialogue in film was very cold and probably we inherited that too. we have For this special edition of selected , a captivating film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your clear approach to narrative is the way it provides the viewers with such a multi-layered visual

Women Cinemakers experience. While walking our readers through the genesis of , could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? Paparuda was shot at the end of my third year film studies at the Academy of Arts from Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. It was generously sponsored by a German - French cultural project, offering the opportunity to create my first professionally equipped film crew. The story of the film started very spontaneously, I wanted to participate in a script contest, that time, i felt very attracted by water and I decided to make it the basic element of the script. The theme of the movie is inspired by an old Balkan ritual named in Romanian „Paparuda”. In the time of draught, girls dress in leaf skirts, dance and sing a specific song to call the rain. The music of this ritual has become the theme representing the main character, like the one who brings water and love, to those who seek it. The short film is also a time capsule of my childhood. I have always tried to revive the small pieces of my memories, tried to recreate the light, the colour and the sounds. I needed to bring back the sweet feeling of childhood freedom but in the same time, I wanted to show how people can become rude and even unhuman when basic necessities like water become inaccessible. The environmental issue is very common in the mass media but we can silently observe a change in people’s behaviour, people’s

relationships can become so fragile when there is shortage. The film was shot in a village where I spent lots of summers in my childhood and there were many times when I heard that one more well has no drinkable water and people risk to get health issues because of the poor water quality. That was the moment when I discovered inside myself a strong will to change something, to talk about this, but in a different manner. The writing of the script was very intuitive, it gathered a lot of personal experience, childhood memories, it was a tough work since I had to write it quickly and film it with my film

school colleagues. I had a great mentor who helped me

In particular, what was your choice about camera

in decoding my thoughts . I didn't follow any script

and lens?

structure, a lot of scenes that happened in the movie were generated by the locations where we shot. I feel

This is a big thank you for an amazing image

that one's movie has to be a very intimate, personal

department. Paparuda was our first professional

expression made accessible to the public but in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

shooting with a great 4k camera and a full set of lenses.

essence it has to serve to humanity. We chose mostly wide angle lenses to explore the Brilliantly shot,

features gorgeous

subject in a documentary way, we needed to show the

landscape cinematography and keen eye for details:

freedom of movement, the broadness of the

what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting?

countryside spirit. I shot on the streets of my childhood,

therefore I knew the spirit of the place, it’s energy and it’s incredible potential. In the first part of the movie the static camera introduces the characters and the story’s evolution, after, as the pressure rises, we use shoulder camera to make the image more dynamic. The film culminates with a ritual dance where the main character is shot with a very active camera, it seems that we can’t follow the girl with her energy that bursts. The rhythm of the montage changes dramatically, flowing hand in hand with the hypnotic ritual song. This is the moment that always gives me goose bumps.

We have deeply appreciated your approach to narrative and the way you have balanced analytical research of your characters and the emotional aspect of the storytelling: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your shooting process? Due to the lack of time for preproduction I had almost no rehearsal before the shooting, and that didn’t bother me because I’m the spontaneous one. All the

Women Cinemakers (actor), becoming something that the director needs .There must be a chemistry between the director and the actors and a lot of trust. For me, film shooting is a continuous interaction between team members and each one of them carries his own artistic input that creates the movie.

circumstances, gathered in a special moment, may deliver something that you never imagined. Surely, I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go on a set without a storyboard but I need to change it on the set sometimes, because actors are alive, they interact with the set and generate a miseen-scĂ¨ne that can be a lot more expressive than you can imagine. I really believe that the actor has to bring his own energy in a movie, the psychology of the character has to blend with the actorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personality and create a new human being. Our dream actors may never exist, it is always the revelation of a real person

We like the way your intimate close-ups created entire scenarios out of psychologically charged moments: in you leave the floor to your characters Dumitru and Ioana, highlighting their mutual interactions and finding such brilliant ways to create a channel of communication between their daily journey and the viewers' emotional sphere. What are you hoping Paparuda will trigger in the spectatorship? I want people to love Ioana, I want them to see her wild and pure soul. This being needs to be loved, only then she can save the world. I would be happy to know that people from Moldova found themselves in this movie, saw their childhood, I would like them to love again the countryside. The intense migration and urbanisation process desolated the Moldovan villages, a lot of old parents remained without the help of their children, the fertile lands are decaying, our roots are slowly getting rotten and people from the countryside become just another cheap labour force. We daresay that could be considered an effective allegory of human experience: how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative

Women Cinemakers process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? As every director, I am always in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;observation modeâ&#x20AC;? and there is a certain pleasure about this. Sometimes I feel like an anthropologist, psychologist and philosopher at the same time, because the greatest need that I have is to understand how humanity and world works. It is a constant analysis of people around me, understanding the roots of their behaviour, their feelings and their needs. It is also a continuous learning and an inner fight, that usually ends with a revelation. I love to listen to people that walk on the street, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like connecting yourself to the spirit of the society. I am very lucky that people feel comfortable to open their soul to me and their experiences inspire me so much. The stories that touch my heart are those about human kindness in a world of hatred, stories about people who break the vicious circles, I love the topics about spirituality and sacrifice. Sounds play a crucial aspect in the balance of the : both regarding the ambience narrative of and the hypnotic lullaby whispered in some scenes. Moreover, we would like to introduce our readers to an interesting music video that they can view at : how do you consider the relationship between sound and the flow of images in your practice as a filmmaker?

Women Cinemakers

A still from

Women Cinemakers I was very lucky to have talented people around me that helped a lot to get the sound of this movie so vibrant and dynamic. Their creative input and the song “Paparuda”, that is a real gift to our culture, showed me once again how powerful and expressive sound and music can be. Probably the day when films stopped to be silent was like the rebirth of the cinema. Sound generates images, I remember music classes in middle school, when our teacher showed us Vivaldi’s Seasons or The Ride of the Valkyries. He told us to close our eyes and see the music, but what could we understand back then, 13 years old kids, waiting impatiently for the lesson to finish. During my master in animation, I rediscovered the concept of sound because we had to create it from scratch and that boosts your creativity at the highest level. Your work has received positive feedbacks and you won the " " from : how much importance has for you that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? I am happy to know that my film is showed to the public, this is all that matters, but the most important are the screenings in my home country. I feel that the main audience of my future films has to be Moldovan people because my movies should be about them, they should see themselves in the characters, they should see themselves from the side and understand what is bad and what is so good in their identity. In the century of globalisation we loose ourselves, we choose a slow extinction instead of living in harmony with ourselves

Women Cinemakers

and the rest of the world. Sometimes, one can be ashamed of being Moldovan, because he lives in a poor, ex-communist country, with a mutilated history, with no big achievements. He would like to leave his country for a better place, just because he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to make his own

contribution for a better country, for a better life. Cinema has a great impact on peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mentality, culture and preconceptions, it can change the world, it already dramatically changed it, so, in Moldova, film may be an alternative solution for many important issues, it can inspire and sensitize, it can teach.

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changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? World cannot exist only with men’s vision when half of people walking on this earth are women. I believe women feel differently, it’s not that they’re more

Women Cinemakers

special or better, they just perceive the world in a different way. We can’t ignore this whole universe, it’s like reading a beautiful book but ignoring some stunning illustrations. The true criteria for a good film is the author’s talent, creativity, and originality. I am sad that besides the discrimination that happened for centuries, another gap between men and women appeared nowadays. Probably this is a proof of little respect and love, first of all, amongst human beings. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lucia. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I would be very happy to explore the documentary world, I still need to find answers for a lot of questions and now, this would be the best way to explore. I feel that all of my films should bring revelation, should change something in how people perceive the world around. I know, my movies will not be as strong as the “contemporary propaganda machines” but this struggle is worth living, I just need the Light to guide me. Thank you for your appreciation and these great questions! An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers

Women Cinemakers meets

Kaki Wong Lives and works in London and in Iceland I made my first short film in 2015, since then I realised the power of meaningful images on screen. These images do not have to be 100 percent real, but the audience will have a way to connect with what is presented to them and this is where the magic lies. I graduated from The London Film School - MA in Filmmaking in March 2018 and I am now seeking more opportunities to explore and experiment this power. “

.”

The topic of strange human relationships and fantasy always intrigues me. Feeling close to someone who you do not know well and feeling distant when you start to know them better can be a painful process. We are experiencing this everyday without notice. In REVOLVE, I experiment this experience with oneself. It is about a girl who is looking for herself, and yet she does not know, herself is looking for her as well. It is about the self-consciousness we had for ourselves and the experience of watching ourselves from a third person point of view. I always wonder how this will feel when we can actually look at ourselves from the outside. This happened a lot in our dreams, when we actually “see” ourselves doing something. I want to transfer this to reality. The constant search of the perfect self and the perfect partner is no longer enough for a perfect relationship. It is the perfect distance between ourselves and the person we encounter matters most. Human, who used to live in a group, can be very fragile when we are alone. Some of us embrace loneliness, yet some of us fail to deal with it. In reality, we tend to pretend the feeling of loneliness does not exist, and therefore I am interested in elaborating the enjoyment or fear of loneliness in my work, which will lead us into various surreal situations and imageries. In September 2017, I shot my graduation film I DRAW INSIDE A SHEEP in Iceland. It is a 15-minute short film and is now at its final stage of post-production. It will be released in May 2018 - when the mid-night sun in Iceland is rising again and anything strange can be true. The film is about a girl who is on a journey to search for this young man who constantly appeared in her dreams, but she never sees how he looks like in her dreams. It is about the struggle between reality and dream, how we cannot stop people from coming and leaving. Their appearance or disappearance can mean a lot or nothing to us. We establish relationship with them no matter we want to or not. It is an inescapable process of life. The only way for us to escape this process is to escape from reality, but that can only be temporary. The cycle of persisting and escaping from reality eventually leads us to an uncertain state that only the most surreal part of ourselves can soothe and calm us. In my future work, I want to keep on exploring the topic of strangers and human fantasy. However, I would like to relate more of the reality with the fantasy. Also, I want to illustrate how strangers are closer to us and close ones are more distant to us. After all, distance is a relative concept just as how dream is derived from reality and sometimes reality can feel like dreams.

An interview by Francis Quettier

allegorical quality, to addresses the viewers to

and Dora Tennant

explore the themes of loneliness, self-

womencinemaker@berlin.com

consciousness as well as the struggle between

Ka Ki Wong's work is marked out with captivating

reality and dream. In her films that we'll be

Women Cinemakers discussing in the following pages, she walks the viewers through heightened visual experience: triggering the viewers' perceptual categories, Wong's approach demonstrates the ability to capture evocative potential of moving images, encouraging cross-pollination of the spectatorship: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Kaki and welcome to

: we

would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you recently graduated with a MA in Filmmaking from the prestigious London Film School : how did these experiences of study, including your artist's residence in Iceland influence your evolution as an artist and a filmmaker? Moreover, how does your dued to your Hong Kongese roots address your artistic research? When I first short film in 2013, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even know what is a shot list, I just shoot chronologically, I basically know nothing about filmmaking, I just try to replicate what I have seen on screen using my own way. That is why after my undergraduate study in Journalism, I decided to take on further study in the London Film School. I want to equip myself with the practical skills so that when I am on set I know what I am doing and I can communicate with others professionally. I believe my study at LFS gave me both the

Women Cinemakers hardware and software I need in filmmaking, maybe more of the hardware side, and then I just try to think of as many new and good ideas as possible whenever I have spare time. The residency in Iceland is during winter at a small town in the north. It was just before I started my study at LFS. It was very dark and snowy. I was there for a month but I remembered only seeing the sun briefly once. It was a tough period but I realised isolation is probably the best method for one to listen to yourself carefully and understand what exactly it is you want to do through your work or even, life. The reason why I wanted to study in London is because at some point I realised everything in Hong Kong looked mundane to me. As a lot of my work are visual driven, I found that I have lost inspiration or got stuck. Also, there are too many things going on in Hong Kong, like meeting friends, chatting with family, all these are eating into too much of my time to be alone with myself. There are so much I want to learn but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel there are enough opportunities for me in Hong Kong. I was born and grew up in Hong Kong, so its culture had been affecting me throughout my life. I think studying abroad is a good start for me to get to live in another culture. Because after all filmmaking is all about life experience, so I believe, the more I have, the better I will become. For this special edition of selected

we have

, a stimulating short film that our readers

Women Cinemakers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/191346224. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the experience of watching ourselves from a third person point of view is the way it provides the viewers with such captivating multilayered experience. While walking our readers through the genesis of

, would you tell us what

did direct you to explore the themes of loneliness and selfconsciousness? REVOLVE is actually a term exercise during my study at the London Film School. We were asked to go to National Gallery in London and picked any painting from there. Then our film should be inspired or based on that particular painting. I remembered walking into the very crowded gallery and not being able to pick a painting that I like, because a lot of the painting are of earlier period and they are all very realistic in terms of their colours and scenario. But then something caught my eye - Henri Rousseau’s “Surprised!”. What caught me first is the look of the tiger, it had this very strange expression, you can’t really guess whether it is hunting something or if it is being hunted. Also the weather condition illustrated in the painting, with the thunder and the rain, one can almost feel the wind from it, but at the same time, you could have also said there is some calmness out of it.

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I guess REVOLVE is not really about loneliness, it’s about a loop that is going on but we can only be one part of the loop so we don’t really know we are inside something that could be never ending, because as one part of the loop, we can only experience that small part, so it can appear to us like something new every time. I do have to admit that I am very obsessed of the idea of having someone looking into binoculars seeing themselves. I have no idea where this obsession comes from. But I always find it fascinating because no matter how we tried, there is no way we can really see ourselves from a third person perspective. Though that happened sometimes in our dreams, it will never happen in reality. So binoculars become a tool that I always loved to use in my films. It is almost like an out-of-body experience, but maybe more physical and reachable. Your film draws from direct experience and we have particularly appreciated the way your exploration of human relationships brings the notion of daily life to a new level of significance: how does every day life's experience fuel your creative process? I think what I am trying is just to pick up something too strange to believe in our daily life. I don’t think I am the only person who is encountering these things but what I love is to do is to highlight them and perhaps even dramatise them in my work.

Women Cinemakers I like to create non-realistic situations and then put characters with real personality into these situations and see how the two react when put together. But throughout the process of creation, I realised there is a very vague line between real and surreal. And sometimes surreal does not always mean something that is completely made up but it can also be something too strange to believe. If you think about our friends, our family, our lovers, we all started off not knowing anything about each other. We are all strangers. But after some time passes, we become closer and closer and eventually we become friends, or lovers, brothers and sisters etc. Throughout the formation of relationship, we are constantly looking for the right balance between ourselves and others. We want to get closer to people because that gives us rewarding feelings like love and comfort, we also may not want to be close to some people because we do not feel the connections with them. We are constantly trying to find out what is the perfect distance between ourselves and different individuals we counter in our life. Elegantly shot on 16mm film,

features

stunning landscape cinematography and rich colour palette like a painting: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? I guess now you may understand why the colour palette is like a painting because the film is really inspired by a painting

Women Cinemakers which is very rich in colours and have this special

with it when I saw the photos of it. The interior of the

characteristics in terms of the different shades of

location, however, looks a bit dry and empty, after all

greens it had.

it’s a place for people to sleepover during their

The camera and lens choice are determined by the school because it is a term exercise, so even the fact that it was shot on 16mm wasn’t really my deliberate choice. However, I really think the 16mm film added so much texture into the story. I don’t think I will achieve something quite the same if it was shot on digital format. Also, we only had one day to finish the filming and it was shot silent so all the sound effects are being done in post-production. All these technical aspects are determined by how the school designed the exercise, at first it felt that they are challenges set up

holidays. So I brought many plants to dress the interior, I did all the production design and costume design. I have been very picky with the costumes. If you look carefully, they are all with either plant pattern or tiger pattern. I like to implant these little details when I made a film because I realised there are always small amount of audience who will look into these details and it is actually these small things that make them perceive the film differently. Featuring well orchestrated camera work, has drawn heavily from and we have highly appreciated

to polish our filmmaking skills, but later on I found that I actually made use of all these limitations and turned them into something beneficial to the film. I

the way you have created such insightful between the environment and the

guess that’s the magic of filmmaking, sometimes

movement of human body: how did the choice of

limitations can actually do you good.

the locations influence your shooting process and what was your preparation with Lisa Lund in terms

It took me quite a bit of time to find the ideal location

of rehearsal?

because I really want something that look like in the middle of nowhere, but we are in London and I had

I have talked a bit about the location in the previous

very tiny budget so it was really tricky. I am lucky

question. I have been to the location once before the

enough to find this place in Airbnb, it was meant to be

shoot, and after that I mapped out how to set up each

a wooden house that let people to have an almost

shot. The location was quite good in terms of

camping like experience out in the woods. I fell in love

shooting, so it didn’t give me much restrictions. The

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interior of the house is a bit crowded with the lights and equipment but other than that there is not much major difficulties with that. I try to make good use of some wide shots to show the relation of the wooden house with its surrounding environment. It is also interesting to see how tiny a human can be with all these surrounding greens. I didn’t have much rehearsal time with Lisa Lund. She was not a professional actress. I met her during a housewarming party prior to the shoot and found she had the perfect face and look for the role, so I invited her to the shoot. She is a environmental scientist herself so I guess the rural characteristics of the location is of her taste. As she is not professionally trained as an actress, I do need to explain to her a bit more about the technical sides of filmmaking. But she was a quick learner so that wasn’t much of a problem. She understood that the piece is poetic so it’s more about being relaxed in front of camera, there wasn’t a huge character development or changes so getting her being natural in front of the camera is the key. I think she did an amazing job! Although often marked with realistic quality on a visual point, the sound tapestry by Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson provides

with a sense of intimacy as well as

A still from

Women Cinemakers

with an enigmatic atmosphere: how did you choose the audio commentaries for your videos? And how would you consider the relationship between sound and moving images? Sound and moving images in a film are inseparable. They are part of each other. I cannot stress more about that. I tend to go for music that are very subtle. I always made this comment “I want something that is memorable but you cannot really hum it when you tried to.” These type of music can bring you into another world, it’s like entering into something for a short time. It’s psychedellic in some ways. Hlynur made really great music and when it comes to making music for Revolve, we are both in the same direction and knowing what we want to achieve. It is just a few “Yes this works.” “No maybe not this one.” Then the final music came out. I hope when audience look at the image they would hear the music and the same as when they hear the music, they would think of those images I presented to them. Another interesting work that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled , a 15-minute short film that explore : would you tell us what did attract you to this theme and how did you research about it?

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This is not the first short film that I explored the topic of relationships between strangers and human fantasy. I have always been intrigued by these things. The first short film I made is called â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Strangerâ&#x20AC;?. At that time I did not plan to explore certain type of theme, the story is actually about a killer and a person who wanted to die. They do not know each other and yet they gradually became the closest stranger. So I guess since then I have decided to explore more on this topic. I just love to see how you can pull two strangers closer and closer and then pull them away from each other after that. I am influenced a lot by Wong Kar Waiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chunking Express, which is still my favourite movie of all time. The illustration of two strangers encountering, and getting closer to each other just sounds fun and exciting to me. There are so many possibilities in it. There are so many similarities we can draw from real life experience. Relationship between two person can be simple yet profound, it is a never ending topic no matter how the world changes.

a sheep appear in the story. Then I also know what type of landscape and what colour palette will appear in the

I did not really do a lot of research about human

film. Then I just gradually link all these different spots

fantasy. Everyone has different types of fantasy.

together with a story. I guess it is not the common way

When I started to write this story, I always had this

to form a narrative, I am a bit like that, because most of

girl character in mind, and I also know I want to have

the time I have all these images in my head that I really

want to present to people but then I realise they will

during her journey. Then gradually develop the story

be more powerful if there is a story behind it. So I

from there. I used a lot of personal feelings and

tend to have the images first, then think about what

experience into developing this girl character.

narrative can I have to link them together. I wrote a long monologue for this girl character which recorded everything that she is thinking and she saw

Ambitiously constructed, is marked out with such a seductive

beauty regarding the visual aspect, it also

the concepts you convey in your pieces,

provokes the viewers' imagination: rather than

elaborating personal meanings?

attempting to establish any univocal sense, you seem to urge the viewers to elaborate personal

I never planned to make my film as ambiguous as

associations: would you tell us how much

possible but I do like films when it allows you to

important is for you that the spectatorship rethink

interpret it afterwards. I think those films are more

Women Cinemakers too much attention away from people just to try to figure out where they are now in the film. I think it is important for me to know that the audience are actually getting different things or feel differently after watching my film. But I still think it is my responsibility to direct them to think about certain kind of themes by implanting the suggestion throughout the film. For example, in I DRAW INSIDE A SHEEP, it is really about our choosing that perfect distance with someone that we are closed with. So I hope when people watch it, the film is able to direct them to think about things that are related to this theme. It is really important for me to know that my film is provoking peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thought or discussion, not necessarily with others, but more importantly, they could be having this dialogue with themselves inside their head after watching it. We daresay that

seems to

reflect German photographer Andreas Gursky's quote " memorable. Even with a clear narrative film, people will get different things from it and interpret it

We have deeply appreciated the way your film excites

differently. I am just making something I have less

the viewers' perceptual parameters to explore ,

control with how it is being received. I do like to provide the framework for people to

providing them with a unique multilayered visual

think as clearly as possible first, or else it will take

experience: how do you consider

Women Cinemakers

Women Cinemakers within your process? Without reality, there is no dream. I guess we all agreed that reality IS the root of dreams. We dreamed of things and people that we met in reality. And most of the time, we realised it is a dream because maybe the wrong person is in the wrong place at the wrong situations, or we find dreams really random because something that is not supposed to happen, happened, but these are all things, that if you want, can be happened in the real world. So thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why, to me, dreams are part of reality and reality are part of dreams, they coexist. I tend to make things in dream world look very real, I like the idea when we no longer be able to distinguish the two worlds. I also allow things from one world to slip into another world. I think there should be an interaction but not competition between the two, even when we are struggling.

Before leaving this conversation we want to catch

The struggle is constant because both worlds give us

this occasion to ask you to express your view on

different comforting things and ideas, and we switch

the future of women in the contemporary

accordingly regarding our current emotional states and

filmmaking scene. For more than half a century

life experience.

women have been discouraged from producing

something 'uncommon', however in the last

unconventional artist? And what's your view on the

decades women are finding their voices in

future of women in this interdisciplinary field?

art: as an artist interests in the cinematic arts

My experience have been very pleasant so far. I think

with feminist theory, how would you

there are more and more opportunities these days for

describe your personal experience as an

the under represented voice. I think the people in the

industry and even the audience are more aware about

are good at doing, if it is not the type of film you can

the voice that is less heard. I think this community is

make, then donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make it just because someone like it.

growing and people who are struggling in making

I think the future of women in this field is fairly bright

their work are getting more and more help through

as people had realised the importance of diversity and

social media and different organisations. I think it is

they are working so hard to make that balance right

very important to know who you are and what you

again. As a creator, I would just love to see more

Women Cinemakers readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am writing a script with a screenwriter friend, which is about the perfect distance between people. I am also trying to develop a feature script from a book I really like - Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. I have been applying various film funds to just to keep myself busy and to make more films, to tell more stories. I want to try to work with a screenwriter because I know I am weak in developing narratives in films. I want to work a bit on that. I remembered I got feedbacks from someone, “If one day you can just allow the audience that tiny window to let us take a glimpse of your world, then that will be great.” I like this feedback so much and it made me understand so much more what the problem in my films are. And I really like the fact that hae said it is a window but not a door - it is not something that is obviously or easily reached, even I let you in, you gonna make different types of work and stories and to be able to meet different people from different backgrounds. This is always effective in provoking new ideas and I

some effort to climb a window, you have to think and work out a bit when you watch my film. And most importantly, if there’s a door in my film then it’s not my film at all.

consider that very beneficial to filmmakers. An interview by Francis L. Quettier

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your

and Dora S. Tennant

thoughts, Ka Ki. Finally, would you like to tell us

womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Liza Bolton Lives and works in Galway and London

Liza Bolton has written and directed one feature and numerous short film that have screened in the UK, International and Irish festivals. She was awarded the University Prize for Excellence in Film Making in the UK in 2013 for her highly original MA graduation film "PureView". Liza has just completed directing the independent feature "The Wandering". The film was selected by Werner Herzog for his Rogue Film School in Munich 2016. She is currently working on the project "Topographica Hibernica" a vignette style feature film based on the stories of Gerald of Wales on his visit to Ireland in the 12th Century. Liza also works as a co-producer / Production Manager with One Big Mop films who have an excellent track record in short film production with films that have screened in major festivals around the world and are beginning to find sales and release globally and won several awards (www.onebigmop.com). Liza studied film at GTI in Galway, has an Hons BA from LSB London and an MA in Film Making from Kingston University London

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Topographia Hibernica - Of the Wonders and Miracles of Ireland is a captivating film by writer/director Liza Bolton: inspired by the stories of Giraldus Cambrensis, the film is a stylised unique piece of work which contradicts our established patterns of how a film is

supposed to be narrated. Featuring brilliant approach to composition and unconventional cinematography, RESONANCE is a successful attempt to create a captivating allegory of human condition: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Bolton's multifaceted and stimulating artistic production. Hello Liza and welcome to we would invite our readers to visit

Women Cinemakers in order to get a wider idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you studied film at GTI in Galway and you hold an Hons BA from LSB London and an MA in Film Making from Kingston University London. How did these experiences influence your artistic evolution? In particular, did your experience at Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School in Munich influence the trajectory of your filmmaking practice? Hello and thank you very much for your interest in my work and particularly in the Topographia Hibernica series of films. You are correct that I do have a rather formal film education. In reality there were long gaps between study in which I was working in film and outside of the film world. There is a lot to be said positively for formal education as well of course as there is for practical, on the job learning and learning through being out in the world. I think the two compliment one another rather than being mutually exclusive and I am very lucky to have experienced both. It is all about the people you meet along the way. All of these experiences have influenced my work over the years. At LSB I studied Economics Law and Politics and both micro and macro societal issues still lie at the heart of my work. That study also gave me a rather academic approach to my preparation and pre production of the films. My time at Galway Technical

Institute (‘GTI’) gave me the confidence through practice to express myself through film. The immersion into the practical at GTI was incredible. I had a camera in my hand and the facilities to make film - heaven basically! I needed the time at LSB and GTI to learn practical skills of writing, structure, formulating ideas and how to express myself and my ideas clearly. I was given a solid foundation in how to turn my ideas into reality. My MA was an incredible time. I met some amazingly talented students and tutors at Kingston. Kingston gave me the opportunity to really emerge as a Director. Kingston tutors and students opened my eyes to filmmakers from all over the world and for the first time to really experimental and alternative types of cinema. I discovered the work of Werner Herzog. In 2016 I attended the Werner Herzog Rogue Film School. I had been a fan of Werner’s work for several years. I thought Aguirre Wrath of God was perfect. Before I went to Munich I was struggling with my feature “The Wandering” and it was through meeting Werner, meeting the other ‘Rogues’ as participants the the school are known, that I was able to finally allow myself to complete that project. “Make it Biblical” Werner said “elevate it” and his words have stuck with me. With Werner there is such passion and inspiration to make the work. Coming away from my time there I found that I could now focus in on the poetry of film. I had inspiration to dig deep and allow myself to make exactly the kind of work I want to make. It was in Munich that I began to think about the Topographia

Women Cinemakers Hibernica film project and to take practical steps towards achieving a way to make these films. For this special edition of we have , an extremely selected interesting narrative video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your successful attempt to mix drama and comedy with sharp satyrical storytelling, is the way it invites the viewers to challenge their cultural parameteres: when walking our readers through the , would you tell us genesis of how did you develop the initial idea? I went home to Ireland in 2014 to shoot my feature â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Wanderingâ&#x20AC;? which is at its core about how mankind never changes. It struck me when I was there that Ireland had not changed much in the years I had been away, despite the global financial crisis, the scandals within the Church and with those who in the past had been looked up to in Irish society. I could not see much that had been changed. I was angry with Ireland. I was looking for a way to understand Ireland today. Not only Ireland. Our world is in such a state of flux that I find myself in a new world where the new customs, culture and language are unknown to me. Topographia Hibernica was written in the mid 12th century by a Welsh monk travelling through the then uncharted island of Ireland. The book is often cited as a propaganda piece for the British Invasion of Ireland and for setting stereotypes of the Irish that prevail abroad even today. I found that the allegory of travelling through an uncharted land and many of the bizarre stories served as allegories for

Women Cinemakers the changing world and changing Ireland of today. A people kept down by a clergy and elite who subjugated them with fear and ‘magic’. Some incidents in the original 12th century texts were described in a single line or short paragraph. These I used as a starting point to write full stories around each episode. Giraldus who comes from a completely different society, speaks a different language narrates the stories and witnesses them for us. He is thrust into a world he cannot relate to in Ireland. He has heard that it is a land of ‘saints and scholars’ but this is not what he finds. In Episode 1 “Of the Wonders and Miracles of Ireland” Giraldus and his novice Barthalanus meet the Irish natives for the very first time. There is no common language, custom or culture. This leads inevitably to comedy and tragedy. features Brilliantly shot, refined and at the same time essential cinematography, with keen eye for details: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? There are elements of this style of cinematography in all of my earlier films. Fired up by my experiences in Munich I was determined to push this style to a new limit for me. I was also very influenced by some of Passolini’s work, the seemingly simplistic style, the pared back production. I felt something of this could work for Top Hib. I wanted the audience to be able to witness an event. Not to rely on

Women Cinemakers

linear editing. The films have an internal 3 dimensional edit, we are essentially editing in camera. The blocking is carefully worked out and the event unfolds in real time before the audience. I am relying here on body language, relying on a physical human connection to tell the story. It is a single shot but edited before filming. Being Locked off allows the viewer I hope to look at this the way one would at the world. To look to the right or the left and see what is unfolding for themselves. This also means that on repeated viewing other details come to light that the viewer may have missed first time around if they are following a different character on the screen. There is also the element of an oral tradition in this type of storytelling. It is a story told orally by Giraldus but visually represented. The shot is deceptively simple. Kamil Krawczk who has worked on all 3 of the Topographia Episodes shot to date has done a fantastic job. Kamil understood how complex the shoots would be. We looked at the options and decided to work with the RED. This gives me the latitude I need in post production. As regards the lens, after much testing I wanted wide and Kamil delivered both in terms of width and depth. In order to keep everything in focus, depth and width this seemed to be the best option. It may seem that we are limited with what we have with the locked shot but actually with digital you can compose an image from that. So digitally we have lots of options in terms of post production and internal composition. We have particularly appreciated the allegorical

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quality of your film and we can recognize effective sociopolitical criticism, capable of providing the viewers with a multilayered experience. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re

living under": what could be in your opinion the role of filmmakers in our unstable, ever changing contemporary age? In particular, does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? It is interesting that you quote Orozco as I admire his work and that quotation is very evocative of my own

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view of my role as a filmmaker. When I lived in London my films were full of characters in the architecture of London, the economics, the pace of life and the out of control capitalism. They rose out of the politics of the buildings and the concrete. They were set mostly in the future, the edge of

sci fi and they were my way of exploring the culture I lived in. My role as a filmmaker I believe is to tell the stories of the place I am in at that particular time and through those stories and worlds I create try to understand this changing world.

Women Cinemakers I think filmmakers have always reflected societal changes within films, some more subtle than others. Films are about the time they are made in and not the time in which they are set. Topographia is set in the 12th century but it very much reflects and interrogates society today. In our social media and bite size information world today there is little time for reflecting on an idea. All are quick responses, a tweet, a snap a sort of reality. it seems there is no time to consider and to separate thoughts. I want my audience to take a moment. If I can entertain while I do that then all the better. My contribution through the Topographia Hibernica series of films is my response to the changes we are living through right now. The films are designed for, I hope, repeated viewing by the audience. Each time the film is viewed the viewer should see something new, some nuance or action that they missed previously. Metaphor and allegory are very important in my work, slow film or some elements of slow film movement allow us as filmmakers to react to the changing environment. I choose metaphor and allegory to explore and reflect my own view of the changing world rather than on the nose real world drama as this works for me both as a consumer of film and a filmmaker. We have deeply appreciated your approach to narrative: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticolously schedule every details of your shooting process?

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Women Cinemakers The films are stylised, staged in both blocking and the static mise en scene. I am very particular about the planning. I have to be in order to make the narrative work and continue to hold the audience attention through the static shot. This means that I usually plan the movement and photograph it in advance on location. The style dictates the we rehearse the visual composition. The production team and I spend a lot of time doing this in advance of the shoot. I work with the actors individually in the weeks before the shoot. It is primarily through discussion about the characters and what is happening in the episode. The actors are great and they take such command and control of the characters by Episode 3 which really helps. On set we rehearse for one day. As I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t intervene in the scene in terms of cutting in, I give the actors space to find their own little things. Sure we have mapped out the movement but within that they continue to find new moments for the characters. The language is Latin, Norman French, primitive Gaelic and Celtiberian. Languages which are no longer spoken. Because of this the actors have no room for improvisation in the dialogue. That is absolute for the shoot. The planning is very meticulous. We allow only 3 days to rehearse and shoot. As the shots are continuous we know how long each takes to shoot, reset, take notes and go again. I might be a bit obsessive with getting the details just right too but that is just my nature. Walking the spectatorship to the point of

Women Cinemakers convergence between reality and imagination, your film has drawn heavily from the specifics of its environment and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such insightful resonance between the story and the landscape: how did you select the location and how did it influence your shooting process? I walk a lot. I take in the landscapes around me. I can see a story in the landscape. I rarely go looking for the landscape, it comes to me. I can see the characters there rising out of the landscape and telling their story.. Werner Herzog talks about â&#x20AC;&#x153;directing landscapes as much as directing actorsâ&#x20AC;? and I can fully appreciate this. In Topographia Hibernica the landscapes tell a major part of the story. They provide the setting. In the landscape we see the struggle. The journey is not simple. It is not an easy environment in which to live. The Irish landscape is beautiful but it can be harsh. This summer I have an exhibition of photographs at the Galway Fringe Festival on this very theme where I place images of the empty landscape alongside a single frame from the Topographia Hibernica films setting the characters in their context with the objective of sharing with the viewer the characters alive in the landscape. Featuring well-orchestrated tapestry of images, involves the audience in a heightened visual experience, urging them to challenge their perceptual categories to create personal narratives: what are you hoping

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will trigger in the spectatorship? In particular, how much important is for you to address the viewer's imagination in order to elaborate personal associations? Depth of field gives the audience the freedom to get their own focus on the action and discover the action as it unfolds. They are editing it as well. This resonates with the story because again it is a film about discovery. The characters don’t know where to look when they first come here to the island….they have to observe and learn what is important. We don’t know them. All of us are looking into a wide world not knowing what to expect. Reflects also the uncertainty of our time. We don’t know what is coming, nobody knows. We look and see what we want to see. I hope the viewer will see things in the stories that I have not seen. Over the years your films have been screened in several occasions and will screen on RTE Shortscreen in May: how much importance has for your the feedback of the festival circuit? Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process? I have been lucky to have my films screened in so many countries and festivals. I always want to reach out to people and share my work with them but on the other hand I don’t make safe people pleasing films. That is not a deliberate thing it is simply that I want to explore my own style and type of story. I want to narrate the

story in my way. I have found that people are receptive to new ways of narration and language and really pleased that RTE have a platform and a mind set that is open to new film and new filmmakers. I think we are very lucky in Ireland to have that platform. We have deeeply appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? I never think I am a woman director until somebody says that to me. I just do my work. I just keep going. I am however very much aware that I can only do that because other women have gone before me and pushed open doors. Without the current global movement that would be even more difficult. Women have always found ways of getting their particular voices heard but it has been wrought through struggle. Finally we have pushed through and taking what we want in terms of film making and other aspects of women’s lives. There is still some way to go but I am very positive that we have a good future. In Ireland the Irish Film Board has a new 50 / 50 parity aspiration for funding in terms of funding for male and female film makers and this is a fantastic step. If this can happen in a country that was so male

Women Cinemakers

dominated in all aspects of society that is a very positive signal to others. I think the future for women in cinema is whatever we want from it. I am looking forward to the time when I don’t have to think about the male to female ratio of my crew. I see some great work from women filmmakers and would like to not have to seek it out so much. Overall I think this is change that cannot happen fast enough. Your own magazine is evidence to the talent and variety of film that women are making that in the past may have gone unnoticed. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Liza. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Topographia Hibernica Episode 1 is only the first one of a series of short films inspired by the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis. Episode 2 and Episode 3 are now completed and more are being written. The idea is to have a series of short films that are narratively self sufficient but that are part of a bigger film with a series of frame scenes. It’s an ambitious project but I have a committed team and together we are working on it. As for the new episodes we are trying to experiment with disparate genres like horror and even documentary. It sounds improbable on the paper but we are very excited about it and it will all fall into place in the end.

I am concerned with the idea that no matter how we ‘progress’ in terms of technologies and advancements in science we remain the same. This theme is one I hope to continue to explore, this is our Room 12 vision. Other projects for the future include “Zima Junction” which is a feature project that I’ve been reworking at different stages of my life and this also has a literary origin as it is inspired by the poetry of Yevtushenko. It is not an interpretation of the poetry but rather inspired by the themes of the poetry. This story is concerned with trying to reconcile the ideals of childhood with adult responsibilities and realities. Afro Parise who is co-producing the Top Hib series has recently finished a feature script “Dead Name” which is a very different story. It is a rather urban film quite far from the universe of Gerald of Wales but shares the very same Room12 vision of how life influences film and also the other way around! On that project I would step into the producer seat which is something we do often in Room12. We share our different crafts and skills which come from our previous or current experiences in other jobs that in the end flow together into the distinctive films we make. I love collaboration and Room 12 is the ideal platform for collaboration, pushing film narratively and experimentation. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Anjoum Agrama Lives and works in Los Angeles, California, USA

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Anjoum received her BA in Film & TV Production from USC's School of Cinematic Arts where she was awarded the Jack Nicholson Scholarship in Directing. Anjoum has worked as both a freelance director and editor on music videos, commercials, and other content for MGM, SONY, Spotify, Apple Music/Beats, and Red Bull, among other clients.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com See You Later is a moving short film by Los Angeles based director Anjoum Agrama: shot with elegance and inventiveness, this brilliantly poetic film offers an emotionally complex glance on the concepts of memory, friendship and human experience. Inviting the viewers to inquire into the nature of their perceptual process and the relationship between the inner sphere and the outside reality, she demonstrates the ability to capture the subtle depths of emotions: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Agrama's captivating and multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Anjoum and welcome to : to start this interview we would like to invite our readers to visit www.anjoumagrama.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a BA in Film & TV Production, that you received from USC's School of Cinematic Arts where you were also awarded the Jack Nicholson Scholarship in Directing: how did this experience influence your evolution as a filmmaker? Moreover, could you tell us your biggest influence and how did they direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Film school teaches you the basics, the history and formulas for filmmaking, but style and perspective are

what you have to discover for yourself. Our production classes were always focused on the creative process and how to work under constraints like budget, time, etc. I think those exercises taught me a lot and gave me the space and time to practice, but you have to be self-starting because as much as a class can teach you how filmmaking should be, going out and doing it is the real education. So I always made sure to be working on projects outside of the academic structure, editing for friends and directing small films. In fact, the connections I made with classmates and professors turned out to be just as, if not more valuable, than the education itself; I still work with many collaborators from USC now professionally. I think what also influenced the type of filmmaker I am is my screenwriting minor since I consider myself a writer/director. I especially appreciated those small screenwriting classes that operated like writing circles through which I wrote a feature and spec TV script. Growing up in LA, I was lucky to have access to arthouse theaters and would go with my mom to see indie films, which was always a highlight for me. Around the time I was growing serious about being a filmmaker I was watching a lot of films by Mia Hansen-Løve, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Pedro Almodóvar, Alfonso Cuarón, Jean Luc Godard and Bernardo Bertolucci. So I think foreign cinema was what interested me, and continues to interest me the most. I remember the first time I watched Y Tu Mamá También and I immediately felt this was something special. The moments of omniscient narration that suddenly take over the narrative, fleshing out the characters’ separate interior lives was something that really stuck with me. This film showed me a new voice, a new way of storytelling. Amélie, Bande à

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Women Cinemakers Part, Goodbye First Love, El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Amores Perros, Todo Sobre Mi Madre, all had that similar effect on me. They inspired me and made me want to create. I also fell in love with American independent films like Frances Ha, Rushmore, Across the Universe, Adaptation, Annie Hall and Lost in Translation. And then during my senior year of university I studied in Cuba with director Abbas Kiarostami - there we learned filmmaking in his style: using non actors, found settings, a realist approach. I learned a lot from making a film in this way. It was the antithesis to my formal training at USC, something I think I really needed to be exposed to as an alternative. You know, a lot of people from my university go on to work in the studio system and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfectly fine. But I want to make independent films so this experience really reminded me of my options as a creative. we have For this special edition of selected , a captivating short film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the epiphanic nature of the details of reality is the way your sapient narrative provides the viewers with with such an intense visual experience, enhanced by elegant composition. While walking our readers through the genesis of , could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? And how did you develop the script? This is actually based off a true story, sort of. I was visiting a friend in Spain some years ago who one morning of my visit

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woke up to an unfortunate call, similar to the one in See You Later. I was just there, witnessing this sudden event that seemed to be spilling through the telephone, permeating her life. The news really affected my friend. She was far from the people on the other end of the phone and the situation was beyond her control and it really stuck with me how affecting a phone call can be and how it shrinks distance but ironically also made her distance from the event seem so monumental and painful. That morning she had a few private phone calls that reconnected her with people she hadn’t spoken with in years. I only heard bits and pieces of conversation, but

you know, you can imagine what was said. I think as a filmmaker everything that happens to me is a story. So almost a year later I think I was still thinking of that morning and because I didn’t fully know the details of the conversations it was a sort of mystery. It was as if it was a half-written script. I had the beginning, bits of the middle and hints at the end. An actress friend of mine, Katie Peabody, and I wanted to collaborate on a small micro budget film because I loved working with her on a previous project and wanted to write a script just for her. This story seemed like one that was really wanting to be told. I couldn’t let it go, honestly. I know that it was a very personal experience for my friend and usually I’m using

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my own so I don’t question it, but this wasn’t just mine so at first I thought - can I even use this in art? At the time I was dealing with loss and heartbreak and so I decided to combine these stories; using the phone call as the premise but the details would be a mix of me, friends and something new. Elegantly shot, features stunning cinematography by Pearce Healey and a keen eye for details: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting and editing? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? We definitely wanted this film to be intimate and as we were working under budget, we decided to use Pearce’s

Black Magic which he’s familiar with so we could shoot with a small crew. We were in small spaces so deferred to wide lenses that would let the camera be up close with the actors to capture their performances. We mainly used Tokina lenses, an 11-16 and a 28-70, the latter of which is a copy of the cinema lens design from Angenieux. Personally, I want to be right there with the actors and I think it makes a difference to a viewer when it’s shot wide as opposed to telephoto. I wanted to approach this film from my perspective in the real life story - basically a fly on the wall. The goal was to make it feel like the audience is there, watching these events unfold in the present. So we opted for long takes

and smooth handheld movement instead of being completely locked off on tripod. Then in the flashbacks I wanted to convey memory, which is such a big theme for me in all my films. Everyone remembers things differently and in fragments so we had a lot more angles and camera movement. In the edit we also made the decision to color the flashbacks warmer to contrast with the cold present. Sam idealized the past so we portrayed this longing with warmth, while in the present she was missing something so there was the absence of warmth and saturation. But by the last shot, and I’m not sure if it’s that noticeable on first view, the color temperature gets warmer to match her state of mind. We have particularly appreciated that though your inquiry into the personal sphere of the character of Karla seems to be very analytical, yet your film strives to be full of emotion: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, how would you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of a scene and the need of spontaneity? How much importance does play improvisation in your practice? Karla was a way to explore the news of the phone call with someone else and to force Sam to verbalize the situation. I wanted Karla to come into the scene in a very different head space, not at all where Sam was. I think this conflict hopefully added some humor because even in the hardest times there’s humor, that’s life. When I see films that are all one note it really bothers me because life is so much more complex than that. So Karla was a way to explore this mix of emotions.

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In terms of writing - I like to write out the dialogue knowing that through the rehearsal process I will most likely discover better lines that the actors come up with. So for me, the script is a starting point and improvisation is always encouraged. For this film we wanted to keep the conversations to a few specific points so during rehearsals I deferred to my lead actors. Isaac Jay and Katie Peabody are both so talented and have a gift for storytelling, I learned a lot from them. So for their major scene we rehearsed together and adjusted the dialogue as we discovered their charactersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; relationship. This gave us the creative room to explore so once it came to set we had a script and blocking we were happy with. Daniel Rashid is also a gifted improviser and while his scene is so short and he is never even on camera, his voice carried just the right emotion and nuance. All of the flashbacks were improvisation. I love the spontaneity and coming from directing music videos, the montage moments are always fun to film. I make sure the actors spend time together and bond prior to filming so that once we begin shooting they can play. Of course there were moments I wanted so I was able to guide the actors there, but I also let them just live as their characters and interact with one another. As a focal point and an emotionally charged character, James is never heard from and is rather symbolic since heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only seen in memory. I knew I wanted to depict him both as a fading memory and full of life and I think Eduardo Maruri balanced both of these aspects. The dynamic between the three main characters is very important so the montage was our opportunity to physicalize their friendship. Pearce was able to follow the

actors’ movements and we were basically just running around with them capturing moments. Composed of meditative and elegantly simple long takes, your film features sapient camera work and each shot seems to be carefully orchestrated to work within the overall structure: how did you structure your editing process in order to achieve such brilliant results? Well first, thank you for that observation. As an editor, I love when there are scenes in which I don’t have to cut between many angles, but can just live in. And since I wanted the audience to feel in the room with Sam as she’s getting this news, I thought long takes for the present scenes would do just that. There’s no escape really, so I think the oners force us to live in the moment with her. Luckily these long takes worked because Katie has such a presence on screen, you can’t help but be immersed in her performance which is so raw and vulnerable. Then for the flashbacks the cutting style here is much more disjointed, sort of how memories are; they’re not as tangible, slip through your fingers and are constantly evolving. So for those scenes I used jump cuts, intercutting, and overlapping dialogue/soundscapes. I also used match cutting to snap back to reality at a key point where it seems like the romance of the past could overcome the narrative. I always play the film in my head as I’m writing, visualizing the cuts. I think since I’m an editor I reverse engineer the film and so the editing structure was pretty defined in the script.

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In your film you leave the floor to your characters, finding an effective way to walk the viewers to develop an emotional bridge between their own inner spheres and the characters. We like the way you created entire scenarios out of psychologically charged moments: what are you hoping will trigger in the audience? I always write from a personal place so for me this was selfishly my way of expressing loss and exploring what it means to let go. I think the more specific and personal you are in fact the more relatable your work will be. So my hope is that this also triggers something in the audience. Either reminding them of their own loss, love, or friendship. My favorite movies make me feel so I always aim to create emotions through my art, and maybe that’s uncomfortable, but that’s how your audience identifies with the story and invests. As Steinbeck said, “if a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.” We daresay that your film could be considered an effective allegory of human experience: how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? Thank you for that interpretation. You know, I think this film is just that - it really is a depiction of a human experience. One most people if not all will experience in life; losing a friend, a lover, growing up. I see short films and I’ve even made them - that have a much more action

heavy plot, but I thought it would be nice to diverge from that and focus on the interior life of a character. Every day life is such an influence for me. I think there are some very cinematic and remarkable things that happen all the time around us and it’s just how you see it, if you see it. I always keep a running list of notes on my phone from moments in my life to use in my art - things people say, stuff I see, etc. I write things down sometimes pretty frequently based off what’s going on in my day to day. And usually these things come up in my work. The whole premise for this film, as I mentioned, was one such moment that just stuck. I could have experienced that and not thought much of it, but it was one that really stayed with me. Sometimes that happens and the only way to work through it is to make it art. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? What's your view on the future of women in cinema? It definitely is difficult for women to have their projects green lit. It’s not a matter of opinion, the situation is that bad. I read recently that of the top 1,000 or so grossing films for the last ten years only 4% were directed by female directors. You can’t ignore those numbers.

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Women Cinemakers However, I do agree that right now we are moving towards change, even if it is slow. We’ve acknowledged the problem as an industry and I do see some powerful people taking a stand. It will take a lot more than talking about the problem to fix it, but this is a start. I think as there’s more change, we’re going to see even better films. For so long we’ve been consuming films made by white males, for white males. Imagine how much richer film will be once the there are more female voices behind the camera. The same goes for filmmaker minorities. This is art, this should be for everyone and by everyone. I hope to see more diversity in front of and especially behind the camera, think of all the stories that have yet to be told. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Anjoum. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you for the interview, it’s been a pleasure. I’m working right now on a feature script that I’ve been writing and rewriting for some time now. I won’t reveal much but it’s semi-autobiographical. I love shorts but I think the stories I want to tell are better suited for long form. That’s definitely going to be a challenge, but that’s where I’m headed. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Helena SantĂn Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain Observing and understanding are the two verbs that are repeated throughout my creative process. The way of looking is the way to understand things, to perceive a reality and to make it your own. In my pieces, my look focuses on the details that surround me constantly, arising in an almost intuitive way. They seek to show those details of reality that hide beauty and simplicity. The beauty of things and how to capture it is something that has always caught my attention. There is a certain melancholy in the idea of wanting to capture all the beauty that is shown before our eyes; nostalgia of the past time and fear of not recovering it. For me, it has become a necessity to register and then to understand. To reflect on the same things over and over again, a cycle that is constantly repeated, and that puts in perspective everything learned so far.

womencinemaker@berlin.com

inviting the viewers to unveil the ubiquitous beauty hidden into the details of our everyday life experience: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to SantĂn's captivating and multifaceted artistic production.

Capturing and refined in its balanced and effective storytelling, Ver is a stimulating film by Spanish filmmaker Helena SantĂn: inquiring into our perceptual process and the relationship between the inner sphere and the outside reality, she demonsrates the ability to capture the subtle dephts of emotions. This captivating film offers an emotionally charged visual experience,

Hello Helena and welcome to : to start this interview we would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production. In the

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant

meanwhile, we would ask you a couple of question about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as a filmmaker? Could you tell us your biggest influence and how did they affect your work? Thank you for selecting me, I am very happy to be part of WomenCinemakers. If I had to chose one particular influence, I would definitely say meeting Andrés Duque, a Spanish filmmaker born in Caracas. His work is described as a non- fictional with a strong character on the documentary field and the essayistic. I had the pleasure to have Andrés as a teacher for one week during university, and in such a short time he made me see how important it is not to be afraid to experiment and to follow our instincts. He understands the creative process as a free one, where the artist is allowed to have doubts, to take time to think, to go backwards as many times as needed and to understand the material while making it. He made me understand how everyone is allowed to have their own process and to learn from it. It could seem a simple lesson, but whenever I feel lost in my creative process, I remember Andrés words and I embrace the doubts and the fears I have. we For this special edition of have selected , a captivating film that our

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Women Cinemakers readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the epiphanic nature of the details of reality is the way your sapient narrative provides the viewers with with such an intense visual experience, enhanced by elegant composition. While walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell how did you develope the script of your film? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticolously schedule every details of your shooting process? Part of the script is based on a real experience that I had, which was really emotional and beautiful, completed with fictional ideas that added an extra layer to the story and to the main character Biel. Due to that, writing the script was quite a challenge for me, because I was learning, and still, to put into words in a coherent way part of my real experience and part of the new ideas that were arising. In terms of preproduction, I really like to have everything planned so when it comes to the shooting itself, I can be a little more relaxed and let things happen in a natural way. In my opinion, these spontaneous details that take place during each shot, from the actors or the light or whatever it is, are the ones I enjoy the most. There is something special in

those moments, and we are able to capture them and make them part of the film, it is beautiful! Elegantly shot, features stunning cinematography and from a visual point, we have been fascinated with your clear and effective approach to narrative: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? I have always felt identified with a realistic aesthetic, the one that is more clear and natural. I am not a big fan of extravagant camera movements or an intense cinematography that can take you out of the story. As long as possible, I like to have a candid scenario that allows the characters to be the most important in the scene. One of my visual references was Weekend (2011) by Andrew Haigh, which I love. The film feels really natural and delicate to me, and the actors have the space and time to connect with their environment and themselves, and that is what I look for in my films. In this film you leave the floor to your characters, finding a simple still effective way to walk the viewers to develope a bridge between their own inner sphere and the epiphanic journey of Biel. Could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story?

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Women Cinemakers Although Bielâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey could seem pretty simple, in terms of rediscovering his own space and appreciate it, I think it is a question that has always concerned me. I easily get bored of the spaces and things that I already know, and it takes a while to understand and to find joy in your daily routine. It is like seeing what surrounds you with different eyes: everything is already there; you just have to pay attention. Moreover, the way David, the other character, sees Biel and records him shows how someone from the outside can rediscover you in a beautiful way. Somehow, you get to know more about yourself through others, and that is kind of magic. We have particularly appreciated that though your inquiry into the personal sphere of the character of Biel seems to be very analytical, yet your film strives to be full of emotion: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? All the characters in the film are non-professional actors; in fact, it was the first time for them doing something in front of a camera, and the experience was really great. I met Biel through a friend of mine, and I immediately thought of him when I was writing the script. There is something special in him, and in David, that goes farther than the acting itself. Of course that directing people that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a formal interpretation background is challenging, but they already have something that makes them special.

The process that I followed was to share with them my personal experience and my view of the story. How every character was created and the reason of their behavior and emotions was really important to me, so we discussed it and put everything in common to understand and also to put their personal views and experiences. In the end, we were all comfortable with the characters and the script, and I think they felt the freedom to add details that complemented the actions before and during the filming. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, your works aim to show the details of reality that hide beauty and simplicity: we have appreciated the way you show the ephemeral nature of human perception that raises a question on the role of the viewers' viewpoint, inviting us to going beyond the common way we perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to unveil such unexpected sides of Nature, especially regarding our inner Nature? Each person has a subjective perception of reality, the way we look and understand our world makes us who we are. Artists express themselves through any form of art, sharing their view and what they have learnt about their environment and themselves. As a spectator, sometimes you discover new ways of seeing reality, like another face of a polyhedron, by watching a film

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers or observing a painting. So yes, I definitely think that artists unveil a certain side that can be unexpected to the viewer, or not, and at the same time, the viewer has their own interpretation, which is beautiful. In my opinion, it is kind of a cycle: you understand the same things over and over again, but in different levels and situations. We daresay that could be considered an effective allegory of human experience: how does every life experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? My every life experience is everything to me when creating stories. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t conceive a story without a little bit of reality, without something personal that initiates the creative process. By saying that, I am not undervaluing stories that are completely invented from zero when it comes to narrative, because I am sure that there is always an inner emotion or feeling that starts the process of creating, and that is also a challenging way of working. After all, we all create films or art because we have something inside we want to share, and that acts like an inner motor. We like the way you created entire scenarios out of psychologically charged moments: what are you hoping Ver will trigger in the audience?

I hope that shows that there is always something more, that whenever you feel lost and that your life is boring, without any exciting new things, there is something to discover in your surroundings and in yourself. It is a question of perspective, a way of seeing and understanding what surrounds you. Also, to listen to your instincts and follow them, not being afraid of the unknown. That is what Biel does; following the attraction that he feels with David at the subway, and taking his camera to start filming. In a way, he is attracted by everything that David represents, the freedom to be himself and to do what he really wants. Your film selected to Fire!! International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and to Directed by Women BCN MAD 2016, both in Barcelona: how much importance has for you the feedback that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? Showing a film before an audience is always a bittersweet feeling; it is scary and also exciting, but it is really empowering and comforting. In my case, I remember being at Fire!!, waiting for the festival’s director to come, and I really didn’t know what to expect, I was kind of nervous. But the first thing he told me was something like “thank you for your amazing short film, it is a wonder”. I was impressed that someone outside of my close circle would feel

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers that way about Ver, and it is in those moments where you realize how powerful films are, and how your view and message can arrive to a lot of people. After the screening, I wasn’t worried about the response of the audience. Of course the feedback and the critics are important, but you can’t touch and satisfied everyone, just as everything in life. So I tried to enjoy as much as possible and be thankful for the opportunity. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? I am really optimistic! A women’s revolution is happening in different aspects of society, and I hope it sets the tone for what the future will be for us, for what we will do it for us. Women are amazing and just as talented as men, and we need more women doing cinema. I remember during university being just two girls out of twelve in the specialization of film direction, and I didn’t understand why. We are so used to be in the background, because society has put us there, that we shouldn’t take it as something

Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers normalized. We need to continue to stand up and to be proud of who we are and of what we can do. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Helena. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? To be honest, I am interested in a lot of things such as cinema, photography, poetry, and music... and sometimes it is difficult to focus on just one thing. But lately I have been inspired to write a script based in my grandparentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; little town in Galicia, in the northwest of Spain. It is too soon to anticipate much of it, but it will be a feature film based on a story with my grandmother as the main character (if I can convince her!) reconnecting with her roots. The setting and the nature of it comes from her experiences there and the stories I have heard of it, but I still have to work on it... we will see how everything goes! I have never thought that I will be working on a story with my family origins as a starting point, but I am really excited to discover where I come from and how my grandmother lived there. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Ellie Foumbi Jody Christopherson Uniform, written by Jeffrey James Keyes and directed by Ellie Foumbie and Michael Niederman debuted on September 23d at Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival. The 11 minutes film tells the story of two lesbian moms, played by Jody Christopherson and Laura Gómez (Orange is the New Black), that are at odds with what to do when their 6-year-old son is sent home from school for wearing a dress. Uniform is produced by Jody Christopherson and Jeffrey James Keyes.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Ellie and Jody, and welcome to WomenCinemakers: to start this interview we would like to invite our readers to visit http://www.elliefoumbi.com and http://jodychristopherson.wixsite.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic productions. In the meanwhile, we would ask you a couple of question about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as creative people?

ELLIE FOUMBI: Definitely. I think the way I grew up really impacted me as an artist. I moved to the U.S. from Cameroon at a very young age and attended a private French school until I went to University. The multi-cultural influences in my upbringing really broadened my point of view on life. I was introduced to European cinema very early at my school, as early as 6th grade. It wasn’t unusual for me to watch films like or in French class, then go home and watch . That was a typical day for me in Junior High School. My life revolved around movies. I quickly took to filmmakers like Agnès Varda, Lynne Ramsay and Louis Malle. I watched

for the first time when I was about 12 years old. It’s one of the first films, if not the film that changed my relationship to cinema. I understood that films could have a broader function other than just entertaining us. Subconsciously, I’ve been trying to make films that touch people the way that one touched me. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: I grew up in the Midwest, directly in the center of America. My family is a mixture of farmers, water well drillers and artists. We played in the dirt and invented our own entertainment, less electronic media and tons of books, dancing, singing, writing. Where I come from people spend a lot of time on porches and around campfires telling stories. My father sometimes worked on reservations with First Nations people. The traditions and history of the Pawnee, Omaha, Oto-Missouri, Ponca, Lakota, and Cheyenne peoples are everywhere but not always recognized. It can feel like a very straight, white area of the world. My best friend was gay, but not yet fully out. So, I grew up with an awareness that there were a lot of stories that make up the world beyond what’s represented in mainstream media. we For this special edition of have selected , a captivating film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. While walking our readers through the genesis of Uniform, would you tell how did you develop your film? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers to meticulously schedule every details of your shooting process? ELLIE FOUMBI: The film initially came to me through my co-director, Michael Niederman. He introduced me to the writer, Jeffrey James Keyes, who was adapting the short screenplay from his own one-act stage play. Jeffrey and Jody Christopherson, our lead actress, had joined forces as producers to make the film so we all jumped into a creative soup together. It started with several rounds of refining the script before we embarked on finding the special little boy who would play Nicholas. We all contributed something special to the screenplay through our feedback and I think that cemented our collaboration. As far as planning, every film is a little different. I try to plan as much as I can, but there are certain things you can’t plan for. In production, things are constantly changing. You have to be ready to roll with the punches. We did create a shot list once our locations were nailed down, and that was helpful. However, I have always believed that my job as a director is to serve my actors’ performances. In that sense a shot list is only a blueprint that should be revised moment to moment and potentially thrown out while shooting. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: Jeffrey James Keyes wrote this incredible short play about a mother who I played in NYC. She was defending her 6 year old (who gender identified as a boy) and wanted to wear dresses to school. The school’s administration wouldn’t allow this. My neighbor in Manhattan went through a similar experience and it struck us that this story needed to be told in a larger forum to support kids who just need the space to be

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themselves and wear what they love. Ellie and Michael helped Jeffrey to develop the script into a film and bring it into its current incarnation. Shooting was very planned out (as it has to be in NYC for permit reasons) but we always leave room for discovery. Something I’m experiencing more and more on shoots is my right to ask for choreography in an intimate or fight scenes. I like the idea of creating a consensual physical container and then filling it with intention. When you are working with children it’s especially important to ensure they feel safe and have a voice in fight choreography. features brilliant handheld camera work and each shot is carefully orchestrated to work within the overall structure: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? ELLIE FOUMBI: Because Uniform deals with such a hot-button issue, we wanted the film to feel as real as possible – the day in the life of this family. Although my directorial style has evolved from a more classical esthetic, I was excited to open up to this new style. The decision to go handheld was also dictated by our location and actors. We had the luxury of working with such incredible talent like Jody Christopherson, Laura Gómez and London Peith. We felt this would give them more freedom, particularly in the emotionally charged moments of the film. Moving back and forth between handheld and static shots accentuated the rollercoaster ride that can be “the

day in a life of working parents living in NYC” – Nothing is quiet for too long. It was also both mine and Michael’s first time shooting with a child actor and so we knew we had to be prepared for anything to happen. Going handheld at specific moments allowed us to do that. As far as the look of the film, I had shot my previous short with a Black Magic and really loved its look. We discussed a few options with our cinematographer, Kim Venable, and kept coming back to this camera. Since we had a limited budget and were also bound by the tight spaces in some of the locations we were shooting, there were several advantages to shooting on such a small camera, one of which was ease of movement. As you have remarked once, you were met with a lot of support from members both inside and outside the LGBTQ community, so you realized that the plot of your film reflected a human story in a wide sense: in this sense, we daresay that could be considered an allegory of human condition. How does daily life's experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? ELLIE FOUMBI: can absolutely be considered an allegory of the human condition. One of the things we all agreed on very early on is that it wasn’t just a film about an LGBT couple. It’s a film about family and the difficulties of parenting. All

Women Cinemakers couples and families can relate to the challenges this particular couple faces. Raising kids is hard. There’s no way around that. How do parents know when they are making the right choices for their children, when these choices aren’t so black and white? That’s the ultimate dilemma most parents face. This is one of the main reasons I was originally drawn to this project. These are the stories I’m personally interested in telling, stories that are unique but reflect on the universal themes of life. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: We have to use our platforms to create the world we want to live in. Elections are “made” on Twitter. What we do/say/publish in the world carries weight. As protestors have been saying since the 60’s “the personal is political” “the private is political”. We have to speak up about our stories and be an ally to those around us, create disruptions to rules that deserve to be broken, like telling kids that what they choose to wear is right or wrong or that being proud of who we are makes us “less than” in any way. In America right now it’s a very scary time. We are on the brink of what could be a fascist regime. Hate coming to power doesn’t happen overnight; it’s death by 1,000 cuts (or legislations). You have to stop those cuts from happening the moment you see the knife. In this film you leave the floor to your characters, finding a simple still effective way to walk the viewers to develop a bridge between their own

inner spheres and the story that you tell: how did you develop your characters? In particular, do you think that you’re being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value? ELLIE FOUMBI: I have to give most of that credit to our incredible writer, Jeffrey James Keyes. He had already gone through a pretty rigorous process developing his stage play and exploring the world of these characters. We lucked out because Jody was in his original play. Although many parts of the story changed, the work they did together on stage really translated. Her performance is so honest and raw. I don’t think you need to be a woman to feel that. Although, the film does tap into the challenges of motherhood in a really beautiful and unique way, I think it resonated all the more with me because of that and perhaps certain things stood out to me more than others because I’m a woman. But from the beginning of the process, my male co-director and I were on the same page about what moments needed to be highlighted directorially. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: I strongly relate to the need to protect anyone who is being bullied. Unfortunately, as a female identifying person I come from a history and culture that creates some asinine rules for controlling us. Luckily, when you’re working with a team who are excited to do the opposite, want to celebrate and support each other, it makes a huge difference.

Women Cinemakers

interview

Women Cinemakers

We have particularly appreciated the way Uniform creates entire scenarios out of psychologically charged moments: what are you hoping your film will trigger in the audience? Moreover, how open would you like your film to be understood? ELLIE FOUMBI: Again, this goes back to the collective (Michael Niederman, Jeffrey James Keyes, Jody Christopherson and me). Although this is an LGBT film, we really wanted to focus on the film’s universal theme. That’s what we want people to hang on to. Most people can identify with the challenges of parenthood and the importance of allowing our children to express who they are. People may have differing opinions about how to parent a boy like Nicholas, who feels more like himself in a dress. They are entitled to them, but they will be engaged. It’s hard not to be. We hope, however, that audiences will not judge our characters and that they will empathize with the challenges the two mothers face. We also hope will open up people’s minds about the role society plays in defining who we are as individuals and how we choose to express ourselves. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: I recently attended the Chicago Reeling International Film Festival (a queer film festival) for one of screenings. After sitting through hours and hours of films featuring incredible queer stories that really ran the gamut in genre, casting and subject matter it was an incredible feeling to feel the normalization of an international non-binary world. Toxic masculinity hurts everyone. I hope our film can open up narratives and

Women Cinemakers minds about what it can mean to be a dude and love whatever you love openly. Uniform has drawn heavily from the specifics of its environment: how was your creative and shooting process affected by locations? ELLIE FOUMBI: was heavily influenced by its environment. For starters, we felt that the city of New York was also a character in the piece and very much wanted the film to reflect that. We were inspired by some iconic films set in New York that deal with complicated family dynamics, like Kramer vs. Kramer and The Squid and the Whale. We wanted the film to have that classic, nostalgic feel. Although Lynne Ramsay’s isn’t set in New York City, it was one of my first visual references when thinking about the style of the film. It has that timeless quality were going for. Secondly, most of our interiors were shot in tight spaces so we had to account for that when deciding what kind of equipment and how much of it we could use. We were more limited in that respect, but I feel that only enhanced the decisions we made directorially. We decided to embrace our limitations and lean into them. That’s how we turned our obstacles into assets in the making of . JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: Filming in a primary school in Chelsea (one of New York’s historically gay neighborhoods) was pretty incredible. I especially loved

seeing all the student art. The walls were covered with it. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under": what could be in your opinion the role of independent filmmakers in our unstable, everchanging contemporary age? In particular, does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? ELLIE FOUMBI: I don’t think my work shifts with every cultural moment, but I’m always aware of what’s happening politically and culturally. Particularly in this shifting political climate, I think it’s our responsibility as artists to hold up mirrors to society. Some artists are much more brash and in your face in their approach, as seen in Donald Glover’s “This is America” video, while others chose a more nuanced route. I think all perspectives and styles are valid. It all depends on the story you want to tell and how it reflects who you are as an artist. I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to comment on everything that happens politically in America, but if there’s an opportunity for me to do it in an organic way that speaks to the work I’m trying to create and to my identity as an artist, I will most certainly always take it. My work does tend to lean towards social-political themes but almost always with an eye towards the universal aspects of the themes I discussed earlier. I want my work to provoke, to open dialogues and, most certainly, to be the mirror we so desperately need in

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Women Cinemakers today’s society. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: Art is the expression of our humanity. We need to be reminded of that in this moment. What was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? What were the most relevant aspects of the collaborative nature of the making of Uniform? ELLIE FOUMBI: Having two directors was a huge asset in this respect. As a trained actor, I feel very comfortable working with actors but had never worked with children before. My directing partner, Michael Niederman, had a lot of experience working with kids, so this is where we complimented each other well. We were able to rehearse with Jody and London Peith, the wonderful young actor who played her son, Nicholas ( ). Michael really took charge of London, while I focused more on how to capture their performances. Since Jody knew her role inside out, all we had to do was get out of her way. We were also incredibly lucky to have Laura Gómez in the role of Nadine, especially since she was right in the middle of shooting . She is the ultimate professional and was able to jump into her role with ease. We knew we didn’t need any rehearsal time with her and Jody. It was a privilege to watch those two power houses working on screen together. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: Ellie and Michael were so key in working with London and I, especially in the opening bathroom scene where we’re fighting. It’s tough to know

Women Cinemakers how that reads on camera and how to orchestrate physically fighting with a young actor in a safe way. We worked through a few drafts of the script with Jeffrey for a few months and really built up a report. It’s helpful and rare to have that luxury of time spent together. Your films have been screened in several occasions and Uniform was premiered at The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival: how much importance has for you the feedback that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? ELLIE FOUMBI: Films aren’t made in a vacuum, therefore it’s always important to get feedback. Each film is made with an audience in mind, and when we hear that people are touched by the work we did, it’s gratifying. It means we did our jobs well. doesn’t offer any easy solutions. We made it specifically to open up a dialogue with our audience. Attending film festivals is one of the most beautiful ways to experience that. We’re always excited to hear people’s thoughts and feelings about the film. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: The energy is different every time. It’s lovely to see the film in a festival because it always feels like it’s a part of a conversation/ in conversation with the other films on the program. I love that and hearing people’s responses to it. Some people truly don’t understand how a gender-identifying boy would want to wear a skirt. But then I remind them that I am part Scottish and that in Scotland men wear kilts

sometimes. It’s simply what the person feels comfortable with and what a society makes room for. We have appreciated both the originality and the sociopolitical engagement of your approach, so before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century, women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? What's your view on the future of women in cinema? ELLIE FOUMBI: It's a really exciting time because women’s voices are being valued more than ever. Although we still have a long way to go, there has been some exciting progress in just a few short months. In general, women still have a much harder time getting financing for their films, but I am hopeful that this statistic will soon change. When I look at the critical acclaim and successes of films like Dee Rees’ and Greta Gerwig’s , I feel incredibly encouraged to be a female filmmaker at this time. Having just graduated from Columbia University’s film school last summer, I feel this is my time. The industry seems much more receptive to the work of female creators. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: We need more women and queer people to finance films by women and queer

Women Cinemakers people. As long as there is a wage inequity in the world there will be inequity on screen. Yes this is changing but it needs to go much further and beyond the binary. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Ellie and Jody. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? ELLIE FOUMBI: I’m finishing post-production on a tense political short about a newly immigrated African man struggling to find his place in America called , starring Souleymane Sy Savané ( ) and a cast of mostly non-actors. It is also set in New York City and will hit the international festival circuit this fall. I’m developing two feature films, which are both being packaged at UTA. The first is called , which will be my directorial debut – based on the short proof of concept that was my thesis film and a Student Academy Awards Semifinalist. It’s about an adopted black Mennonite who leaves the rural white community she was raised in and travels to an inner-city neighborhood to find her biological mother. In the process, she finds herself. The second film is called , is a psychological thriller about a hypersexual female veteran who struggles with intimacy. It was co-written with my writing partner, Tahir Jetter ( ) and selected for IFP’s No Borders International Co-Production Market during Film Week last fall.

Both of these films touch on social-political themes in different ways. Although I see myself working in different genres, most of my work does deal with characters on the fringes of society who are struggling with some aspect of their identity. That’s a common thread in most, if not all of my work so far. I hope to be able to continue to push the envelope and to make exciting work that will challenge how audiences relate to characters and how they view the world around them. The Uniform team wants to thank WomenCinemakers for creating this incredible platform for female filmmakers and for allowing us to share our film with your audience. JODY CHRISTOPHERSON: I have been touring a multimedia solo horror work with film for the theater, which I wrote and perform and filmed guerilla style at abandoned asylums in New York. It’s based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as well as the history of electroshock therapy and is Directed by Isaac Byrne. It’s about women as artists and the monsters society creates. I/AMP was recently awarded a New York Society Library grant for emerging female writers, underwritten by Alexander Sanger. It’s been performed in New York at the Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center and toured to Edmonton Alberta Canada (Workshop West Playwright’s Theater). An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

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Women Cinemakers meets

Laura Rembault Lives and works in Paris, France

Ambitiously constructed and marked out with gorgeous cinematography, is a captivating short film by French director and writer Laura Rembault: shot with elegance and inventiveness, her film offers an emotionally complex visual experience, demonstrating the ability to capture the subtle dephts of emotions and to walk the viewers through the liminal area where reality and imagination find unexpected points of convergence. We are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Rembault's captivating artistic production.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Laura and welcome to : before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would ask you some questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a a Master in Cinema, that you received from the prestigious PanthĂŠon-Sorbonne University: how did this experience influence the evolution of your practice as a filmmaker? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your artistic research? First of all, thank you for offering me this interview. I have always been an average student in elementary, middle and high school, except in literary and artistic subjects. And when I came back to university, I really blossomed because

there were only subjects I liked and that really interested me. The university allows us to broaden our horizons. It opens us to things and worlds that we do not necessarily know. I already had a good film culture when I started college because my dad is a film buff and I grew up watching movies. But the university and some teachers have allowed me to have an even better general culture: cinema, art, philosophy, etc. So the experience of college did not influence me on an artistic point but it allowed me to discover new things: movies, directors, currents etc that I did not know or deepen topics, periods that I knew but that I had flown over. For 5 years, I fed on books, movies, classes. In terms of practice, the college has taught us how to shoot film (yes it's rare), we did not have much equipment but we were lucky to have super 8 cameras.

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And that changes everything! When you learn to film with a camera or a digital camera you can see once you have shot the images, and if they are not good or if they do not suit you you can delete and redo the plan. Super 8 and film in general force you to do everything right the first time, because you can not see if the plan is successful or not. We had to wait 3 weeks before knowing if our film was successful. And sometimes your film came back all black or all white ... which meant that you had crap somewhere. You had to think about what was wrong. it happens to you once and not twice. it forced us to question ourselves and learn from our mistakes, I think it was the best way to teach us what was the shooting, the framing, manage the light, how to illuminate a scene ... and especially it leaves room for experimentation. I'm lucky because I grew up in a family that was very open to art, cinema, books and that always encouraged me to go to the end of my desires. My parents always encouraged me and allowed me to develop my artistic side. I know it's a chance and it's not allowed for everyone, I would always be grateful. My father for making me discover the cinema through John Wayne and the classic westerns (I do not know how many times I have , ), same for the Chaplin and Keaton, Spielberg ( that I saw very young and that marked me to the point that at 11 years I write the continuation) and so many others (all that I evoke there they are memories of childhood) ... but also to have taken me to the theater, to museums. And my mother who introduced me to painting, to drawing and who taught me very early how to create stuff with my two hands.

It's formative all that and you find yourself at 27 to know how to do a lot of things that most people around you find fabulous and for you it's just normal, because you grew up with that. it opens a lot of possibilities, I always knew that I wanted to do something artistic and tell stories I went through phases: comics designer, writer and my 10 years after seeing Lord of the Rings it was a shock. And I told them that what I want to do was ... telling stories by making movies! Somewhere I concretize my desire and unconsciously the one of my father and paternal grandfather who are two lovers of cinema but who did not have the opportunity and the chance to study and do cinema ... we have For this special edition of , a captivating short film that our readers selected have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at once captured our attention of your clear approach to narrative is the way it provides the viewers with such a multilayered visual experience: while walking our readers through the genesis of , could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? All my projects have in them something of my reality, of my daily life or of my experience. For 4 years I was unemployed and I could not find a job in the film industry so like many young people I jumped from jobs to jobs. And I did a lot of hours of babysitting because parallel to my studies I was already doing some and I got on well with the family of one of the children that I was babysitting years before.

Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers It was a sibling of 3 children, I loved them, they were just great and awesome. And while I was keeping them, one of the boys, Arthur inspired me . Everything begins with in. I took him out of the bath one evening in the winter, and my hands were cold. And he said to me: "Wow you have cold hands, are you a vampire?" it made me laugh at the moment and when I was on my way I thought about it. And I imagined this nanny character who through the boy's eyes passed for a vampire. . So This bath scene, we find it in the opening sequence of that's how it all started, a little boy who has an overflowing imagination and imagines that his nanny is a vampire. From the moment I started writing the screenplay until the film was finished and we made the preview, it took me a year. It may seem huge but it's my pace of creation. I think what you need for the viewer to believe in your story and for that really works, it takes a minimum of truth. We create ... at least that's how I work: I feed on what I see, what I hear, what I read, etc. Everything is inspiring. Everything can become a story. There is always a story to tell. And I had a lot of feedback about that went in that direction: that I knew very well my subject, that the relationship between nanny and child was perfect that some people who had been babysitter found themselves in the character of Vera, etc. That I can show how everyday life can be without being boring. It may even look fantastic through my eyes. The least trivial thing through my eyes becomes fantastic. I think it depends on how you tell a story. Many people can relate the same story, they will be different from the sensitivity of the person who tells it. We do not remember the same things, we are not affected by the same things and therefore the details will be different, the tone too and the whole story in the end.

Women Cinemakers

Featuring sensuous cinematography with rich color is a transporting experience, an palette, unforgettable symphony of feelings: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? On each of my projects I work with the same director of photography, Vincent Margueritte. For each film we always proceed in the same way: he read the scenario, the intentions note and I give him a filmography which corresponds to the atmospheres that I wish to recreate.

After all that, we see each other to talk about all this, he asks me his questions and we exchange on aesthetics. On what is possible to do, how to do it, etc. We are talking about camera and lens last. I always ask him to make a list of the ideal material and another list of the minimum material he needs. And we make a compromise between the two depending on the budget. But what I like the most in this collaboration is that once I have exchanged with him about the aesthetics that I want and that we find ourselves on the set, we do

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not need to talk to each other anymore because he knows what he has to do. He just asks me to come see the light to be sure that's what I wanted and if it's necessary it changes it. We put our frame together. It's not just a decision-making and execution relationship, it's a real duo. He does a crazy job and when there is a problem he always has a solution. It's the MacGyver of light!

put optics cinemas on it and it gave the rendering that we know. is in scope format, it was not at all in my intention at first. Sylvain BĂŠrard my editor and color grader on this project who after seeing the rushes immediately asked me: "Do you want your fill in scope?" and I asked him "Why?" and that's where he told me " it's made for the scope, almost all your plans are suitable". So we opted for the

For , we used a Canon C100 which is rather a camera that lends itself to documentary. So Vincent offered me to

scope in post-production.

Nothing is ever frozen on my projects. It's always a team work, I come with a story, a concept and we develop it together. My technicians offer me things and we see together if it makes sense to insert it into the project. And in general, they have good ideas. With its brilliantly structured storytelling imparts unparalleled psychological intensity to the narration, to unveil an ever-shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way your film gives to the viewers the sense they are watching excerpts from real life: would you tell how did you develop the structure of your film in order to achieve such moving autenticity? How was your editing process? Before editing, there is writing. And as I have already mentioned, to be as authentic as possible is to stick to the closest to reality. So the intention of writing is that this story is written by a child. What are his reactions? How come to think that his nanny is a vampire? Basically, you have to recreate this feeling of reality by describing the daily life of a little boy. What he does: school, leaving school, snacks, homework, shower, bedtime ... And we set the scenario according to the schedule of the hero wholesale. Everyone knows that editing is a 2nd rewrite, and that's what we did with Sylvain BĂŠrard. We saw the rushes, there were things that worked in writing but did not worked on video. And conversely. So we had to make choices and luckily, in terms of narration and chronology we had a large margin of freedom. That is, we could rewrite and edit the takes in whatever order we wanted.

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers So it was Sylvain's job, as any editor to make choices and sometimes convince me to abandon some takes... for me it's the worst part of the whole creative process. Because in general, I always go out of the editing room desperate after watching the rush. This is the moment when we must mourn some ideas, sequences, takes... and where, we must say ourselves that the film cannot be done without this mourning. This is also the moment when you freak out because you wonder what the film will look like without these takes you loved to shot. And it's the work of the editor to reassure the director. And Sylvain is great for that! Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve to trust your editor. In terms of process: I let him get the rushes, sort them, watch them and we see each other after. We spend a day watching everything and at the end of the day, we think about how to rewrite the film. Then the following sessions, we work on a rough cut. I let it go while defending certain takes. It's after this stage that things get serious and that's when he tells me, " " and I know that when he says that, it means that the take will not be in the final edit. And we debate why the take must or not be in the editing. It became a joke. Until arriving at the final version. I'm not the kind of director who knows as soon as she writes the screenplay what's the story going to look like at editing. I work step by step We like the way you created entire scenarious out of psychologically charged moments: what are you hoping will trigger in the audience? When I see a movie I hate it when we take the viewer for an idiot and explain everything to him when it's obvious. I like watching a movie and not knowing everything, which allows

me as a spectator to reflect on the meaning of the story I just saw, the psychology of the characters, the action etc. It may seem an intellectual approach but it is very representative of what I try to do in my films and in my scenarios. It was Alfred Hitchcock who said he was not directing actors but he makes audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s direction. This allowed him to manipulate the audience and show them what he had to show them so that they understand what he wanted them to understand in his story. It can lead the viewer on a bad track or get ideas on the rest of the story. But that's precisely what telling a story is. It's playing with the person who watches or listens to the story, frustrating it to create suspense via cliffhanger for example. at least that's what I tried to do. Does It works with Arthur have an overflowing imagination? Does he imagine all that? Is all this true and therefore the viewer as the hero is witness to surreal and fantastic things? Is it a child a little disturbed as some spectators asked me? To all these questions I answer, it is up to you to decide. It's up to you to decide, to think about what you saw. Maybe to re-watch the movie to find your answers. Because there are some clues. You just have to be attentive, I've shown you things, which are keys to fully understanding the story. Have you seen them? has drawn heavily from and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such powerful between the intimate qualities of its ordinary domestic location and the atmosphere of mystery that floats around the story:

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A still from

Women Cinemakers how did you select the locations and how did they influence your shooting process? Upir was ambitious in terms of film sets, not because it was atypical sets but because there were many sets for a short film. 11 different sets…it starts to be a lot and all do not appear in the final editing. In terms of logistics and organization, we had to think about our research to bring together these different places. Indeed, we opted for 3 main sets: the house, the school and the grandmother’s house. And these sets were chosen because they grouped everything we were looking for. At the time I worked as a supervisor in a high school so was easy to shoot in it. For the grandmother's house, we shooted in the house of a REAL grandmother. My boyfriend’s one. The house was no longer inhabited but there remained furniture. We could redo a little decoration: postcard on the wall, rearrange the furniture etc. It was really a good plan! Since: the house has been sold but we managed to immortalize it to the point that when the grandmother saw the film, she did not recognize her house at all. For Arthur's apartment, it was a bit more complicated ... we did not find what we wanted in Paris. So a few weeks before the shooting, I decided without really believing to look at Airbnb's website. And I contacted several owners explaining that we were looking for an apartment for a short film shoot. I think it's important to be transparent so after, people trust you. We had a lot of refusals but we had a positive response for a loft in Montreuil (former Kodak factory) with a huge ceiling height (great for lighting with projectors), with rooms without ceiling and

much much space …just perfect. So we rented the Airbnb for a few days and we redo the decoration as we wanted to: Arthur's room and the living room, were created from scratch ... we bring a crib, furniture, toys, a couch ... and we spent a day until late to decorate the apartment. Of course, before we shoot we have locations scouting, it's very important for me to see the locations to imagine the action that will happen in it and then also to see whether or not I see my characters live in these spaces. It's part of the direction of the actor, when you direct an actor you do not direct just his play, you direct him in a specific location. And to do it he must appropriate the space. Tracking also allowed us to estimate what was needed in terms of shooting, lighting and sound equipment. This allows us to know if the place is dark or not, if the acoustics are good or not, ... I do not know if the places I choose have a real influence on the final result, I think it's more the way that we highlight these places that has a big influence on the final result. Everything depends on the intentions at the beginning, the aesthetics’ desire. You do not highlight a kitchen as a bedroom or you do not light the same way a bathroom as a sequence outside. So I think it's a mixture of highlighting and chosen places that influences my work. Because behind each place, there is a different intention. One of the hallmarks of your practice is the ability to establish direct involvement with the viewers, who urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship: in this sense, we daresay that Upir could be considered an effective allegory of human

experience: how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process and address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? I have already answered this question a little bit above. It is true that I am inspired by my daily life to write. And it's not just the case of . For example, on my first short I realized after my graduation, I was inspired by a very bad and difficult breakup. The film is about an argument between Santa Claus and his wife. The fantastic is present by the characters but otherwise the story is a household scene. The idea was to take a basic situation, which everyone knows, with which everyone can identify easily. Everyone has already fight with his boyfriend, his wife ... it speaks to everyone, in the common imagination everyone sees what it is and how it goes. I transposed this situation to a not common couple for my story. We do not imagine that Santa Claus could have trouble, or behaving badly. That's what makes the story unusual. It's the same with , we take different moments of everyday life to which anyone can identify either as parents, or as a child, or nanny ... And we put a small thing of fantastic in it. That's what I like to do. Take ordinary situations transform them into extraordinary event. I used the same process for my next short film: . At first sight, it is the story of an old lady who spends the night in a taxi in London. Nothing very exciting or strange in this situation. The fantastic comes

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers by the idea that this night journey will bring to her memories according to the places she will go through. And that these places that she will go through, will remind her of certain moments of her life that will materialize inside the taxi with her. The memories will turn into key characters in her life: her mother, her husband, her friends and so on. And these characters / ghosts will be sitting next to her. Once again, this is a realistic situation that is slowly changing in the fantastic. Everyone has already taken a taxi, everyone has already left his thoughts spinning during a taxi ride etc. It's easy to identify with this character, because in the end even if it's an old lady she is not so far from us. She has memories like us, she has lived like us etc. In order for the viewer to be close to our story, feel invested in it, you have to give him some shots to catch on. The catch is to give him things he knows that allow him to establish a closeness between his experience and what we are telling him. In your film you leave the floor to your characters, finding an effective way to develop an emotional bridge between their own inner spheres and the viewers: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your shooting process? The rehearsals with the actors, it is one of my favorite parts in the process of creation. In general, after the castings I ask my actor to come and we read the script together to see if there are any changes to make. Sometimes there are things that work very well in writing and when you say them it does not work at all in oral. And conversely. The idea is that the actor is familiar with my writing and especially he is comfortable with it. So if there is need to replace a word or remove it in a dialogue I do it without

Women Cinemakers hesitation. Because if it is a problem in rehearsal it will be a problem on set. I am not attached to what I write. It is a team work and it is the actor who will embody the character so if there is something that embarrassing him is better to fix it now than on the set where it may hang on the text. So there is first this phase of "rewriting". At the end of this phase, I give him a list of movies to see and / or songs to listen to. I also give him the past of the character and his future. This allows him to know how his character found himself in the situation in which he is in the film. I let him immerse himself in all this and we see each other to discuss about what he saw, what he listened to and what he reads. And then, he makes me proposals of how heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll play my character compared to these first indications. Next, follow a few months of rehearsals until filming. And on the set normally the actor does not need me anymore, knowing that he already knows what I want for such scene, or such sequence. I give him additional indications if necessary but he is in "autonomy" on the set. It's the same process as theater, the actors spend months rehearsing with the director and once premiere has been played they do not need the director anymore they know exactly what they have to do. I'm not against improvisation on set, it does not matter if the exact text is not said. If the actor's proposal is good, relevant to the situation I choose it instead of the text originally written. Again it's a team work, a director without his actors, or any other member of the team he canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do anything. He is nothing without them.

I went through this same process with Thomas Millot the actor who plays Arthur in . And curiously, despite his young age and the fact that he was a child, he loved that I give him "homeworks" every week. He always had new ideas. For example, the scene where Arthur talk to his teddy bear, I imagined it and it was written. One day he said to me, "But could it be that Arthur is disguised during this sequence? I asked him "Why?â&#x20AC;? And he spent an hour explaining and convincing me. And in the end, Arthur is disguised in this scene. Despite the rigor of work there is room for the ideas of others and their desires. He bluffed us on the set, he was more professional than some people. And he was only 10 years old! Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? I'm not going to lie, as a female filmmaker it's still difficult to make films or even to be in the movie business. It is necessary all the time to prove yourself and to fight to show that you wants to keep your place and to continue to create. Things are starting to change but slowly ... and that's a little hopeless because it takes so much time. I am an impatient person for this kind of thing.

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Women Cinemakers

Sorry to be so pessimistic but I think that as a woman who makes movies you have to be strong, to be violent, to fight and to shout to be heard. Women can do as well as men or better, and I think that's what scares some people.

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Women Cinemakers

EV I

There are very good female directors, camerawomen, female screenwriters, female sound engineer, female editor, female director of photography ... and that's something I encourage every day. I am lucky to be able to compose my teams on my personal projects and each time, there is almost as much woman as man on the set, or even more. And I apply the same thing in my professional life, as a production manager: I hire when I can women in key positions. And I do not hire them because they are women ... no I hire them because they are talented in what they do. For things to change, you have to start this change and it comes with that kind of action. I would like to see more female directors nominated at festivals without creating special categories for their achievements. There should be no difference: a female director or a director is only an author. And there should be no discernment to be made between the two. We do not care about sex, what matters most is what the person proposes as a creator. And it's true in all the business of creation. This would allow beyond diversity and equality, to allow future artists to reveal themselves. Create vocations. And I think we can do it if and only if we could put more women forward. For future girls who dream of cinema: be bold and never let go nothing (not even half a centimeter)!

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UpĂr was my second short film, since I shot a music video: Bush Lizard for O'magreena (https://vimeo.com/214324835). It was my first and I loved this experience, I would like to shot musicvideo. I find it very interesting to answer constraints for a band, it allows to create outside of its comfort zone.

But for now, I'm looking for a producer for my third short film: Mrs Mag. It's a project with a challenge, because it's happening in London. So I open my horizon as a director but also as a screenwriter. it means having a French-English team, and directing English actors in English which is not my first language. And it's a bit scary, but it's by trying new things that you grow humanly and artistically.

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Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Laura. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I also have documentary desires around topics such as immigration, schizophrenia and drag ... yes three topics that have nothing to do but that inspire me a lot because close to my life in a way or another. And these are sometimes taboo subjects that deserve to be addressed in a new way that is neither stigmatizing nor pejorative.

But the idea is 1. find a producer (I'm sure there are some in your readers) for Mrs Mag, 2. realize it and to move on to something else than a short film and start a long project. ..but for that, as usual, I will need money. This is the nerve of war! Thank you again for allowing me to express myself through your pages and hopefully next time.

EV IE

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