PRESS CONFERENCE
THE CREATORS/BLOODY DAUGHTER/WHITE NIGHT
As part of the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, a Press Conference was held on Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Present were directors Laura Gamse (The Creators), Stephanie Argerich (Bloody Daughter) and Irit Gal (White Night).
Speaking first, Laura Gamse spoke about her film The Creators (co-directed with Jacques de Villiers), a lively and penetrating portrait of young artists from South Africa. “The documentary tells five different stories of five different artists. They are a self-taught tenor who learned Italian from the only thing his father left him when he abandoned him at the age of four, a Pavarotti cd. Emulating Pavarotti, he sang together with friends and made some money in the neighborhood where he lives”. Featured in the documentary are also an Afro-blues duo and a graffiti artist. “Each of the protagonists has a different story and heritage, but in the end, all the stories have to do with the past and present of the country as well as its reality after the censorship which has been imposed by the establishment”, the director explained. She added: “I was very interested in how music, theater and graffiti were forced to encrypt their messages in order to bypass censorship, what these networks had to say and how they continued after the fall of Apartheid”. Speaking of the influence of Apartheid on today’s South Africa, Ms Gamse noted: “First of all, the fact that the government had set up a censorship bureau demonstrated the power Art can have and how it can unify the people, something that happened. The ghosts of Apartheid are still there. The average life span has been reduced by about ten years, the gap between rich and poor has widened and there are many reasons for these problems, but I think their roots are to be found in racial discrimination and the educational system”. Referring to her protagonists and what fascinated her about them she said: “Each of them expresses a different texture of reality. For me, someone who grows up in a shantytown needs to have amazing strength; living in a system responsible for the loss of his loved ones, and in spite of that wants, for example, to support his family by singing opera, like the tenor in the film. The Afro-blues duo also began operating a music school that provides the only training available to the children in the area. For me, all these are examples of independence”.
Then Stephanie Argerich spoke. Her film Bloody Daughter focuses on her parents, two giants of the international classical music scene. “This is a personal film. It tells the story of my parents and especially that of my mother, a top-notch pianist, Martha Argerich, as well as that of my relationship with her. I only managed to complete the film now, although I had tried it before, 15 years ago. I followed my mother with the camera on some of her trips, but that was not the right time and I lost my motivation. After the birth of my first child I found the courage to face all these issues and I decided to do it right, finding a producer at the same time”, the director explained. Referring to the special issues arising from a director filming her own family, Ms Argerich noted: “There were quite a few difficulties. For example, my father had a hard time accepting the making of the film, and there was tension, which is why I don’t have too many scenes with him in them. The essential difficulty of filming people who are close to you is that there usually are no limits to contact, and you have to set them yourself. If you don’t do this, you end up with endless hours of material to sort through”. Regarding a possible psychoanalytical function of the film and what the director has in common with her parents, Ms Argerich noted: “It’s too soon to speak of a psychoanalytical function. It’s an ongoing process, since the film is being screened now. Certainly there must be something therapeutic about it. It’s not so much that I discovered things I didn’t know, but rather that I dealt with issues that were difficult for me. Also, the film brought my family closer. During the documentary my voice is heard and it is up to the viewer to find similarities between the members of my family – from the insignificant to the quite important”.
Israeli director Irit Gal spoke next. Her film White Night follows a group of Palestinian women who make a long dangerous journey every night in order to go to Jerusalem where they work. “I live in Jerusalem, which is about fifteen minutes by car from the settlement in which these women, third generation refugees, live. One morning, very early, I saw some men sleeping in some house gardens. I asked them why, and they told me that they are crossing the border illegally to work in Israel and they spend the night there. I learned that women come as well, and I met them”, the director noted. Referring to the conditions and dangers of filming, the director explained: “the situation was complicated from the beginning: I, an Israeli, and they, Palestinian women would cross the border barricade together. Sometimes the Palestinian police would chase my colleague and me and we ran to get away. Finally we decided to stay with the women no matter what happened. It was more dangerous for them, because sometimes the soldiers would open fire. There were also technical difficulties, because the whole time we walked it was without light”. What was the relationship the director developed with her protagonists like? “That was not simple either. On the one hand we became friends off camera as well, and sometimes I had to help them, such as when they phoned me in the middle of the night if they had gotten arrested. On the other hand I don’t speak Arabic and when I saw the translated voice-over afterward, I discovered there were times when we were being pursued that some women were saying because I was Israeli I brought the soldiers in order to have good scenes in the film. I believe that they agreed to do the film because I was Israeli and it was important to them to show Israelis what they had to live through. If I had been Palestinian they would not have agreed”, Ms Gal noted. The director discovered some interesting information on the subject along the way. “At first I was certain that the Israeli soldiers didn’t know about the movements of these women, but in fact everyone knew about it. They don’t pursue the Palestinians every time they cross the border illegally, because they need them in Israel, while sometimes they chase them to keep them frightened. Also, I was really impressed at how these women could work all day after walking all night. I was exhausted after shooting. Some of them are quite old, I can’t even imagine how they manage it”.
The films are part of the 15th TDF program, which is financed by the European Union’s Regional Development Fund for Central Macedonia, 2007-2013.
