JUST TALKING 20/3
The “Just Talking” section of the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival continued on Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Present were directors Stephanie Argerich (Bloody Daughter), Ilya Chorafas (ADESPOTA, Stray Dogs in the Heart of Athens), J-P Passi (The Punk Syndrome), Dieter Sauter (Adieu Istanbul), Herbert Sveinbjornsson (Ash) and Bruno Chouinard (Paolo Chimney Sweep).
Stephanie Argerich opened the discussion by discussing her decision to film her mother, the internationally renowned pianist Martha Argerich, in her film Bloody Daughter. “I was interested in showing the person, the mother, besides the important artist that many people know, to focus on family relationships, on her relationship with me”, the director explained.
The protagonists of Ilya Chorafas’ ADESPOTA, Stray Dogs in the Heart of Athens are the four-legged citizens of the Greek capital. “More than the animals themselves, I was interested in focusing on that which the strays represent, the need to not have anyone hold you by a leash and lead you. In the last few years Greeks have demonstrated many times asking to be freed from various bonds, and the strays we often see participating in these demonstrations in their own way represent this feeling”, the director said.
For Canadian director Bruno Chouinard, the inspiration for the documentary Paolo Chimney Sweep was… hidden in a chimney. “My protagonist is a chimney sweep, a particularly charismatic man. I followed him with the camera for about 15 days, I recorded his meetings with clients, I admired the way they admire him. When I first saw him working, climbing up a chimney, I was transfixed. What was happening before my eyes was like visual art”, Mr. Chouinard said.
Focusing on ashes, but from a volcano this time, is Herbert Sveinbjornsson’s documentary Ash. “I follow the families of three farmers trying to deal with the consequences of the Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption in 2010 in Iceland”, the Icelandic director said. He added: “I made the film in order to focus my interest not on the eruption itself, but on the people. I followed them with the camera for about a year, I got to know them, I got to love them, and I ended up with 90 hours of material. I completed the film a few months ago and it has had its World Premiere here, in Thessaloniki, which I think is a wonderful thing”.
The Finnish punk band Pertti Kurikan Nimipaivat, whose members have learning disabilities is the subject of the documentary The Punk Syndrome. J-P Passi noted that he co-directed the film with Jukka Karkkainen, and stated: “We filmed the band for about 18 months, but we were more interested in showing the personal stories of its members on the screen, the unique energy of each of the musicians”.
German director Dieter Sauter is participating in the 15th TDF with the film Adieu Istanbul. “I’ve been living in Istanbul for the last 20 years, and I wanted to make this documentary to present the story of the Greek community there, which was very powerful until the middle of the last century. Today there are only 600 Greek families left in Istanbul, and they are gradually diminishing. I was interested in seeing how the people who stayed in Istanbul are surviving, and at the same time research the history of the Greeks who lived there”.
The discussion focused on whether the reactions of the people in front of the camera change once filming begins. “When the camera turns on, behavior does change”, noted Herbert Sveinbjornsson and added: “The most important thing is to tell your own truth through the film. If there are ten people in a story, you will find ten different stories and ten different truths. When I make a film, I know I am telling my own truth”. Taking her turn, Stephanie Argerich observed: “I found out that even if you know a person very well, as I know my mother, when you are looking at them through the camera lens you look at them differently, you discover things you had never noticed before”. Dieter Sauter agreed: “When you know the people in front of the camera really well, you can easily tell what is true and what is false of the things they are showing. But sometimes the hardest thing to do is to see reality as it is happening around you and not as you have constructed it in your mind”.
Ilya Chorafas developed a special relationship with his film’s protagonists. “When I was shooting the film I woke up very early and followed the stray dogs in the center of Athens for hours. In the beginning they looked at me strangely, but as the hours passed I understood that not only had they gotten used to me, but they also looked for me with their eyes to make sure I was following”, the director noted.
On the other hand, the band members of the film The Punk Syndrome were completely unaffected. The person who sometimes had a problem was the director himself, J-P Passi. “It is often difficult for a director to follow a person with a camera, to be so close to him. Sometimes you feel uncomfortable, shy. But the musicians had no problem at all”, the director said.
Director Laura Gamse (The Creators) joined the discussion from the audience. She wanted to know if the directors on the panel used tricks to guide the people they were filming. Most of the directors answered in the negative. “The method I use is to ask the people a lot of questions, but remain discreet as a presence, so that they gradually learn to ignore me”, Mr. Sveinbjornsson said. In turn, Dieter Sauter stressed: “there are no rules or tricks when you are filming a documentary. This is what makes the documentary so difficult but also so interesting”. Stephanie Argerich explained that a ploy she used when filming her sister was to look at an album of her personal mementoes. “This was the most painful moment of the film for me, as my sister had been abandoned by our parents when she was a child. It was difficult to tell her story and what I did in the film was remember how I came to learn her story, to dig up my own timeline, my reactions. In the end, when my sister saw the film she was touched, she liked it”.
Ms Argerich asked her colleagues how they deal with “negative” people or unpleasant subjects. J-P Passi noted that the person he chose for his first film was a horrible, though popular, radio show host. “I found that this man was unbelievably racist, sexist and confrontational. In order to approach him I told him I was interested in him as a controversial person”, he said. Then Ilya Chorafas noted: “in 2004, with the approach of the Olympic Games, the strays disappeared from Athens. There were rumors that they had been poisoned or euthanized. I wanted to also explore the side of the people who didn’t want dogs in the city, but no one wanted to admit to such a thing on camera. I finally found someone with a strong attitude against dogs, but I didn’t want to include him in the film. I understand that some people don’t want dogs in cities, but I didn’t want them to be represented by such a man, nor did I wish to give a voice to someone I didn’t respect”.
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.
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