The Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, whose latest film On Soul and Body opened the 58th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, gave a Press Conference on Friday November 4, 2017, in the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography. This year’s festival edition hosts a tribute to the work of the awarded filmmaker.
The first to speak was TIFF’s director Orestis Andreadakis, who warmly welcomed Ildiko Enyedi thanking her for coming to Thessaloniki. He also noted how much himself and TIFF’s head of programming and press conference moderator Yorgos Krassakopoulos, were fascinated by the film On Body and Soul, after watching it in this year’s Berlinale, where it was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film. They did not think twice and decided in common that this particular film was the most appropriate to open this year’s TIFF edition, and immediately afterwards started planning a tribute to Enyedi’s work. Mr Andreadakis stressed that the film is totally compatible with the Festival’s style and spirit, and noted that it will be released in the Greek theatres on December 14, 2017, by Strada Films.
In her turn, Ildiko Enyedi talked about her grand comeback in cinema after a 17-year absence, a period during which she worked in Hungarian TV and other artistic projects, but not in the film industry. At first she used to compare her absence from cinema with the marginalization that a coal miner or a blue-collar worker feels when the mine or the factory they were working in closes and they experience a sense of total inertia. When she began shooting, though, and was suddenly asked to make 30 or 40 decisions on various issues daily, her dedication to the new project was absolute and the 17-year absence from the sets seemed long past.
Talking about how she concluded on the basic plot invention of the film On Body and Soul, Enyedi explained that the initial spark of inspiration came up ten years ago, and the central idea behind the film’s story is about the impact of spring in human psychology. "Spring, being a symbol of florescence and emitting a sense of new beginning, creates feelings of expectation and delight, which we very often have trouble expressing and sharing. On Body and Soul is a film on this so well-hidden area inside us, in which our hopes and dreams are nesting"», said the director.
Subsequently, when asked to comment on the central characters of her film, Enyedi explained that she tried to outline them with small signs and hints, not resorting to detailed analysis. “It was my fervent wish for the film to depict the characters in fragments and connotations, in parallel with real life. When two people meet for the first time, they discover each other little by little and not to a full extent”, she stressed.
The issue raised immediately afterwards was about the role of nature in Enyedi’s filmography, where various animals, as well as plants, acquire human attributes and play a crucial role in the plot. Enyedi said that in her last film she wanted to include elements of flora and fauna, but not in a plainly and forcefully dreamy allegorical way. She wanted to depict animals in their real dimensions, e.g. to be afraid of cold and hunters, to worry about finding food, and not in a supernatural and idealized way. In that regard, the film’s characters, resorting to dream and nature, are escaping a sterile reality, which alienates them from what life normally has to offer. As she pointed out: “In dreams it is practically impossible to raise walls of political correctness, since we cease to think consciously and we experience our feelings in their wholeness. This is why the night and dreams act as an unconscious shelter that we seek in order to break free”.
Moreover, Enyedi said that she wanted a quiet comeback to cinema, with no fuss and extravagant symbolisms. Something more like sneaking in through the back door and not swooping through the main entrance, demonstrating firm expressiveness on the one hand, but without having the form prevailing over the content. As to this, Yorgos Krassakopoulos said that her comeback, which was marked by the highest distinction in Berlinale, not only was not like sneaking in through the back door, but it rather broke down the main entrance. Enyedi smiled modestly after this compliment, and said that her career up to now, which is marked by countless ups and downs, taught her to be modest and grateful for having been found in such a lovely place as cinema. Commenting on her film’s distinctions, she made clear that awards are definitely a recognition and a boost for the strenuous effort of all contributors, but they are not an end in itself. The biggest gain for the director is the audience’s lavish generosity. “Besides, just watching the particular film is a de facto and ab initio testimony of the viewer’s generosity”, she stressed.
Afterwards, the director responded to audience questions. First she was asked whether Epicurean philosophy has influenced her work, especially as to the instrumental role played by nature, plants and animals in her films’ plot. The director said that the way all powers integrate into her work and influence it -not only Epicurus, but the ancient Greek philosophy and others as well- is very intricate. She also said that the greatest contribution of ancient Greek civilization is that its prominent representatives had the luxury, and the wisdom, to formulate in a highly solid and concrete way issues not pertaining to the obvious side of life. According to Enyedi, this very intricate procedure is one of the mechanisms that, even today, help us make steps forward and evolve.
Speaking about her future plans, Enyedi said she has two new films in the making. The first one will be about the awkward and incomplete way we are trying to live our lives, the way we show embarrassment and indecisiveness when we are to make crucial decisions about big dilemmas. It will be the first time that she adapts literary fiction for cinema, since the film will be based on the book The Story of My Wife, by the Hungarian novelist, playwright and poet Milán Füst. The second project she has in mind is again about nature, since the film’s main character is a tree, which makes script writing a huge challenge.
Finally, asked by the moderator, Enyedi talked about how David Bowie had been the executive producer in her film Magic Hunter (1994). Enyedi said that Bowie was fascinated by her debut My 20th Century (1989), and had asked to play a leading part in her second film, before ending up as the executive producer. Bowie had also proposed cooperation, with her assuming the role of art director for a show he was planning in India, but she declined again, since at the time she was eight months pregnant to her second son. Before being warmly applauded by all attendants in the press conference, Enyedi heartily thanked all members of the TIFF team for the tribute to her work, since as she noted, she was very well aware that it took heroic efforts to overcome all technical difficulties in order to collect and make use of her filmography material.
