JUST TALKING 13/3
This year’s first Just Talking session took place on Sunday, March 13, 2011 in the Excelsior lounge of the Electra Palace hotel. It focused on an eclectic mosaic of human stories from all over the world as they are recorded in films included in the 13th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Participating were directors Mona Nicoara (Our School), Sophia Tzavella (Paradise Hotel), Pedro Olalla (With Kalliyiannis), Eyal Sivan (Jaffa the Orange's Clockwork), Roy Sher (My Sweet Canary) and Jan Tenhaven (Autumn Gold).
At the beginning of the conversation, the Romanian director Mona Nicoara spoke about her film Our School, which she co-directed with Miruna Coca-Cozma. Because of the documentary, the filmmaker spent four years in a small town in Transylvania, following three children from the Roma community, who were participating in a special program to eliminate segregation in public schools. “I began making the film pushed by my worry about these children. As you can imagine, conditions were not the best, especially in financing the film. To give you an idea, we still haven’t received any money from any Romanian institution. The actual filming was special; we bonded with these children from the beginning, we all worked together very well and they understood our purpose. We explained to them that we wanted to help them, and they were very cooperative with us”, the director explained.
In the film Jaffa the Orange's Clockwork, the veteran Israeli documentary filmmaker Eyal Sivan tells the story of the famous Jaffa orange, through which he reveals the history of the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine. Speaking about the political tone of his documentary, he said: “I choose to tell such stories because I can’t separate my ideas from my films. My choices in subject matter are one and the same with my political ideology. And while many still speak very generally, or ask me about the meaning of objectivity, the truth is that there is no such thing. I believe we must be honest, or tell lies in a … true way”.
Jan Tenhaven, in his film Autumn Gold, deals with sensitivity and humor with a team of elderly athletes as they train for the world track and field championship. The director explained the reasons behind his choice of subject: “In the beginning I wanted to make a television reportage on the subject. However, when I really got into the story and got to know these people, I understood that this was something different. I realized that I had to get rid of the prejudices and stereotypes I had, as we all do, and focus on the people and the effort they made, in spite of their age and the obstacles they faced. My intention was not to make a sad film, but one with humor, in the sense that the audience would laugh with heroes and not at them”.
Sophia Tzavella’s film Paradise Hotel, is about a building that was a socialist paradise, with comforts that were enviable at the time, which was built 25 years ago in Bulgaria in an effort to integrate the Roma into a more conventional way of life. However, with the passage of time things changed and the building fell into decay. The director spoke about the making of the film: “Albert Camus said: in the middle of winter, I discovered within me an invisible summer. I think something similar happened to me, when I found myself in this decaying building with the Roma, while I was a reporter for Bulgarian television. Now that I have made the film, this feeling is even stranger, because this place no longer even exists. The building has been demolished and unfortunately I have lost the possibility of having contact with these people, at least most of them”.
In the documentary In the Company of Kalliyiannis, the Hellenist writer and photographer Pedro Olalla has crafted a cinematic portrait of the painter Manolis Kalloyiannis, who left his home in Lesvos at the age of 17 in order to volunteer in the British air force during World War II and traveled to various places with the dream of becoming a painter. The film, the artist’s last testament, evolved into a moving documentary on life itself. “It was a unique experience, given that I didn’t have a script. There was no fiction, but what I lived with Kalliyiannis what almost beyond even the documentary. He changed his attitude toward me after a while, after he had seen some edited material and understood what this was about. So he opened up and became this very interesting person you see in the film, who re-evaluates and re-defines his journey at the end of his life”, the director noted.
Another fascinating personality that of the diva of rebetica music Rosa Eskenazi, is drawn in the film My Sweet Canary by Israeli director Roy Sher. The director spoke passionately about the genesis of his film, which is an Israeli, French and Greek co-production, and marks his debut in the documentary genre. “I mortgaged my house in order to get a loan to make this film. I had no idea how much it would cost and of course I had no concept of film production, that is, how one finds the money and all the rest involved. But I was lucky and I succeeded, also thanks to the help I received from Greek institutions, something I never expected knowing the financial situation of your country”, the director noted.
During the discussion, the directors spoke about the influence the presence of the camera has on the subjects being filmed. “Even if a beautiful girl happens to sit next to us while we are speaking can make us change what we say, or the way we say it. We are all constantly influenced by outside forces, and not only that of the camera”, said Roy Sher. Mona Nicoara claimed that there is no one who can pretend for very long to be something he isn’t. “No one can be an actor for four years”, she declared, referring to her own heroes. Eyal Sivan in turn said that in his opinion “the power does not belong to the person who holds the camera, but to the one who chooses during editing what will be included in the film and what will not”.
