The fifth Just Talking session took place on Thursday, March 15, 2012 at the Excelsior Room of the Electra Palace Hotel, in the framework of the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. In the discussion participated the directors Ruya Arzu Koksal (A Few Brave People), Michel Wenzer (At Night I Fly), Micha X. Peled (Bitter Seeds), Julia Ivanova (Family Portrait in Black and White), Tony Asimakopoulos (Fortunate Son), Elisavet Laloudaki and Massimo Pizzocaro (Perah Istar) and Danae Stylianou (Sharing an Island).
The topics under discussion included the political purpose sometimes found in documentary films and the filmmakers’ relationships with their documentaries’ characters. Initially, the directors briefly presented their film topics. Danae Stylianou characterized her documentary, Sharing an Island, as being a ‘Cohabitation Experiment’. The documentary follows three Greek-Cypriot and three Turkish-Cypriot young people who meet for the very first time and share the same house for five days, traveling across the divided island of Cyprus. “The film is about the way the new generation of Cyprus, at both its sides, faces the Cypriot problem and about their thoughts of the future. We follow these young people’s journey as well as their relationship’s progress and their emotions during this five-day period”, explained the director.
The documentary A Few Brave People, by Ruya Arzu Koksal is shot at the Black Sea region. It chronicles the struggle of the locals to protect their homeland against governmental interference –i.e. selling their rivers to private companies- that aims at the country’s energy self-sufficiency. “It took us three years to complete the film and we are not finished yet, nor has these people’s struggle come to an end”, said the director.
Julia Ivanova, speaking about her documentary Family Portrait in Black and White, explained: “The film is about a non-typical family that consists of 17 black adopted teenagers and their foster Ukrainian mother. The film shows us various aspects of their lives and the society they live in. In a way it is a family drama and, at the same time, a reflection on racism and accepting others as they are”. Family bonds prevail in Tony Asimakopoulos’ autobiographic documentary Fortunate Son too. “It is a story about love, a portrait of my family and my parents”, stated the director.
Michel Wenzer’s film At Night I Fly moves on a whole different topic, but just as human-centered. The film presents the daily life of a group of prisoners held in the maximum security state prison of New Folsom in California. “It took me 10 years to finish the film. I’d say it is about art as surviving technique”, underlined the director. On the other hand, the leading-hero in the film Perah Istar by Elisavet Laloudaki and Massimo Pizzocaro is cities’ most common found animal, the pigeon, as well as “its relation to humans inside the urban environment”, explained Mr. Pizzocaro. “We came across interesting pigeon stories that led us to find out what has happened to the city’s fauna ‘king’”, added Mrs. Laloudaki.
The director Micha X. Peled narrated, in his turn, the way the idea for his documentary Bitter Seeds came up: “Six years ago, I was attending the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival with my previous film, when an Indian director approached me and informed me that in India one farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes. I thought she was exaggerating until I found out that it was true. I then travelled in an Indian village and focused my camera on a farmer that matched the demographic data with the ones that commit suicide. I observed him in order to understand the reason for this humanitarian crisis”.
Mr. Peled, referring to the political dimension of the documentary, said: “I am not comfortable with this label. I don’t mean to tutor the spectator through my film. Above all, I am a narrator, even though a hint of criticism is, indeed, built in the film, as it deals, among other topics, with that of mutated seeds”. The director mentioned that he currently managed to receive financing and with the help of an NGO would further promote the documentary and in that sense, the film has a political dimension. “My dream is for the film to travel across India’s villages so that the farmers watch it and I get to record their reactions. I’m interested in finding out whether they find it authentic and real and what they think about the crisis they live in”, he explained.
Mrs. Stylianou, speaking on the same topic, commented: “My film is political due to its specific subject. My intention, however, wasn’t to support a certain political side, but to make a proposal that could guarantee safe living-conditions in Cyprus”. In connection to the altering frame when a film is screened in a festival, the director noticed that she might have to make a second version of the film that would address a more international audience, not so close to the history of Cyprus.
“I didn’t mean to create propaganda with my film. I wanted to inform the audience of a common ongoing battle in many parts of the world”, said Mr. Koksal. On the contrary, Mrs. Ivanova underlined: “Coming from a former soviet regime, I grew up in propaganda and I know how one turns a blind ear when it comes to propaganda. However, I believe that every film is propaganda, partially, but we hide it. It depends on how you do it: you choose a family, a special story, a charismatic and complex person and so on, in order to trigger the audience’s compassion and interest. You put in the story the things you desire to tell, tricking the viewer”.
Tony Asimakopoulos had only filmed fiction movies until making his documentary Fortunate Son. He referred to his experience of being one of his film’s characters and said: “I wasn’t supposed to star in the film, at first, as I wanted to simply focus on the way my parents dealt with my drug addiction, years ago”.
Mr. Pizzocaro spoke about filming material they gathered for their film and explained: “It didn’t take us long. You can simply stand where pigeons are and observe them. The material you’ll gather will be very interesting. It’s just that we’re not used to pay attention to them”. Mrs. Laloudaki added: “Our wish was to look into the topic and discover stories that would vary between love and hate towards pigeons”, and she also underlined the special relation between pigeons and lonely and poor people: “Feeding them fills them with a sensation of social achievement”.
Finally, Michel Wenzer spoke about his relation to his film’s characters, and the special conditions during his documentary’s shooting. “My reaction is the same both towards propaganda and towards oversimplifying a topic, making it look like being cut out for me in particular. I didn’t want to do this in my film. I simply wanted to explore the prison environment in relation to the prisoners’ emotional lives. Usually, we tend to seek confirmation for the images we already have them in our heads. For that reason, the first time I went at the prison I just wanted to listen. I was interested in the prisoners’ perspective of things. I didn’t mean to simply present the aspects we find easy to accept. I also wanted to show the ones we’re not used to relate to”.
