WomenCinemakers, Special Edition, Vol.32 by WomenCinemakers

w o m e n HSING YING TSENG KIRSTEN BURGER BETSY REDELMAN CAREY RYAN MARIE FAGES BRITTANY SAMSON MAREESA STERTZ NARIN SHECH RITA FERRANDO MEG SUTTON VALIA PHYLLIS ZWART

INDEPENDENT

WOMENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CINEMA

INDEPENDENT Valia Phyllis Zwart

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Contents 04 Valia Phyllis Zwart

122 Marie Fages

You've made your bed, now lie in it

White Tides

146

Meg Sutton

Carey Ryan

L.A. Fadeaway

Empathy is the Devil

178

Rita Ferrando

Betsy Redelman

200

Naric Shech

Kirsten Burger

Midnights

Mujeres del Barro Rojo

The White Room

The Great Fortune

100

228

Brittany Samson & Mareesa Stertz

Hsing-Ying Tseng

Leaves

The Old Street

Women Cinemakers meets

Valia Phyllis Zwart Lives and works in Oslo, Norway

Aksel is renowned for his ability to predict the future, and suddenly he gets a vision – the elderly farmer Knut will die in three days. When he tells Knut this, the old man initiates a mission to save the farm from falling into the hands of his annoying brother. Even though he’s going to be six feet under in three days, he’s not going down without a fight.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Valia and welcome to WomenCinemakers: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to ask you a couple of questions about your background: you started your career in the theatre as a performer, director and producer: how did these experiences direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Could you tell us your biggest influence and how did they affect your work? I got my start as a performer in small Theatre group in my hometown Athens in Greece and later in London.

Those years in London have been the greatest influence in my life. Not only because I was lucky to be taught by the latest Sam Kogan and the Science of Acting, but also because of the fact that I was watching Theatre in one of the most culturally vibrant cities in the world. I got myself familial with both world classic plays and new writing and got to the habit of chasing great stories and characters. But it wasn’t until I started my training as a director that I learnt that is not just about telling a story but it is the way a story is told that engages emotionally and intellectually the audience. And I was lucky around that period to watch Platonov (Anton Chekhov) from Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg at Barbican Theatre. And although I was familiar with the play it was the first time that I watched realism created in a surreal

Women Cinemakers world and where the music, set, gymnastics and even a real firework display added up to superb evening of entertainment at the Barbican. However, the highlight of that night were the unforgettable performances that made me defined Art and without denying the importance of stage directing as the process of creating the totality of artistic ideas it became clear that good directing can be seen only through good acting. I moved slowly into stage and later film producing as a personal need to have the freedom of choice regarding the material and the wholeness of the artistic idea. That gave me the opportunity to work with different creatives on early steps of filmmaking in order to form interesting and truthful stories and characters. The aim has always been to understand ourselves through Art and that I think can be achieved be finding out how characters live and behave as unobserved. It is like watching life through a keyhole. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we , have selected a captivating short film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. When walking our readers through the genesis of You've made your bed, now lie in it, Could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? The original concept of the film is based on a true story from a small rural village in the middle of the harsh landscape of West of Norway. In real life a farmer destroyed his farm so as to not leave anything for his

A still from You've made your bed, now lie in it

brothers to inherit. This ultimate goal can be seen as egoistic, narcissistic and selfish. This “negative” drive is the essence of the film and this is what I set out to capture. The character of Knut is embedded with a certain attitude from the Norwegian culture that Norwegians wouldn’t necessary want to be associated with: the importance of ownership above intimate relationships. That is the essence of the story and that is what attracted me in the first place to make “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it”.

Elegantly shot, features stunning cinematography by PĂĽl Ulvik Rokseth: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? was shot on Arri Alexa with anamorphic lenses because what we initially were looking for was a cinematic look and feel. By using widescreen cinema standard as a canvas,

allowed us to paint as much information and detail as possible on the screen for the audience to enjoy. This choice was made because in a short you don't have time to tell the characters back-story. Therefore we wanted to add as much visual information about the life of the character and the life on the farm in the visuals. It is a very negative story if you look at the core of it. And I decided along with PĂĽl, the production designer and the director that we wanted to add fantastic

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elements in the visuals. We created a "heightened reality" to create a dynamic visual language. In other words we "sugarcoated the picture" with humor and impressive shots to keep the audience interested throughout. If the story became too dark then it would just leave the audience feeling depressed and angry. And we didn't want to do that. The worst thing you can do to an audience is to waste their time. They are watching your film to be surprised

and discover new elements about life or themselves. And it is our job to deliver it to them. Therefore we wanted a quick pace and not dwell too much about the fact that this guy has three days to live. Instead we focus on what the characters choices are within the circumstances. In your film you leave the floor to your characters, finding an effective way to walk the viewers to develop an emotional bridge between their own

Women Cinemakers We shot on location that was close to where this story actually happened, so in terms of rehearsals for actors that was really inspiring because we had a lot of information about surroundings and the background of the main character. So the rehearsal time was really efficient and fruitful. In terms of casting, Vidar (the neighbor) and Aksel (the psychic) were played by non-actors. Sverre Horge who plays Knut was the only professional actor in this film. When we were casting we wanted to find actors who were as close to the characters in the script. The man who plays Aksel, is in real life the major of the rural town in West of Norway where the story takes place. As a major he already has the respect of the people of the village and he brings a certain authority with him wherever he goes. So does Aksel. He is respected and his words are solid.

inner spheres and the characters of Aksel and Knuth and Vidar: what was the preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your shooting process? This film is based on a true story with some additional fictional elements such as the character of Vidar (the neighbor), the character of Aksel (the psychic) and his vision of Knutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s death.

With its brilliantly structured storytelling, imparts unparalleled psychological intensity to the narration, to unveil an ever shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way your film gives to the viewers the sense they are watching excerpts from real life: would you tell how did you develop the structure of your film in order to achieve such moving authenticity? Moreover, how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories that you tell in your films?

A still from You've made your bed, now lie in it

Women Cinemakers

A still from You've made your bed, now lie in it

Throughout the writing process of we were trying to find the best way to deliver the bad news to Knut. Who is the person who gives the news to Knut? It took fifteen drafts and countless rejections from the film institutes before we

landed on the choice of Aksel. In the beginning we had a scene at the doctorÂ´s office, and KnutÂ´s son. We played with different kind of choices. We brought Thomas Solli (scriptwriter) into the project to rewrite the script. After couple of more drafts, he came up with the idea of a

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psychic to deliver the news. We thought that the supernatural element of a psychic would work well in the village world. We never wanted to look down on the job or role of psychic or ruin creditability but instead create fiction and humor.

In terms of structure there was always a twist at the end. In earlier drafts we had Knut actually dying in an accident in ACT III so the inevitable happened but in a funny unexpected way. But then Thomas gave the twist to the character of Aksel. He was the one who had a

fault vision. That was fun to contemplate: what if Aksel was wrong, when he has always been right? Our logic was that Vidar, the neighbor, shared the same address so therefore it was easy to deliver the wrong message. We thought that was funny at the time and it was great to see it with an audience and getting laughs. That was a huge relief, because it was a bold choice and we were afraid of offending people who do believe in psychic. I live in Oslo and we have eight months of winter. That means it is very little sunlight available through those months. The darkness surrounds me on all sides so it is natural that it affects me the way I see things in my work. I think environment effects all filmmakers. You draw inspiration from your surroundings. That is why it is important to travel and experience new environments and cultures. Especially when you are looking to make a film about an environment that is not familiar to you as a filmmaker. I also think the humor always has a dark element to it. In a sense all the best jokes are about human failure and stupidity. We like the way you created entire scenarios out of psychologically charged moments: what are you hoping will trigger in the audience? What I was hoping for with this film is to create more empathy in the world. To stop for a moment and think if what we prioritize in life makes us fulfilled. If ownership is really worth more than the people around you and what the consequences in relationships might be when you only focus on yourself.

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from You've made your bed, now lie in it

Women Cinemakers

interview

Women Cinemakers It is important to be sensitive about the world around you because this is Knutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s downfall. He doesn't share his problems with anybody, not even with his brother. He doesn't even want to share his booze with his neighbor, booze that he will never be able to enjoy anymore since he is dying. He has a mentality what is mine is mine and nobody will take it from me and that makes him a very self-centered person which leads to a certain consequences. These thoughts brought us to the title of the film . Featuring compelling narrative drive Y leaps off the screen for its essential still effective mise-en-scĂŠne: how would you characterize your cinematographic style? For me cinema is about transporting the audience into a different world. I am a big fan of naturalistic cinema (Dogma movement) but for this story we wanted to transport people into West of Norway and into this village by using a fantastic story. I wanted cinematography to be beautiful because we as filmmakers choose what we want the audience to see. But mixing it with realistic elements, meaning that the beauty of it lies in the character and the story and not so much the nature surrounding them is what really appeals to me. The nature in West of Norway is stunning. If we decided to do big establishing shots throughout the film then the audience would only

Women Cinemakers think about the beauty of the nature, so we made a conscious decision to avoid looking at the mountains and end up with postcard shots. We made it dirty and gritty. Because these are the surroundings for the character of Knut and how he sees the world. So in a sense we chose to make it less beautiful in order to tell the story. This also dictated to amount of film grain to the choice of the colour palette. You've made your bed, now lie in it has drawn heavily from the specifics of its ambience and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such powerful resonance between the qualities of the indoor locations and the intimate atmosphere that floats around the story: how did you select the locations and how did they influence your shooting process? Our biggest challenge was to find the Interior house location since we needed a house that we could fill with water. And people where laughing at me when I explained that we wanted to fill a house with water in a short film with very little money. I budgeted building a set in a studio but it was way to costly. After many rounds of funding rejections from the main film institutes and with a basic local funding in place, I decided to go ahead and make this film. Our production designer knew somebody in the fire department. One day we got a phone call that a house was found and we had two weeks to complete the shooting before the house gets demolished. So we had very little time to put the film together. That phone call

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was the push we needed to make the film. We dressed the interior of the house with Knutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s furnitureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and we made it exactly how we wanted to. Although the story takes place in West of Norway, the actual house was an hour outside of Oslo. So we shot the interior and drove five hours and shot the exterior shots in one day in West of Norway, 350

kilometers away. But by planning each shot, and finding out where the light was coming from in certain places of the script, we managed to put the film together.

an old and alcoholic loner (not far from Knutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life). It really helped actors and crew to understand Knutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world in real sense.

By choosing a real location that you can tear down helped a lot to give the authenticity of the film as originally planned. It influences the final product in a very positive way. Because inside that old house was cold and damp with full of weird smells from the previous owner,

Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been dĂŠcourage from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there

Women Cinemakers

A still from You've made your bed, now lie in it

are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? It is very positive that more and more women are part of the industry and that is great because women do see the world in a bit different way than men. In a sense it should never matter if you are a woman or a man provided you

have the right skills that required for the job. I enjoy the fact that especially in Norway we have made a great progress encouraging women in the industry and I enjoy very much to work in an environment surrounded not only by women directors and producers but also women cinematographers, gaffers, sound designers, ADs, etc.It has been a challenge for the women throughout the years, who have the skills to be part of the industry.

Women Cinemakers on Women in the Film and Television industry. By creating a network for women in the industry, educating them and promoting their work is a step closer to help them find collaborators and perhaps having their projects financed. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Valia. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I enjoy short films and I really love to keep fining great and entertaining stories. One of them is based on a story of a fisher woman in a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dominated profession. However, my main focus is on my first feature film that I am looking forward to finance and shoot within 2019. The film is again based on true events and the story is told from a womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective within the agriculture industry. As I mentioned so far, the importance in making films is to understand life and ourselves both as women and men. Somehow they had to prove themselves that they are as capable as men for the same job and surely eligible for the same pay rate. And it has been a big challenge for women to balance their careers in this demanding industry with motherhood and partnership in what was set up to be so far a Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world. , in Many organizations included different countries were launched the last years that focus

There are great stories out there that deserve to be told and I hope that I will keep evolving as a filmmaker so as to transfer these stories into Films.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Meg Sutton Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Drew's a young female musician working at a local music venue in 1970s Los Angeles. When she books her idol, Marcie, a sultry blues singer, to come play at the venue, her expectation of what opportunities this will bring clash with her budding relationship with Marcie's boyfriend, Reid. She finds herself up against an industry of sellouts, heartbreak and disillusionment with what she initially admired about these successful musicians. Drew has to find the confidence to pursue her aspirations on her own and prove that talent speaks louder than noise. Meg is a Los Angeles based writer-director from Norwalk, Connecticut. She got her start in writing and directing with a handful of shorts during her undergraduate career at Bentley University in Boston, where she earned degrees in both Marketing and Media Arts. She then worked as a content marketing writer & editor before attending Chapman University in California where she earned her MFA in Directing. Her award-winning thesis film, L.A. Fadeaway, has screened at over 20 festivals around the world.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Meg and welcome to : to start this interview we would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to ask you a

couple of questions about your background: are there any particular experience that did particularly direct your evolution as a filmmaker? Could you tell us your biggest influence and how did they affect your work? When I was younger I had this tiny television, (small enough for my eight year old self to pick up, carry around, and plug into different rooms around the house), with a VHS player in my bedroom. I used to cycle through my very small collection of VHS tapes

Women Cinemakers on repeat every night - unless it was the weekend which meant a trip to Video Plaza, my towns momand-pop version of Blockbuster. It was around then most likely, after watching Big Daddy 157 times on that VHS player, that I maybe started to subconsciously get a basic feel for story and character. It was in high school when my sophomore year English teacher told me I could write. This seemed like a revelation to me at the time, since I’ve always ridden the imposter syndrome train pretty hard - which is something I deal with in L.A. Fadeaway. I’ve always just been drawn to the high of creating something new out of nothing - the concept of turning your thoughts into something other people can experience. I take inspiration from a lot of things; artists, books, movies, photography. When it comes to film, there’s a lot of filmmakers I find influence in for many different reasons. It’s hard to pick just one overall. For this film in particular, though, Andrea Arnold was a big influence. She has an ability to act on pure emotion and tell stories from the inside out especially stories about young women. For this special edition of we have selected , a captivating film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. While walking our readers through the genesis of , Could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story?

A still from L.A. Fadeaway L.A. Fadeaway was my thesis film that I wrote and directed as my capstone for my MFA. I wanted to write a femaledriven, self-discovery film that sort of encapsulated my experience in the film industry so far. There are many themes in the film, the most obvious being the struggle many people, specifically artists, have between total self deprecation and feeling like everything you do is terrible

and then feeling like hey, maybe this is pretty good. I feel like it’s an often a fine line with self-confidence and a lot of creatives tend to lean towards the selfdepreciating side. The most important theme, especially for me, is how this plays into female artists and how women see themselves. There’s this sort of standard women feel like they have to meet. Not even

just for artists, but women in general. In order to be seen as equal they need to be the best. We’re made to feel like we’re not allowed to do specific things or like we need to act a certain way. I had a professor once who told me I don’t need to worry about learning how to shoot horror or action because that’s “guy stuff,” and another say that I did a

A still from L.A. Fadeaway great job directing, but wouldn’t be hired back in real world because I didn’t smile at him enough during production. And these we’re the people I was supposed to be learning from.

songs, Reid is still too scared to do anything no his

In the film there’s this concept of false idols preying on this lack of confidence, even when they have no true merit themselves. Marcie doesn’t write her own

I think this is especially relevant in the age of social

own. I’ve had plenty of eye opening experiences of meeting people in the industry I looked up to and finding out they aren’t who I thought they were. And media and Instagram, which is such a great platform for artists to share work, but at least in the

Women Cinemakers through, which is discouraging I think for a lot of people starting out trying to find their own groove and not always realizing everyone’s on their own journey. I think this concept is true for social media in general and I’m attracted to this theme of people hiding behind some sort of unrealistic fiction versus just being themselves.

filmmaking space seems to be some sort of competition for followers and “Instafame.” I respect artists a lot who just focus on practicing their craft instead of getting likes and striving for immediate approval and Instagram followers. It’s easy to hide behind posting your best work and not all the heartbreak and downfalls that everyone goes

I chose 1977 as the setting for the film because it was a year when music was going crazy. Rock and roll had new competition with punk and disco and there was so much going on it for a single musician to find their voice and stay true to themselves. I wanted it to add to how much of a tumultuous time was is for Drew. I snuck in the comparison of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham to sort of symbolize the off relationship between Marcie and Reid. I wanted to keep it as personal as possible and I think present day texting and social media takes away from that. And I wanted to show how little things have changed industry wise since then. I used the title to explore this too, based on the 1982 song West L.A. Fadeaway by the Grateful Dead. A lot of people theorize this song to be about John Belushi’s overdose at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. A sort of ode to the demise of great talent when thrown into the disillusionment and pressure of the entertainment industry. And all the pitfalls in this industry are still alive and well in 2018. features stunning Elegantly shot, cinematography by Hao Yu: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens?

Women Cinemakers I shot 90% of the movie handheld and then in mostly tighter shots to make it as personal to the main character Drew as possible. The camera molded to the characters, not the other way around. We kept the camera at her height most of the time to keep the story in her perspective. Since this was my master’s thesis project, we we’re lucky enough to get our camera and lenses from my school. We shot on an ALEXA Classic and used ZEISS Ultra Primes with filters, a lot of haze, and a lot of soft light to recreate a softer Polaroid, vintage look. It was a lot about creating a feeling as much as a look. We decided to stay on the 35mm and 50mm to keep the camera as human as possible, so the audience felt more in touch with Drew and what she was experiencing. In your film you leave the floor to your characters, finding an effective way to walk the viewers to develop an emotional bridge between their own inner spheres and the character of Drew: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticolously schedule every details of your shooting process?

A still from L.A. Fadeaway out how to shoot it on sight with whatever felt most natural. I never really had a shotlist, just an idea of

It always depends on the project, but I usually prefer spontaneity. I definitely let this happen on this film because it’s such a personal, character driven story. We didn’t have a ton of time for rehearsal. I did do a table read with the cast, but on set I let the actors mostly block things out themselves and then figured

the feeling and moments I wanted to capture in each scene. Shooting handheld obviously made this much easier. I let the cast play with the dialogue a bit and had them change things up during takes to get what felt most natural in the moment. I wanted

things to feel as real as possible - almost like the viewer was part of the conversation. With its brilliantly structured storytelling imparts unparalleled psychological intensity to the narration, to unveil an ever shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way your film gives to the viewers the sense they

are watching excerpts from real life: would you tell how did you develop the script and the structure of your film in order to achieve such moving autenticity? Since this was a sort film, I focused on furthering her personal journey and relationships as quickly as possible without sacrificing authentic moments and

A still from L.A. Fadeaway necessary conversations that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re needed to move the

fear, loss. Things that everyone can relate to, not just

story forward. I went through about 18 drafts for an 18

musicians.

minute film, making sure Drewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s highs and lows were relatable to real life experiences. I focused a lot on the

We like the way you created entire scenarious out

dialogue and pulled from my personal experiences, as

of psychologically charged moments: what are you

well as other stories I had heard firsthand, to try and

hoping

create the most human moments - disappointment,

A still from

will trigger in the audience?

Women Cinemakers doesn’t have the courage to step into his own. You can’t be satisfied forever coat tailing someone else or living in fear. I hope the audience takes away that no one is going to make things happen for you and just going for what you want can be so life changing. I hope people take away that “success” or fame shouldn’t determine how people are treated or viewed. Over the years you works have been internationally screened in several occasions: how much importance has for you the feedback that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience?

I hope they can see themselves in Drew, and their past selves in Reid, who to me is even more stuck. He’s the saddest character in the film. He faced Drew’s problem 20 years ago and in his own way is still too paralyzed with fear to be who he wants to be. He’s stuck in a band he’s background noise in, and in a relationship that’s going nowhere, but

I love being asked questions that haven’t been asked before during Q&A’s at festivals. Since L.A. Fadeaway poses this artistry vs. fame question, I was asked recently if I think something (films, music, books) is still art if it’s mainstream and whether I thought it was more important to be an “artist” or be “successful.” Though I do think any artist should be creating on their own terms regardless of sales or fame, I definitely think there’s commercial films and mainstream musicians that are pushing boundaries and have their own unique voice. I admire and support artists who do it because they love it, but if you can also pay the bills with it on top of that, more power to you. I love the discussions and hearing different perceptions of the film. It’s always great getting to share it with new audiences - and gives me a chance to gauge reactions of what works and what I need to improve upon in the future.

Women Cinemakers As you have remarked once, is a collective effort between yourselves and a requirement to graduate and earn your master’s: how do you consider the collaborative nature of your filmmaking practice? In particular, can you explain how a work of art demonstrates communication between several creative minds? I had a great experience working with other students in my graduate program. I formed a lot of great relationships - working & personal - and still work with people I graduated with pretty consistently. A lot of them are my close friends and I was lucky to have them on this project. I’m very open to new ideas. If actors come to me with something better and it works for the script and the space, I let them go for it. Movies are never just a one person game and I always do my best to hear everyone out. A lot of decisions were made together between myself and the cast on set. I always want to make sure they feel safe and informed, especially since we had a few intimate scenes. It’s always interesting what other crew members bring to the table, especially with this film since I had a very clear idea of what I wanted aesthetically. But, on a student budget it isn’t always possible - even more so when you’re making a period piece. I communicated heavily with my producer, DP, sound designer, and production designer from the very beginning so we we’re always all on the same page.

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Women Cinemakers When roadblocks came up and something didn’t go as planned, everyone was able to able to come up with solutions and suggestions to things I wouldn’t have thought of or been able to do on my own whether it was locations, music, not getting the equipment we needed or finding 70s decor on a shoestring budget. The film wouldn’t be the same without all the minds that went into making it. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? It feels so good to be a part of this diversity movement in the film industry. A shift is happening and I think it will only continue to grow, inspire more women & young girls, and change how things have been done for so long. Having the majority of content directed by straight white guys is not only unfair, but dangerous. It’s deeper than not having enough directing positions for women and diverse voices. It goes down all the way to letting people be influenced by directors who interpret them, not who understand them. This creates false idols in damsels in distress and body issues with male gaze, to name a

few. I think it’s definitely harder for women to break in to the film scene and get green lit with such a patriarchal system and limited mindset, though we are now chipping away at it. You can’t become what you can’t see. We need female filmmakers to help bring real stories to life so we can empower real people to embrace who they are, not who they are interpreted to be. And these women filmmakers are out there. I hope to continue to help represent the female perspective and inspire others to do the same. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Meg. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I’m working on a couple scripts now, both female driven stories that deeper explore some of the themes I touched on in L.A. Fadeaway. I try to write as often as possible and am constantly consistently coming up with new ideas for different types of projects. I’ve also been shooting music videos recently, which has been a blast. It’s a fun way to stay in the director’s chair since it’s often difficult and timely (and costly) to get films off the ground. I’m open to any sort of visual storytelling and representing a female voice wherever I can - be it narrative, documentary or advertising work. I just want to keep telling stories. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

interview

Women Cinemakers

Women Cinemakers meets

Rita Ferrando Lives and works in Toronto, Canada

Ada and Isak are in love, but things begin to shift when Isak develops a hatred for Ada’s birthmark. Isak cannot reconcile his vision of Ada, becoming obsessed with returning Ada to her “true image”.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Midnights is a captivating short film by director Rita Ferrando: shot with elegance and inventiveness, her film offers an emotionally complex visual experience, demonstrating the ability to capture the subtle depths of emotions, addressing the viewers through a surreal journey, to explore the the epiphanic journey of the characters of Ada and Isak: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Ferrando's stimulating artistic production. Hello Rita and welcome to WomenCinemakers. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would like to ask you some questions about your background: are there any

experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as a filmmaker and as a creative, in general? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Thank you so much for having me be a part of this biennial edition, I’m very excited to be part of such a thoughtful issue. The experiences that most influence my practice are often from my youth and a lot of the themes I explore relate to ‘obsessions’ that have circulated in my mind for several years. Over time, I have begun to notice these patterns or “creative threads” and how they relate to what I am currently working on. I find that my creative process is set up in the milieu that I make for myself, my room has to be a sort of

Photo by Lauren Armstrong

sanctuary. A lot of my writing process involves returning to when I was young, I think I was my most creative self when I was a child. At this nascent time, there’s an ability to be intuitive with your creative sensibilities – thoughts and poetry appear in an effortless and lyrical way. So much of my practice is returning to that state of mind. One of my favourite feelings is when I can’t remember if a past memory is a dream or a film I’ve seen. This happens to me a lot. My parents had me watch a lot of films when I was a child and I think that, over time, my subconscious melded them into the realities of my daily life. Nowadays, I might be watching an old film and I can’t remember if I’ve seen it or if it was something I dreamed up when I was younger. You are a versatile artist and your practice is marked out with such stimulating multidisciplinary feature, that allows you to range from film, photography and video installations: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit https://ritaferrando.com in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select a medium in order to explore a particular theme? Working in a multidisciplinary form is relatively new to me, it’s a direction I’ve decided to move in after graduating from film school. I think it’s quite a natural transition because I’ve always been interested in the multiplicity of film as a medium and I think that, after four years in school,

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Women Cinemakers you can really get caught up in the technical realities of filmmaking. After graduating I needed to revisit my relationship to film and shake off a lot of the systems used to teach cinema. My process of selecting mediums is driven by the kind of work I want to produce. Experimental film or projected installations allow me a level of freedom that has eluded me in actual filmmaking – it forms a more impersonal form of viewership. Moreover, creating a piece for a projection or an installation feels more immediate. Installation work is often a solitary practice, whereas film is a collective art form. Making a film feels like passing off pieces of yourself, sometimes those pieces become more interesting, or, sometimes they become more diluted. The immediacy of installations feels more graphic and expressionistic, it feels like an opportunity to focus on a detail rather than the enormity of a feature or short film. With an installation I can pick a detail from a narrative film and expand on it, experiment with it and understand the multiple forms it can take. I find that I don’t have the time to explore this in a narrative film. If I have a formal concept I want to work on, I’ll often approach it from an installation viewpoint. Perhaps I want to showcase one scene or I want to alter the materiality of the projection. If I’m making a film, it’s scope is infinite but with an installation I can pick a detail from a film and expand on it. A projection often feels more detailed and concise than an entire film. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected Midnights, a captivating experimental short film

that our readers have already started to get to know

When I was writing

in the introductory pages of this article and that can

producer Solange Desrochers I was reading a great

be viewed at https://vimeo.com/241978073. What

deal of gothic fiction, gothic romance in particular. This

has at once impressed us with your insightful

led me to think about genre filmmaking and how that

exploration of the shifting relationship between life

would influence my approach to

and death is the way it rejects any conventional

started writing the script, I had particular locations in

form, to walk the viewers through a multilayered

mind. I like attaching myself to a space so I can imagine

and clichĂŠ free narrative. While walking our readers

specific shots and scenes. I imagined a Victorian house

through the genesis of Midnights, could you tell us

in the middle of a tundra with a young couple trapped

how did you develop the initial idea?

inside. Overtime the woman would try and leave but

along with my wonderful

. When I

the house would shut her inside, the forces of a storm would leave her without resources. The story was loosely inspired by Nathaniel , a typical short story of the Hawthorne's time discussing the limitations of science, religion and the gender dynamics. When I read it, I thought it was ripe for a retelling from the perspective of a female character. The genders portrayed in Hawthorne’s story – the male’s sense of entitlement and females sense of self

sacrifice and naiveté – were issues retold a hundred times over in gothic literature. Women were often captives, portrayed either as self-sacrificing ingénues or depraved and hysterical outsiders. The film reimagines these tropes within a new fictional world to dissect and analyze them. I wanted the film to be a reading of the toxic relationship within the short story, as well as an analysis of the psychology behind abusive relationships. The film discloses what it’s like to live with someone who

wants to destroy you- without showing any actual violence. The actual narrative structure of this film itself is based on the concept of memory and how trauma affects memory. Featuring compelling narrative drive Midnights leaps off the screen for its seductive beauty: elegantly shot, your film features stunning cinematography by Sebastian Back and a keen eye for details. What were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens and how would you characterize your cinematographic style? Thank you so much, that is so lovely to hear. had a very strong visual style in mind when we set out to make it. We wanted to blend the time frame, which was achieved through the camera work and set decoration. You’re never sure of the time period as it is set in some semi-distant future. Sebastian Back was one of my closest collaborators on the film. I really love working with them because they are a cinematographer that is intensely invested in the story. Sebastian was involved in giving feedback during the writing process and helped build the narrative we were trying to tell. This made it so much easier for us to communicate on set. There was almost a shorthand between us. We had shared insight into the characters’ psychologies and collectively imagined how the scenes cut together. I knew that I wanted the film to be composed of still frames, except for a few key moving shots. I was very inspired by Vilhelm Hammershøi’s paintings and we tried

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to recreate his colour palette in the film (muted greys and lilacs). Like Hammershøi, we created soft frames with great distances in depth, often framing images within a preexisting frame. I’m a period piece fanatic and I think a . Jane Campion’s r, lot of that shows in Pavel Pavlekowski’s , Liv Ullmann’s were all inspirations for the film. We shot on an Arri Amira with Zeiss Lenses. The Amira was a dream camera and I would certainly shoot on it again. We chose vintage prime Zeiss lenses that had quite a soft, dreamy quality. I feel like was shot in a highly constructed way, which is a direction I’m now moving away from. I’m looking forward to working in a more improvised form for my next work. We like the way your sapient camera work and effective close-ups created entire scenarios out of psychologically charged moments: in Midnights you demonstrate the ability to structure the tension between perception and subjectivity to develop an emotional bridge between the viewers and the characters of Ada and Isak: what was your preparation with performers in terms of rehearsal? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticulously schedule every details of your shooting process? How much importance does play improvisation in your practice? Rehearsals are perhaps one of my favourite parts of the filmmaking process. Working with Erik Mrakovcic and Melissa Wright was such a joy. They are both profoundly

beautiful people who have genuine love for collaboration. The ability to work with them on this project made the film so enjoyable. I’m a big proponent of the notion that the ambience created on set truly reflects the work produced. As a director, it’s essential for me to create a space for there to be a genuine creative energy, mutual respect and trust. we did a lot of During the rehearsals for improvisation. Alongside Erik and Melissa we worked on creating scenes extraneous to the script in order to elaborate on the characters and their relationship. We went through the early stages of their relationship all the way until its very end. In this way, we created improvised vignettes for them to create a was quite base for their characters. Unfortunately, tightly scheduled so we didn’t have that much time to explore improvisation on set but it is certainly something I want to do on my next film. Marked with captivating minimalistic quality, the soundtrack by Kaiya Cade provides the footage of Midnights with such enigmatic and a bit unsettling atmosphere: how do you consider the role of sound within your practice and how did you structure the relationship between sound and moving images? I have been following Kaiya’s career for quite some time and her music has always moved me very deeply. She’s a phenomenal poet and lyricist. When I approached Kaiya to , we talked in great length about the work on scoring story and our musical inspirations. It was an incredible experience creating the score together. Kaiya’s background in musical theory and history – she is currently completing a

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Women Cinemakers Masters degree in Musicology at McGill University – was a bridge for us to communicate about film and music. She saw music as a language in the same way I see filmmaking as a language and this allowed us to really push the boundaries of what we each had imagined the score to be. Kaiya is one of the most dedicated and professional artists I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with. We daresay that new media will make stronger the bond between art and technology in our media driven contemporary age: do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new sensibility created by new media? Moreover, as an artist particularly interested in the manipulation of high and low technologies, how is in your opinion technology affecting the consumption of art by an ever growing spectatorship? Growing up on the cusp of the analogue-to-digital transition my interest between high and low technologies in the era of digital filmmaking really shaped my aesthetic approaches in film. I find digital point-and-shoots nostalgic. There’s a saturation and a pixelation in each evolving technology that has a particular time and place in my life. I resonate with these blurred, saturated images, the pulling of automatic focus and automatic exposures. Those are the cameras I began to explore film with – they’re how I began manipulating a filmic language. I love analogue films, and I enjoy shooting on film but I don’t shy away from digital filmmaking in the way that a lot of purists do. I think that low-fi technology has the ability to be taken seriously within

cinema, the same way 8mm and 16mm were later adopted as real mediums for films to be made on. There is certainly a growing spectatorship with the accessibility of technology and the dissemination of videos over social media. However, I find the whole creative culture on Instagram quite disheartening. The “creator class syndrome” is everywhere – peoples photographs and films are indistinguishable. Still, I’m not discouraged because I feel like there is always beautiful content being produced on smaller and more immediate scales. There will always be storytellers who thoroughly understand style and story. New voices will always challenge otherwise unwavering assumptions in filmmaking. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? Within Canada there have been some very significant changes and mandates put in place to create equal opportunities for female filmmakers, particularly within the grants systems. This makes me hopeful. There are many flaws with the Canadian film industry but it’s a smaller scale industry and I think it allows for progressive changes to be made. I recently received

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Women Cinemakers a grant from the National Film Board of Canada and I found myself sitting in a round table with the grant recipients, of whom more than half were women. This would not have been the case five years ago. I believe that major progress will be made in the next few decades as long as we continue to support each other and our stories. Working within a system stacked against women of colour, femmes, and trans people, is not a system that I am comfortable working within. Changes need to be made because the patriarchal structure of filmmaking is neither ethical or sustainable. These problems obviously extend far beyond the film industry but I think that as long as we keep championing these issues and calling out instances that are unjust and problematic, we are moving in the right direction. I am going to make my film whether it gets greenlit or not. Revolutions have always started in the peripheries and we shouldn’t wait for anyone to give us permission to make films or tell stories. The more women strive to involve themselves in the film industry, the more undeniable our presence will become. The more women become involved in the film industry, the more visible female creativity will be to the public at large. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Rita. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I’m working on a few projects this summer; a short experimental documentary on Ikebana – the Japanese art of flower arrangement – that is funded by the National Film

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Board of Canada. I have taken the month of August off to work on a feature script that we will be looking to fund in 2019. I’m really excited for the challenge of writing my first feature. The script tells the story of a young woman who, after breaking up with her partner on their vacation in Spain, embarks upon a solo road trip home to Germany. Along the two day drive she spends her time talking to a moth that’s trapped inside the car with her. That’s the starting point of this narrative, but the film will examine themes that have been currently on my mind. These include the folklore

of changelings, relationships between humans and animals and the liminal spaces between sensory feelings and visual memories. I was recently introduced to the work of Lucrecia Martel and she has been pivotal in my education, I think her work and theories will really mark the way I want to approach this film. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Narin Shech Lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel

Narin Shech is a multimedia artist currently living and working in Tel Aviv, Israel. She was born in Panama and has lived extensively in the U.S. and Israel. Her artwork, which has been greatly influenced by her multicultural upbringing, utilizes interdisciplinary research and mixed media in order to examine issues within the human psyche and related to self-identity, primarily within the spectrum of femininity. Through her work, Narin explores tensions related to diverging perspectives of the feminine ideal, including representation and objectification. Concurrently, she is interested in examining themes of psychology such as anxiety, obsessiveness, perfectionism, paranoia, etc., particularly with regards to the subject of voyeurism. Narin obtained her MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2016 and is a recipient of both the and scholarship awards. Additionally, she co-directed the film , which received special mention in the competition this year and was also officially selected for special biennial edition (2018). Her artistic background includes theatre, dance, performance art, sculpture, painting, photography and video art.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com Brillantly constructed and marked out with captivating dreamlike cinematography, is a captivating short film by multimedia artist Narin Shech. Walking the viewers through Jonah's epiphanic journey, she

triggers their perceptual categories with such a stimulating tapestry of images and sounds, to inquire into the thin line that links fantasy to reality: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Shech's captivating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Narin and welcome to : before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we

Women Cinemakers would ask you some questions about your rich background. You have a solid formal training and after your studies in Studio Art in Israel, you moved to the United States to nurture your education with an MFA in Imaging Arts, Photography, & Related Media, that you received from the prestigious Rochester Institute of Technology: how did these experiences influence the evolution of your practice as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to your multidisciplinary background direct the trajectory of your artistic research? While I have always seen myself as an artist, I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t truly exposed to photography and filmmaking until I began formal studio art training. However, even though I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t utilize these media formats I was very influenced by them. I was particularly addicted to cinema from a very young age and would at times in the summer watch three to four films per day. I tried to soak up as much information as I could about each film and would find the most disturbing characters to be utterly captivating. Eventually, this exposure began to consistently show up in my artwork. Initially this happened subconsciously and intuitively; it was through my

Women Cinemakers studies that I became more conscious and precise when referencing these cinematic influences. One of the most important experiences happened at the time I was pursuing my MFA, when I met the extremely talented Michael Frank who co-directed with me. and wrote With regards to my multicultural background, being exposed to three very different countries and cultures has manifested itself through personal fascination into the fragility and complexity of the human psyche. My artistic practice deals exclusively with themes related to psychology, most especially with issues of anxiety, rumination, and inner destabilization. My last two bodies of work and , utilize a variety of media formats in order to explore the notion of excessive self-observation or regulation and irrational fear respectively. Most curious is the lack of scenery or background in almost all my works, which tend to feature claustrophobic compositions lacking any references to place. This allows me to examine psychological themes more closely while providing a viewer with the same opportunity. For this special edition of we have selected ,a captivating experimental short film that our

Women Cinemakers readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your clear approach to narrative and your inquiry into the nature of human psyche is the way it provides the viewers with such a multilayered visual experience. While walking our readers through the genesis of , could you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? As I mentioned in the previous question, my own personal background has strongly driven me to create artwork that takes an in-depth look at the human psyche, especially when disturbed. What attracted my interest in Jonah’s story was exactly this; that it is a beautifully unnerving in-depth psychological portrait. We get to intimately experience Jonah through his various character manifestations, and while he is unique in how he analyzes and acts, the psychological disquietude experienced is universal. I think that by creating artwork that is extremely personal, you end up, many times, better touching on universally experienced themes; Frida Kahlo’s paintings or Andrei Tarkovsky’s films easily come to mind.

The White Room exposes us to the most inner aspects of Jonah’s psyche, the ones that only he will ever be privy to. Isn’t it wonderful to take some time to really experience someone’s psychological world? To have nothing but the character’s thoughts and emotions regarding their own existence to engross oneself with? I couldn’t not be fascinated with this idea or with Jonah’s story. The film starts with a monologue that sets the stage up immediately. As the viewer, you know what you’ve gotten yourself into the second you hear the opening line “Constantly conversing with oneself becomes a narration of self deconstruction, or is that destruction”. This line, for me, is one of the stronger thoughts this film offers. Anyone who has ever suffered from a slight tendency to over analyze themselves and their behavior can surely empathize. On a personal level, not many statements can truly capture the dichotomy one experiences when being over analytical. At some point such self-deconstruction truly does become a form of self-destruction, as you are constantly trapped in your own mind with circular and exhaustive thoughts.

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Brilliantly shot with sapient use of whites, features essential cinematography and a keen eye for details: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? I think one of the first aesthetic decisions was based on the conceptual notion that any visual distractions would detract from the main objective of this film, which is to provide a platform that allows a viewer to sink into Jonah’s psyche and his constant questioning of the self and of his own existence. Thus, the room is kept white, the clothes, the bed, are all white providing a “blank canvas” on which Jonah can be emotionally and intellectually dissected. It also doesn’t hurt that we associate such white rooms with psychiatric hospitals, putting the viewer further into this mindset. Another aesthetic choice that was influenced by this idea were some of the close-up shots, which similarly allows us to really focus on the character’s words and subconscious mannerisms. Additionally, it was important to us to utilize our technical equipment in order to increase the ethereal feeling of the film, which conversely increases the feeling of unease by providing references to spirituality and death.

Women Cinemakers With its elegantly structured storytelling imparts unparalleled psychological intensity to the narration, to unveil an ever shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way the dialogues of your film seem both natural and surreal: would you tell how did you develop the script and the structure of your film in order to achieve such powerful results? I think that the script exhibits a nice balance of the theatrical combined with both the substantial and the mundane. There are moments in which Jonah goes off on inconsequential and even humorous tangents, while other moments he is truly trying to understand his own mortality and provide meaning to his existence. There are also moments of personal dramatization and victimization. All this reflects the multilayered aspects of the character, making him easier to empathize with, while also providing this duality in which the script feels natural and surreal simultaneously. Another aspect that aided in infusing the film with a surreal quality was definitely the cinematography coupled with the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s structure. There is no linear timeline here; characters from different moments of time interact with each other and with a character that is timeless. Internal monologues and dialogues interchange with not much order or even logic

Women Cinemakers necessarily. This imitates the manner in which the mind, both conscious and subconscious, processes information and experiences. Thus everything ends up feeling a bit surreal yet still quite grounded in the plausible. We like the way your intimate close-ups created entire scenarious out of psychologically charged moments: in you leave the floor to your character Jonah, and your inquiry into his personal sphere seems to be very analytical, yet your film strives to be full of emotion: what was your preparation with actors in terms of rehearsal? In particular, how would you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of a scene and the need of spontaneity? How much importance does play improvisation in your practice? I had an amazing acting teacher in College who, while teaching us Shakespeare, said to me to look at the text for direction, as it would guide my movements. I believe this is true for any script, and that is how we worked with the actors. They used key words or phrases to help guide their movement and delivery in an effective direction. This allowed for a certain framework while still

Women Cinemakers leaving room for improvisation and personal interpretations. With any art form, it is important to provide the structure on which one can be spontaneous. And it was extremely important for us to provide a space that would allow for collaboration between everyone on set. We have particularly appreciated the way highlights the collision between his inner landscape and the outside world, to create a channel of communication between Jonas' epiphanic journey and the viewers' emotional sphere. What are you hoping will trigger in the spectatorship? I hope provides a space for viewers to project themselves onto the piece and its themes; that it will trigger a strong personal response and hopefully inner reflection. The driving force behind this film is to examine various aspects of existence, the fear that we experience regarding our own mortality, and the complexity of the human mind, while providing a similar opportunity for our audience. We daresay that could be considered an effective allegory of human experience: how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process and address

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Women Cinemakers your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? Almost all my artwork is a type of self-portrait; and even when the work is not so directly linked to me, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m still always attracted to, and inspired by, stories and artwork that express life experiences through a psychological lens. Navigating through life has never been easy for me; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s filled with anxiety and constant internal disquietude and extreme self-awareness. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to me to not only express my personal experience, but to also connect to others that have a similar unstable inner world. This film provided the amazing opportunity to create an in-depth portrait of the psyche in a similar manner to how I create my more personal work. Marked with captivating , the soundtrack provides the footage of with such enigmatic and a bit unsettling atmosphere: how do you consider the role of sound within your practice and how did you structure the relationship between sound and moving images? Accurate sound is extremely important since it has the power to further strengthen the visual

Women Cinemakers artwork being viewed. Because of how important this medium is, I prefer sound work to be minimal in my personal practice, as the goal is to strengthen not detract from what is being seen. For The White Room, we had the privilege to work with the extremely talented Vicky Mejia Yepes who was our sound designer and Alex Frank who created the original score. Both Vicky and Alex had a really strong understanding of our vision for the film and were able to surpass our expectations when it came to the film’s sound work. Their precision infused The White Room with further eeriness and a sense of the enigmatic. We have appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field?

Honestly I think women are constantly facing discouragement in all fields, not only in producing things that are ‘ ’. But, thankfully, with every year that passes we are able to push through one more barrier, and that is due to both women and men who take courageous chances. This past year alone has made it very clear that we still have a ways to go in order to allow a more open and equal platform, not just for women. My personal experience as an unconventional artist has been a mix of encountering discouragement and even antagonism from certain sources paired with encountering the most inspiring and supportive individuals. I feel lucky to have those positive experiences because they stay with me when I feel my own resolve start to shake. At the end of the day though, no external encouragement can help if you don’t believe in yourself and in your work and what you have to say. I’m glad to say that throughout the years I’ve learned that no matter how strong my insecurities can get, I believe in my artwork, I come back to it each time or it comes back to me. One of the things I love most about art is that you can truly allow yourself to deal with all fears and frustrations, even feelings of injustice and inequality.

Women Cinemakers When it comes to the future of women in this interdisciplinary field, I believe there are so many more interesting viewpoints to uncover and I have no doubt that this is where we are headed. We are seeing more and more films, TV-series, and other contemporary artwork that expose a new way of looking and story telling – experienced through the female viewpoint and state of existence. I relish the opportunities in which I am exposed to this new way of thought and the challenge it poses to viewers of both genders, as we are less experienced with such cinematic structures or themes. I do believe though that the responsibility of providing a platform for “the female voice” lies with both genders, I think this is gradually being realized and that this collective work is what has allowed for more and more women to advance in the contemporary art scene, as well as other fields. In the case of , I’m proud to say we had the most eclectic little set and constantly encouraged equal contribution regardless of gender, sexual orientation, and cultural background. Many prominent roles were filled by women, not the least of which is our strongest character in the film played by the talented Emily Mills Woodruff. Her inspiring acting and vocal

with much of its work provided surreal, enigmatic, and engaging moments. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Narin. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am currently working on developing two projects that seem almost intertwined. As it’s still early days I’m not yet sure what media formats will end up being used, as I like to allow the work to guide me towards the medium that best suits it (or rather strengthens it). The first is a body of work inspired by Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond’s photographic portraits of his psychiatric patients and the disproven concept of physiognomy. The second is based off of my recent photographic series which portrays a broken timeline inspired by popular cinema dealing with the subject of irrational fear and unsubstantiated threats. I’m really excited by both bodies of work and can’t wait to see where they will lead and how they will ultimately take shape. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

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Brittany Samson Mareesa Stertz Leaves is the result of the collaboration between Writer/Producer/Actress Brittany Samson and Director Mareesa Stertz: sapiently structured and marked out with effective cinematography, this video initiates their audience into heightened experience capable of encouraging a cross-pollination of the spectatorship. We are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Samson's and Stertz's captivating and multifaceted artistic production.

An interview by Francis Quettier and Dora Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Brittany and Mareesa and welcome to WomenCinemakers: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would invite our readers to visit and http://www.brittanysamson.com and theseeingmachine.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic productions. You have both particularly solid backgrounds: Brittany is a graduate of The Second City and current student in the Advanced level at Groundlings and Mareesa holds a degree in Cinema from San Francisco State University. How did these experiences of training influence your evolution as artists and creatives? Brittany: My training is a continual and layered journey, similar to my expression as an artistâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;each class or life

experience adding to my persona and thus work. My formal training began with a film degree from Northern Illinois University. I liked Northern because I was encouraged to try it all, from documentary to commercial production to screenwriting to journalism. This provided a wide foundation, after which the fun could start! I learned about improvisation, spontaneity of creation and of course, comedy from my time at The Second City and Groundlings schools. Thank you to all the wonderful teachers and mentors who have influenced my journey so far! Mareesa: SFSU gives a great broad strokes education on background on cinema, full of theory, and access to materials, but aside from one class on directing, my directing and shooting skills are mostly self taught. Both your practices are marked out with stimulating multidisciplinary approaches: Mareesa produces

documentary and travel shows, as well as photography and music videos and Brittany expresses herself through writing, acting, and filmmaking. Would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approachs? How do you select a medium and an art discipline in order to explore a particular theme? Brittany: I have recently come to view myself in the broad term of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Artist.â&#x20AC;? I am simply a curious and creative person at heart with a need to express my inspirations. My varied training and willingness to try new things(even if I fail miserably) make a lot of mediums available to me. The process starts with an ideaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; one component, and then I discover the most efficient way to develop that idea based on its feel and intended reach. I have written sketch comedy shows, produced a web series, performed stand up comedy, filmed a documentary, shot photography, and have portrayed a wide range of characters as an actress. Each project has felt important and correct, whether the audience was forty people in a theater, thousands of people via internet video, or just myself. My mood, surroundings, and current personal evolution effect what I produce as well. Mareesa: For me, the topic at hand, or the story that needs telling, is what determines the format. It makes sense to share a poem as an experimental narrative, and using a more mainstream travel style documentary when advocating for the benefits of psychedelics. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected Leaves, an extremely interesting video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: what has at once captured our attention of this captivating work you have provided the visual results of your analysis with such visual consistence. While walking our readers through the genesis

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Still by Cinematographer Joseph Seif A still from

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A still Still byfrom Cinematographer Joseph Seif

interview

Women Cinemakers of Leaves, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? Brittany: The poem heard in Leaves was the initial idea and base component of the project. I vividly remember lying across my bed, scrawling the poem as it came to me, nearly word for word the final version heard in the piece. Then I did nothing with the poem for months. Upon re reading it, I found the words to form a lifelike picture that I felt would be most accurately depicted through film. So I began production, casting and the search for a director to match and add to my vision. Mareesa: Brittany wrote a poem sharing her state of being.... itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s from here that all other ideas stemmed. We have deeply appreciated the way the combination between poetry and moving images walks the spectatorship of Leaves through such a multilayered experienceto question the dicotomy between the real and the abstract. How do you consider the relationship between perceptual reality and the realm of imagination? Brittany: I see perceptual reality and the realm of imagination to be a blurry line that is easy to cross, especially in a world ripe with negative experiences one might knowingly or unknowingly wish to escape. I also think people hold expectations of a situation and if those expectations are not met, they may choose to meet them through an imagined or conditioned imagined reality. Humans can design their own pattern of thinking and remain in that realm long after external details do not match the vision they've created. This seems the basis of positive thinking and subconscious reprogramming, but can cause a perceived personal reality closer to fantasy, depending. In the rhythm of the day people go from a sleep state filled with dreams to a woke state filled with experience. During moments of overlap it can be tricky to tell which is which.

Zach Dulin Being a creator adds another layer because ideas can stem from dreams and fantasy and reality simultaneous. As a creator I flip between but also feel required to live in both. Mareesa: How do textures and movement, or even lack thereof, emote feeling? By diving into the light, texture and inertia in a frame, the goal is to match the feeling and imagination w visceral visuals and bring it into reality. Brittany once remarked that most of her writing emerges into her consciousness when she least expect it: to emphasize the need of a bound between creative process

and direct experience, British artist Chris Ofili once stated that "creativity's to do with improvisation Â what's happening around you". How would you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of a body of work and the need of spontaneity? How much importance does play improvisation in your process? Brittany: I think both scheduling and freedom are important. This is where hiring a director for Leaves became crucial to me. I intended to coordinate the images in the poem in a

rational manner, but Mareesa opened space to improvise with alternate scenarios. The pool, for example was an inspiration improvised the day of filming. From an acting standpoint, having no idea what my co star Zach Dulin would do was exciting, mirroring the real life improvisation we see in relationships moment to moment. But isn't that what makes relationships and even life fun? You can anticipate, but never actually know what will happen next. Both your artistic researches are centered on the exploration of human condition: how does personal experience fuel your creative processes? In particular, do

you think that a creative process could ever be disconnected from direct experience in order to investigate particular ideas that do not belong to the realm of perceptual reality? Brittany: I am a naturally observant person, tuned to small changes in the world around me. Leaves and most of my work come directly from graspable human scenarios that I detect or feel. Parts of my projects are inspired from aspects of my own life content. However, my work is not only my self expressed, but also my perception of the experience of

Women Cinemakers others. I have a high level of empathy and pick up on other's emotions. Also, I find myself a magnet for strangers looking to confide their tribulations and joys in someone who will listen, so all of these rolling feelings—mine, theirs, ours manifest as the work. At times too, I purposely place myself in situations for my creativity that seem like an experiment rather then something I personally wish to do, technically manipulating direct experience to formulate creative thought. Mareesa: What ideas don’t belong in perceptual reality? If you perceive something, that simple interpretation your mind makes is creating a reality, even if it’s just yours. As Mareesa remarked once, in "Leaves' the viewer must be present with the painful process of separation: one of the qualities of your film that has mostly impressed us is its ability to establish direct involvement with the viewers, who urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception? And what do you hope to trigger in the spectatorship? Brittany: Naturally, I wish to influence the viewer in some way, even to simply suggest specific experiences are part of human nature—pain, depression, loneliness, hope, imagination, freedom. But, I encourage viewers to have a personal interpretation—I value art that offers options and possibility. One fun way I tried to achieve this in Leaves was by making the aspects(score, cinematography, poem, edit) compete with and compliment each other. Intentionally, the poem track was not mixed with the score because I wanted each to stand alone. A viewer could choose to listen to the emotion of the poem, or hear the words, or feel the score, or focus on the picture. If you direct your attention to a different component each time, perhaps you will have a different

Women Cinemakers reception in watching the film. It would even be feasible to close your eyes or turn off the sound and experience Leaves in a substantial way. Mareesa: For me, how an audience relates is very important. Life is enriched by shared experiences, and I believe most of societies problems stem from isolation and lack of community. I strive to articulate experiences that many people think they struggle in alone, and show how in fact they are actually more common, that many of us suffer. And through this, we find we are not alone, others have struggled similarly, and others have conquered their issues. Through this there is hope. While marked out with such a seductive beauty on their surfaces, Leaves features ambivalent visual quality: would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship rethink the concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? Brittany: The external beauty of the footage, and the score underneath make the viewer feel comfortable. The spoken poem does not start until after the visual and score offer a safe place to take in the deeper themes and complex wording. The choice of black and white—actually not the initial intention helps form this calm state for reflection. The very beginning and end of the piece reinforce Leaves as an openly interpreted work. The text on the inaugural screen reads “A maze unbeknownst to me until at once a hampering click.” If you read it fast, you could accidentally see the word amaze instead of a maze. Perhaps there IS both a negative and positive to Leaves. Oddly, the original intention was empowerment. Then there is the final frame of the film, both actors suddenly gone. But who left at the end? Or did they both? Would considering each option change your perception of the entirety?

Women Cinemakers Mareesa: I find it beautiful when people find their own meaning in the visuals, even when different from what was intended, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in this act, that the film is a living entity! Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once remarked that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": how would you consider the relation between the abstract nature of the ideas you explore and the physical act of producing your artworks? Brittany: Being an actress, the decision to put myself in the piece was a selfish one. I felt I could reach the emotions necessary knowing the poem internally. That being said, I gave up control to a director so I wouldn't be able to lead the work or my co actor to rely only on my assumptions. Being on set felt strange and excitingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;experimenting with the vulnerability of my own real tears, my own anger, my own self questioning. Setting each scene in the poem was fun and creative, from the laundry pile to the composite of buttery bread. In this building of each scene, it became easier to see the poem alive and turn the abstract writing into something conceivable. It's no doubt that collaborations as the one that you have established together are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Cinema and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project... could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, Peter Tabor once stated that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a

synthesis of different practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between artists from different disciplines? Brittany: In addition to the wonderful Mareesa, I would like to credit the lovely men involved: Cinematographer Joseph Seif, Actor Zach Dulin, and Composer Luke Cissell. Collaboration is so important because a piece can become more multi dimensional with different perspectives involved. Ideas sprout and bounce in cooperation and this is where the magic happens. I purposely chose people that had different backgrounds and connection to me. I had seen Mareesa's work through common friends and was particularly drawn to her experience in music video, wondering how this could manifest in relation to poetry. She brought Joe on who she had worked with and trusted. He has a knack for exquisite cinematography that added the visual component. I studied improv with Zach but had never seen him in a dramatic capacity, so this familiarity and distance drew chemistry and restraint from the characters. And I gave up total control on the score, the last puzzle piece, sending the work via email to Luke, a complete stranger in New York. That is the funâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;everyone did their part and somehow the piece turned out better then I could have created on my own. Leaves was directed and produced by women, so before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would

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Women Cinemakers you describe your personal experiences as artists? And what are your views on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? Brittany: We are entering an exciting time that is urging women to speak up for their art and selves. I hope this continues. I never saw being a woman as something that would hinder me as an artist—perhaps that makes me strange. I attribute it partially to the way I was raised and to those women and men who taught me daily to validate my own efforts even if society does not directly validate them for me. Though I definitely have been momentarily stopped in my tracks by those with a different perspective. I want nothing more than for women, and people in general to experience their worth and potential. I love seeing people happy—that is what I hope for more than anything in life. Mareesa: Personally I’ve been a bit lucky, I’ve got enough strong masculine energy running through me that helped my voice be heard. But I find it extremely important that there be an even split between masculine and feminine voices articulated in media. Media is humanity’s mirror and desperately needs balance. When the feminine voice is heard, we see a world filled with nurturing, compassion, inclusion, sensitivity, and love- essential components in repairing the imbalances that an unchecked masculine has created. Living in Los Angeles and witnessing the movement towards gender balance in media is very exciting and I believe the shifts happening here are reverberating in institutions, employers, and media companies world wide. Hooray!!!:) Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Brittany and Mareesa. Finally, would you like

to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Brittany: The current project I am working on is a huge leap from Leaves—a comedic novel. (Though one could argue that comedy and drama originate from the same space). The novel is called, “Becoming Famous— Everything I Did in Hollywood Besides Become Famous,” and highlights my interpretation of the often strange experiences I've been witness to along my creative journey. I have completed my feature length script Jackpot, now seeking financing. And I have many acting projects, a children's book--The Ox and the Elephant, and a poetry compilation in the pipeline as well. I wish to keep making bold moves in art and to never fear the next project I feel compelled to create. Thank you so much for allowing me to share my perspective and Leaves and I hope more women, especially young women, are made to believe in themselves and their art. Mareesa: I’ve stepped a bit away from narrative films for the time being and shifted into Documentary and am currently directing/hosting a series called The Healing Powers (of psychedelics and other mindful practices). The series dives into how mind-altering practices are addressing issues like PTSD, addiction, depression, trauma etc. Currently 300 million people around the world struggle w depression and studies are showing how these practices radically shift that state. In the show, I take the viewer on a journey through some of these experiences, thus normalizing how these medicines are used and how traumas can be healed. The release is happening at the beginning of the summer 2018 through Merry Jane, and more info on my work can be seen at www.TheSeeingMachine.com

Women Cinemakers

As a naturally empathic individual, I value pieces that seek to discover how subconscious emotion draws and repels people to and from one another. I am obsessed with human connection and the subtleties of body language, word choice, glance, action and intuition evident in communication. Connection is especially exciting in a world that is losing face to face interaction, adding preference to speedy dings, clicks, and likes from a more distant place. A transdisciplinary creator focusing on writing, acting, and filmmaking, I often use the intermingling of various mediums to convey an intended meaning, or whatever meaning the viewer arrives at. Because both can be right. Most of my writing emerges into my consciousness when I least expect it, specifically my poetry which comes out in line by line bursts nearly identical to the final draft. My acting relies on nuances provided to me by my scene parter and own perspective on life. And my filmmaking takes a more analytical approach, allowing the creative aspects like writing, music, acting, and editing to make the piece cohesive. I have always thought my brain to be evenly balanced between the creative and logical so don't be surprised if you find both in my work or humanity.

Mareesa Stertz's work brings attention to aspects of the human condition that are often pushed aside or neglected. Our memories, our experiences, and our traumas are stored in our bodies on a physical and mental level, and we rarely give them the attention or time they require to process and heal. Her work strives to acknowledge the often challenging experience of being present with the pain so that it can be digested and we can move on. In "Leaves' the viewer must be present with the painful process of separation. By allowing the experience to unfold in it's rawness and vulnerability, at it's own time, a new space is created to allow for healing

Women Cinemakers

Women Cinemakers meets

Marie Fages Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal

Marie Fages grew up in Tours, France. At 19, passionate by italian painting and Pasolini, she moved to Rome. She studied scenography at the Academia di Belle Arti di Roma, and worked on the set design of some cinema projects in Italy. After 5 years she moved back to France to integrate the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD) in Paris. For the diploma she directed a short film: an adaptation of the Electra tragedy filmed in the passages of the business district « la Défense ». The film was selected in different festivals. Inspired by the city of Berlin, she moved to live there and wrote the story of produced by the G.R.E.C., a french financing for first short-film projects. different countries such as Iran, Egypt, Macao, France, Italy, Kosovo, Spain.

. She directed this short film was selected in almost 20 festivals, in

As experiencing places is what moves her, Marie is currently living in Portugal where she’s writing a new short-film project. In parallel, she also continues to realize set and stage designs as well as exhibition scenography and art installations in France, Germany, and Portugal. Website:

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com White Tides is a captivating short film by French scenographer and filmmaker Marie Fages: inquiring into the resonance between environment and human experience, her brilliant narrative addresses the viewers to a multilayered and

highteneed experience capable of encouraging a crosspollination of the spectatorship. Featuring elegant cinematography and sapient composition, Fages' work speaks of the elusive bond between inner world and external reality: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her captivating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Marie and welcome to WomenCinemakers: we would like to invite our readers to visit

Women Cinemakers http://www.mariefages.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training and after your studies of Scenography at the Academia di Belle Arti di Roma, and you later moved back to France to nurture your education at the prestigious Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris: how did these experiences influence your evolution as a filmmaker and a scenographer? I chose to enroll at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma because of it's classical formation. I had already moved to Italy, attracted by the renaissance paintings and my new challenge. At the Accademia, we learned how to draw and build a scenography in the Italian classical theater style. I remember long rolls of perspective drawing, almost no computer, enthusiastic chaos, and some passionate teachers. Apart from the basic scenography class, we could choose the courses and build our own path. I think the school confirmed my love for « oldschool » staff, handmade-special effects and handcrafted technics. And I could say that even my graphical mind is structured like that now. When I take a picture for example, I always look for the perspective, the main compositional lines… However, the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, where I completed my Master’sDegree, is a place to sharpen our minds. We had a lot of time to think about how to build a concept. That’swhere I developed my first short-film as a diploma project: Electra’swalk (1). We had to start with a text and then design the scenography. I chose Euripide's tragedy: Electra. It takes place at the borders of Argos where Electra is isolated. Instead of making a stage design model, I wanted to confront the story with a real place and build the model of this imaginary place. After a lot of looking around, I found« La Défense » which is the business district of Paris, it is a platform composed of high modern buildings, including many passages, stairs, bridges… They’re crossed everyday by workers who never stop. On top of that, the various concrete constructions evoke the ancient palace: this was the noman’s-land that i was looking for. I used the frame -focusing on the passages, avoiding the buildings- and the editing, and i constructed this imaginary world where the characters of the tragedy walk and act.

Women Cinemakers During the process, the teachers of the EnsAD asked me to justify my choices, have a clear and strong reflexion. This was difficult for me as I generally trust my intuition, so I had to fight with myself as well as with the teachers to find where exactly I wanted to position myself especially, when on one hand it’simportant to let intuition dominate one’schoices, and on the other, it’stime to introduce structure and be more pedagogic, to communicate the idea in the best possible way. These struggles still accompany for each project, in scenography and filmmaking. This first experience as a filmmaker gave me the will to explore further still the medium of cinema, and especially to create fictional spaces using frame, scenography, model and editing process. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected White Tides, an extremely interesting short film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. Since the first minutes, we have been captured with the way you sapiently structured composition provides the viewers with a journey through the elusive bond between the real and the imagined, enhanced by a sapient cinematography. While walking our readers through the genesis of White Tides, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? So, the whole film is basically a reconstitution of images that were floating in my brains for a long time and that I wished to realize one day. For exemple, I imagined a woman cutting a pepper as a divination ritual, a group of people painting hands on walls like a scream thrown on the concrete… It could have ended up as a series of paintings, but I had the intuition that there was an organic cinematographic connexion between them, without really seeing it. Until one day, I was wandering through some streets of Berlin, and I felt suddenly a thread to link the images all together that could tell an unique story. Indeed, in the ex East-Berlin, you can see some old crumbling places, in the process of being recovered by real estate developers and transformed for commercial purposes, or even erased. Most of the

Women Cinemakers times, those places, which did not attract any investor for many years, were previously occupied as living places, squats, subversive artistic studios and galeries, that have been evicted. The most famous exemple is Tacheles. This « lifting » seems to be the continuity of the planning projects occurring since the Berlin wall fell, which involves erasing the « ashamed » traces left by the former GDR, such as the Palast der Republik, and build places destined for tourism, business and luxury standing, « cleaner » and more « capitalists ». So you can find in the strange urbanism of Berlin, for exemple, a brand new white building -that appears in the film-, in the middle of the East side gallery wasteland, absurdly stuck to the rests of the Berlin wall. Those transformations are visible to the naked eye, and quite fast. And I wished to film the old places before their disparition. This is the realistic fundaments that are the starting point for the fiction. I used those two aspects of the city of Berlin to build a fictional space in which two worlds - the « grey/black » crumbling and artistic world, and the « white » brand new clean world- are in tension. Inside this world I inserted the characters and other previous images that I already had in my mind. Then I was like in a highway and i wrote the screenplay. Afterward I was lucky that the project has been selected by the G.R.E.C., which supports singular projects. And I was also lucky to meet all the members of the team and the actors, that brought their personality to the film. White Tides features elegantly structured composition: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? Off course the choice of my collaborators was a big part of the aesthetic decisions. I was fascinated by the previous work of the Director of Photography, Grégoire Orio, with his accomplice Grégoire Couvert (2) composed of hypnotic frames playing with light and darkness, creating a kind of mystical atmosphere.

Women Cinemakers I had already mentally prepared half of the images before the shooting, with the help of some photographies I took during the location scouting. According to my beloved formatting in the Accademia, I generally see a frame as a Renaissance painting, a static fixed shot with graphic dynamic lines and perspective, in which the actors are positioned. For exemple, the (Piero della Francesca) was an inspiration for the scene of the young redhead girl’sextermination. There are many interpretations of this painting. But at first sight, the 3 men on the foreground seem to not pay attention at the flagellation of the christ which occurs behind them in the background. As this scene is quite violent because of what’shappening outside and because of the indifference of the Mayor, I wanted to introduce those two levels, separated by the window. The idea of the window came to me while I was in a ferry going to Ireland. Comfortably installed on board with a warm café and sweet music, I saw threw the window, outside, in the cold, some guys cleaning the glass with a water-jet. The liquid flowing on the window made their faces look distorted. This image made me want to make it exist in the film. During all the shooting, as the movie deals with the relationship between bodies and landscapes, we first looked for the best perspective, the best composition and distance, then we placed the actors inside. The only shot that follows the actor’smouvement is the young people’srace at the end, desperately running to their death. At this moment I wanted to create a dynamism, a rupture. As for the camera mouvement, I just imagined the first travelling with the wall’s point of vue, the wall on which the young people are painting. But Grégoire suggested to try some more camera mouvements all along the shooting to dynamise the movie. I let them imagine some dolly and panning shots which contributes, in my opinion, to give the landscapes and architectures an existence of its own. About the camera, Grégoire directly told me that the most important thing is to choose the good lens -instead of putting all the budget in a state-of-the-art camera-. I liked this idea so much so we took a

Women Cinemakers Blackmagic camera with an accurate selection of lens. As I imagined the image like a perspective painting, Grégoire suggested the tilt-shift lens, which allows to keep the architectural lines straight and parallel. Later, I worked with the artist-editor Ariane Boukerche to find an organic rythm between the images, but also a kind of geometry in the editing, to answer the geometry of the images. Visually, I also wanted to change this social convention’stendency that uses white color as positive, and black as negative. I wanted white to represent a menace, and black a hope. I decided to separate the film in two chromatic worlds: the white against the grey/black part that is actually full of colors: painted hands, Sibyl’s laboratory… I also wanted to introduce also different materials such as smokes and liquids, which are manipulated by all the characters, and invade the screen at the end. For this I used a handcrafty special effect: animation of inkmarks, incrusted in post-production. We have highly appreciated your stunning urban landscape cinematography and the allegorical qualities that marks out the footage: how did you selected the locations? In particular, do you think that the decayed streets of the imaginary city of your film could be a metaphor of human condition? I did a lot of scouting. I looked for buildings which reflect the idea of a degraded city and off course with a cinematographic power. I explored for many long days Berlin’ssuburb, I also visited other cities of the ex-east-Germany, such as Zeitz. I now have a catalog of pictures of abandoned places all around Berlin! I also had the chance to meet the fantastic Zuleika from Berlino Explorer (3), which organises alternative urban explorations in Berlin. She gave me precious advices, and some knowledge about the places’shistory, because it was important for me. I wanted to have only places from the former GDR, as I

though the duality East/West Germany resonates with the story of the film. For exemple it was important for me to have in the film a Plattenbau - GDR typical building. It’sthe one that we see at the beginning, where the 3 young people spray and someone (played by me) is evicted by 2 guards wearing a white outfit - This Plattenbau complex had been abandoned by its inhabitants 5 years earlier. They were forced to leave, as the premice’slight was cut of, because of a fraudulent owner’s dark story. I wanted to mix inhabitation with industrial buildings, which also present interesting architectural forms. When I saw the former industrial complex with the big chimney for instance, I thought I took a lot of about the Fra Carnevale’s painting of pictures and then I arranged them in order to compose the film’simaginary world. I like to explore industrial buildings like an archeologist, to learn from traces that humans leaves. Ruins fascinate me, they are like the hidden forgotten part of our memory that we never visit, but when we fall over it, it’sa very intense moment, sometimes disturbing, vertiginous. I don’tlike this expression: to wipe the slate clean. I think it’simportant to confront the past, the history, especially when it is shameful (slavery, colonisation…). This kind of duality is present in every countries, as far as i know. In France we have the « banlieues » and half-abandoned villages in the countryside, in Portugal, where I live now, there is a strong and agressive gentrification process. Inhabitants are evicted from the city center of Lisbon to be replaced by tourists. In a city, there are always parts which are considered as bankable, perfect, clean, etc, while other parts are forgotten, the leftovers, where poor people live. So, the fight between the two cities could represent the human condition in this capitalist world, yes. But it was important for me to put hope inside this pessimistic vision, trough those 3 young

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Women Cinemakers people, who take the risk to react against the system, to overcome their miserable condition, seek for dignity, until ending sacrificed. But the shamanic woman Sybil is also acting: it was important for me to leave hope. In other words, I think that I need to represent heroes, and these are the kind of people that I want to represent as heroes in a film. We have been impressed with the way you have combined elements from environment with ambience capable of speaking about imagination and memory. How do you consider ? Moreover, how much important is for you to trigger the viewer's perceptual parameters in order to address them to elaborate personal associations? I myself do not have a very clear limit between what is real and what comes from my imagination! I also have a lot of doubts about my memories, which are a mix of impressions, dreams and reality. And I am positive I am not the only person who feels this way! In literature I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for example, who has this capacity to mix really and imagination in a perfect homogeneous way, so pertinent that you really believe it. In cinema I admire for instance Sergei Parajanov, exactly for the same reason. As I did not have any training as a filmmaker, I am very new to screenplaying, hence having written this as an interleaving of images and symbols, without dialogue or commentary. Indeed, at school in my History of Art lessons I learned how to discover the hidden symbols in paintings such as Mantegna’s. There are so many interpretations, and the same happens with tales. I as a tale because I did not specifically want to wrote do a documentary about Berlin’sgentrification, but to start from this situation and abstract it, opening the story to each personal experience and interpretation. Each viewer can see some symbols to interpret, or not. People are as free as in front of a painting without comments. The model of the city which

sometimes appears in the film is also a way to remember that we are in a fictional world, as cinema is not reality, it is imagination. I also wanted to work on the sound design, to play with the sound perception, memory and imagination of the spectator. As the sound also provides a texture to the images and influences perception, I wanted to characterize the acoustics of the two worlds in a precise and minimalistic way. I worked on it with Julie Roué, who did the sound design of . Julie is a real alchemist and has very creative ideas. We built two kinds of acoustic atmospheres: on one hand, the « back/grey » world is made of natural or primitive sounds: wind in the leaves, desert wind, clattering of small bamboo pieces from the Sybille’sbelt, natural percussions (played by Alex Page and composed by Julie Roué)… on the other hand the « white » world is made of artificial sounds such as ventilators, electronic music, magic secret Julie’smix to create the sound of the white painting machines… As you have remarked once, experiencing places is what moves you and we daresay that you draw a lot from direct experience in the cities you live in: how does everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? In particular, how does your due to your life in France, Italy, Germany and Portugal direct the trajectory of your artistic research? One of my favorite activities is to walk in cities, suburbs and countryside, exploring, experiencing places, small hidden streets, and also have the possibility to meet or at least exchange some words with the locals. And as some of the places I visited touched me, I stopped to live there for a while. Moving is a way to stay awake, to be challenged every day, to keep discovering, never be totally comfortable, to keep in touch with people who are not necessarily of the artistic bubble. This implies, in a very primitive aspect, to always change jobs, to live on a restricted budget, taking

Women Cinemakers (little) risks. My life choices are not strategic, but intuitive. To be immersed in other cultures forces me to always ask where I come from, and who I am now. That can also make me dive into moments of vertiginous doubts! But this is vital for me. Therefore my creative process starts from the places I cross, which give me a deep sensation that I wish to report in an artistic way. I could not say exactly which part of my creative process comes from which place or culture because everything goes through the tortuous paths of my mind, so it is not a direct and volunteer act. Among your biggest influence you have mentioned Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. Marked out with a static frontal shots evocative of pre- and early Renaissance painting, Pasolini's unique style and approach to narrative was in some ways the Italian counterpart to Jean-Luc Godard: how did Pasolini's work influence the trajectory of your artistic research? Yes I moved to Italy because I was overwhelmed by Italian painters such as Giotto and Caravaggio and the artists of the Quattrocento, who I still think are the big masters. I am more sensitive to Pasolini than Godard because I identify with his tragic nature and the intuitive images he built, while Godard is, for me, more of a cineast of discourse, intellect. Pasolini’scapacity of creating films in the same spontaneous way he wrote poetry is quite extraordinary. When I saw Medea for the first time, I was so impressed by those images, framing those landscapes and essential architecture of Capadoccia and Siria, and their population and rituals. He was very touched by those countries as well as Yemen, and wanted to resonate the original and eternal myths there, close to the pure human essence. In my own way, I also try to find in the human constructions some echoes of our primitive humanity. The way Pasolini adopted another point of view of Medea’s myth, representing the cynicism of the « educated » civilization in the confront of the stranger Medea is very right and interesting and it is a crucial alternative to the common tendency to only see a woman killing her own children. I think he touched something of the feminine, also. I’m absolutely admirative of the way Pasolini could give to poetry a politic power because it is a completely free form of expression.

Women Cinemakers Pasolini gave me a sense of freedom in the movies, not following the rules and academism that some people try to impose in the medium of cinema. Over the years was screened in almost 20 festivals, in different countries such as Iran, Egypt, Macao, France, Italy, Kosovo, Spain: how much importance has for you that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? Outside of France and Lisbon, I had the pleasure to accompany the film in Teheran and Macau, festivals where I was warmly welcomed. It is interesting to see the different philosophy of festivals, and the public. For example in Iran there are a lot of people coming to watch movies: the rooms are full, people go in and out constantly, Iranian people seem to love cinema! Each time that I preview the film before an audience, first of all I feel so grateful to the team who elaborated the film with me; then I feel a bit anxious about the reaction of the audience, I know it is not an accessible film, so I am also prepared to accept that some people are not touched, or not sensitive to my approach. For example, some people told me that they felt lost. When someone asks me the meaning of the film I say that I do not have the right answer and I ask what she/he thinks to have seen, and it is always right, even if it is different each time! I think people should trust their own imagination more, instead of searching to understand everything the ÂŤ right way Âť. As the film is a tale without dialogue, I guess this helps each culture to integrate it and make it their own. I was surprised to see how some other viewers appreciated the movie without finding the words to explain it, but feeling a kind of mute connection. Also, some people integrate their own story or vision of the world. For example, Iranian people told me about white imperialism in a world point of view. In Lisbon I possibly had more feedback about gentrification. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on in the

Women Cinemakers contemporary filmmaking scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something ', however in the last decades women are finding their ' voices in art: as an artist interests in the cinematic arts, how would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? Well, this is a very actual and important question indeed. I am a set designer, I do short-films, I am interested in handcraft, in sculpture, soon I will probably learn how to cultivate a garden, and I am always moving! And I know many women that have the same approach to life, not focusing on only one thing, but combining various practices. This is not the classical highway of a conventional « career cineast ». And this is probably reflected in the unconventional result of what I, and we produce. Like in many other schools, the two Art-schools I went to had more women than men, but afterwards, in professional life, -in the cinema area for example-, there are much more men. They directly find their place, integrate easily in the system, while women are less appearing. Of course maternity could be a reason, but not only. As a woman in a system created by men, it is obviously harder to find a place. That is why I think it is important for us to question each convention, as they have been decided by men, and to refuse the categorization of the actual system. For example, I know that is somewhere between « fiction » and « experimental », I did not want to choose, so I hope it is somehow making a bridge between those two categories. One other aspect of the system that I dislike is pervasive competition. If most of the women do not like competition, it is not only because of self-confidence issues but especially, I believe, because the competition, very present in the artistic world, is not the system that we wish to follow, it is probably not adapted to us. Men like to put women in competition: the most beautiful miss, the most perfect wife…and sometimes women integrate it unconsciously, creating rivalry between them. This can’tbe! We have to go ahead together. But I also see a

Women Cinemakers strong solidarity movement between women growing, and this makes me hopeful! For instance, I am part of a festival of films directed by women only (4). There is a very big diversity of subjects and forms, and of course, a lot of works which are not what is expected for a woman to create. This is great to see. And I want to thank you for your approach and all the witnesses of women artists you are putting together: it is an essential project, I think, to support self-confidence and women’s power! Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Marie. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am now writing and developing a new short-film, an ecologic tale. It is the story of a woman who has a special relationship with the moon. A woman who was a scientist and is becoming a sort of shaman, trying to communicate something to the world (which I cannot reveal now). A new woman-hero! For this project, I would like to have even more women involved in the team. I also keep going with scenography, working on a piece of Marina Tsvetaeva, the great Russian poetess. And beyond that, I don’tsee a particular clear evolution for my work, it will depend on which way I decide to follow, and what and who I meet on my way… I stay open to many possibilities! And I would like to work in group, build project in team or collective, as you are doing, it’sgreat! is visible on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/87341078

Grégoire Orio and Grégoire Couvert website: https://vimeo.com/ashumanpattern Berlino Explorer website: http://www.berlino-explorer.com/ Olhares do Mediterraneo website: http://www.olharesdomediterraneo.org/2018-5a-edicao/

Women Cinemakers meets

Carey Ryan Otis is a happily married, middle-aged clerk with a secret - he is addicted to giving. His plethora of pledges has become insurmountable, and his life begins to unravel. Pressure mounts for him to quit giving, but the habit has taken hold. He is sacked, evicted, and suffers a breakdown, ending up on the street. Living as a beggar, Otis learns that when you have nothing left to lose, the act of giving can be acceptable, accepted and … exceptional.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

questions: how does your background in photography and

and Dora S. Tennant

graphic design influence your evolution as a filmmaker?

womencinemaker@berlin.com

Thank you for inviting me. It’s funny, I always loved film but

Captivating and refined in its balanced and effective storytelling, Empathy is the Devil is a stimulating film by Carey Ryan: marked out with carefully orchestrated photography, this film addresses the viewers to inquire into their perceptual and cultural parameters, to create a personal. This captivating film offers an emotionally charged visual experience, inviting the viewers to inquire into the issues of addiction, mental health, social pressure and how outsiders are treated in modern society: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Ryan's captivating and multifaceted artistic production.

couldn’t envisage how to get there. Once I was working with

Hello Carey and welcome to

: we would

like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of

photography though, the switch from photography to film felt very natural. I was working on an exhibition about women’s boxing, or more specifically, a state legislation in Australia prohibiting women from boxing at amateur or professional level. Consequently, I spent a lot of time hanging around gyms, watching the movement and trying to capture the dichotomy of the sport. Boxing fascinates me; it is at once endurant and ballistic, violent and balletic, thrilling and tedious. I really wanted to capture those contradictions, but it was difficult with still images. The process of making a small video to accompany the exhibition; that of a woman wrapping boxing tape around her soft hands, jewellery and manicured nails, just

Women Cinemakers as a boxer does before donning their gloves. From there, I was

accompaniment to composer Cathy Milliken’s music/sound

hooked.

work. She drew a series of graphic symbols that the musicians

Photography is about capture and containment, telling an entire story with one image. Film, for me then at least, was about finding the cadence of the action, moving with the movement, becoming one with the actor. I wanted to use the

and I were free to interpret into the language of our respective mediums. Those reinterpreted symbols had to be included in several ways within the piece. It was a daunting but interesting challenge for all of us.

medium, not to halt the action, but let it be in its simplicity, just

Experimental film worked beautifully for me, until my stories

action.

had perhaps more flesh, and that’s when the narrative form

I continued research into the theme of the ritualised rhythms of the boxer with an experimental film titled (2003), which focussed solely on the punishing

took hold. The exploration becomes more than just about movement or sound, and the themes need narrative structure for them to be noticed. Experimental film is very personal, it’s ,I

free and open to interpretation. With

regime and repetitious combinations of boxing training.

didn’t want to tell the audience what to think, but I did want

After breaking these movements down and watching

them to see what I was showing.

them endlessly repeated, I found the fluidity of the boxer in action very similar to the dancer in motion, thus igniting my curiosity in the movements of dance. Although motivated by very different objectives, the boxer and the

we have

For this special edition of selected

, an extremely interesting

film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once

dancer both engage in a physical language founded on

captured our attention of your film is the way you have

rhythm, and seek to maximise a confined or designated

been capable of creating such a captivating combination

space.

between senses of intimacy and isolation, providing the and

Your previous works,

were experimental films: what directed you towards the narrative form to inquire into the themes you explore in ?

viewers with such a captivating visual experience. While walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us how you developed the initial idea?

was initially conceived as a silent

Video cameras were accessible and experimental pieces don’t

narrative film with no dancing. The script was pretty tight,

require the slickness of narrative film, I could do almost all of it

and ended on a joke, a dark joke yes, but a joke

myself.

nonetheless. Not everyone reading it really got it, and I

version of

(2012), is basically the experimental . It was made as an

was wondering if I would ever get it made. The dilemma I

faced was to make an engaging film about a delusional outsider, an addict who loses his mind and his livelihood and ends up living on the streets. I had been contemplating the idea of making a film with dance for a while, yet it was one performance I saw in 2010 that started my cognitive cogs turning: Sydney Dance Company’s production , the first major production for Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela. The work was cinematic, bold, operatic. stayed with me, and the impact of its multidisciplinary synthesis was a strong influence on my decision to explore dance (rather than continue with boxing) as the storytelling device I had been searching for In early 2013, I approached Sally Wicks, who coincidentally had worked for many years as a dancer with The Sydney Dance Company and with whom I had a connection outside of dance. Initially, I sent her the script and asked if she might be interested in choreographing a few dance pieces. From the outset, Wicks and her husband Dan Crestani showed much enthusiasm, with Wicks asking Crestani to review the script to see if he agreed it was something she should work on. Crestani read it and said, “I’ll do it!” She explained to him that I was not looking for an actor, just a choreographer; however, on her relaying this to me, I asked to meet him straight away, and as soon as I did, I knew he was Otis. The pair began working on the project as joint choreographers and principal performers. I knew for this story to have real impact, and for the themes to be mined in an engaging way, it was vital that I had an identifiable

interview

Women Cinemakers

interview

Women Cinemakers character in the protagonist, and some strong visual cues to take the audience from, as you say, senses of intimacy to the dreadful isolation of social rejection. The sound design and score were essential in the latter. The risk was of over sentimentalising, or being childishly comical by trying to mimic films of the era. The soundtrack was compiled from three separate individuals, and another for the mix. Luke Goldfinch was so flexible with the score, as I had already decided I wanted Jesus Lopez-Donado’s sound design for when Otis is up against the wall, and his lounge room breakdown. Luke weaved the two very disparate pieces together so beautifully. Tyrone Noonan wrote three versions of his song “On a Wing and a Prayer”, that bookend the film (and tell Otis’ story in themselves), and John Bosak added more flavour with his final mix. The audio team worked with what they were given, which was always in flux, and created something really special. Elegantly shot,

features stunning black

and white cinematography marked out with essential and captivating beauty on a visual aspect: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lighting? As far as the actual camera and lighting is concerned, we were fortunate to be given full run of the sound stage at Griffith Film School, to create Otis’ home and our other sets. This was fantastic as we had a huge lighting grid and a luxurious amount of space. We also used one of the school’s cameras, so we had some terrific support there. My cinematographer Scott Kimber was very excited to shoot a film with dance as he loves a moving camera, and has a wonderful dexterity for movement. We had many conversations about switching between colour and black and white for the differing

time frames, but I think the ‘keep it simple’ approach he offered ultimately won out. I put the camera and lighting choices in Scott’s hands, and my trust was rewarded. We would discuss what the look for the scene was, but I knew I was in capable hands. I toyed with the idea of changing ratios for the past and future as well, even whether to use 4:3 throughout, to be more aligned with films of the silent era. In the end, I decided on a 16:9 ratio, as there was so much movement we wanted to fit into the frame. It would have been a shame to contain that fluidity for the sake of adhering to the conventions of the era. Using the early cinema techniques of black-and-white with subtle colour tones, no spoken dialogue, inter-titles and iris transitions was to create a mood of nostalgia, such that the audience might empathise with Otis’ reality. My colour grader, Lauren Carter, was always chastising me for the high contrast images I was making. “It’s illegal!” She would say but I really like the look we got. There were times when she gave me a lovely ‘silver screen’ look, and talked me down when I wanted the colour elements to be too bright. We have particularly appreciated that though your inquiry into the personal sphere of the character of

seems to be

, your film strives to be full of emotion: what was your preparation with actors in terms of

The first challenge was just finding actor/dancers who might share my vision. Then it was in maintaining communications over the months of rehearsals, long absences in between, and into production. I really had to burrow down into Otis’ psyche and know, not just what he was thinking, but why he was thinking that, and what that meant to the bigger picture. Dan and Sally had so many questions, I had to know my character inside out!

interview

Women Cinemakers

A still from

interview

Women Cinemakers Although we had months to prepare, everyone was so busy throughout that a lot of our communication was through email. Because I don’t speak

per se, I provided filmic references –

iconic dances from films that I love. These were selected not just for their beauty as screen dances but for their means of expression, and ultimately, to exemplify how dance might communicate the frenzied landscape of my protagonist’s interior world. I would email them about how Otis was feeling and what he was going through at that point of the story, and they would create some moves that would then be workshopped in rehearsals. Crestani had a deep understanding of his character, and Wicks has a great choreographic mind, so, together, the dances they created offered a breadth of style, mood, and physicality. Crestani’s ability to straddle inner and outer worlds, the intensity of the former through dance, and the nuances of the outer through acting, make for an extraordinary performer. The pair worked so quickly and had so many ideas, I was often at pains not to say yes to everything. was not

But the intention of including dance in

just to showcase dance as a shadow character, Otis’ inner self, but to leverage its unique possibilities as distinct from acting, to ask dance to do what it does best; physicalising emotion and establishing between viewer and character a sense of directness and sensorial immediacy. It was very important to me, however, that the performance of dance did not overshadow the themes, and with so much dance, that was a delicate balance. In your film, you leave the floor to

, finding an effective

way to walk the viewers to develop a bridge between their own inner sphere and his epiphanic. Could you tell us what attracted

you to this particular story? And what are you hoping your film will trigger in the audience? I became interested in creating a story that focusses on how we use our skin and what we wear on that skin, to help us fit in and navigate the world. A story about someone who lived in a selfimposed prison of old-fashioned values, wearing fashion from a bygone era, and how that person might fare in today’s world, or, worse still, a science-fiction dystopian version of today. It would begin with a proud man wearing a hat atop his head, as would be done in those times, and end with that same hat upturned in his hand; a tool for begging. His confidence, indeed his identity, is flipped by the change in his social status, someone who lives today’s problems through the sensibilities of yesteryear. There is a stigma attached to the poor which immediately places them as outliers. This is my story in many ways. I spent a lot of time unemployed, always feeling a bit less than those with money. In our society, money equals autonomy, and I believe taking away people’s autonomy is the ultimate degradation. Otis finds a way through that. He sees himself as free; of responsibility, of pressure, of time constraints. Free to give and appreciate and share what little he has, with no expectations other than having a good time and enjoying the goodness that people are capable of when given the opportunity. I hope the audience appreciates Otis’ rejection of the treadmill, his neural flexibility and of course, his joie de vivre! My hope is that everyone thinks a little about what they give, why they give, and how they give. Is giving money to a fundraising company, who work on behalf of a charity, a way to feel more connected to those less fortunate? Or is it a way to fit into a social

interview

Women Cinemakers

interview

Women Cinemakers stratum? A device to assuage guilt for being more financially stable than others? We made some small money boxes as part of the marketing materials for the film. The money box is tiny, it simply can’t hold much money, and this is important because the instructions on the box say to pop in your coins, and give the box to whomever you wish – homeless person on the street, local kids soccer team… it doesn’t matter. The idea is to place the autonomy of giving back in the hands of the individual. If you personally give something to someone, and they can do whatever they like with it, it feels good. It won’t change their life but it may change their day. As you have remarked in your director's statement, couching the issues that affect our contemporary age in a silent dance film allows to comment, in a palatable way, on the increasing lack of freedom in our society: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "the artist’s role differs depending on which part of the world you’re in. It depends on the political system you’re living under". What could be in your opinion the role of a filmmaker in our contemporary age? Does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? If filmmakers have a role or responsibility in our age, I think that would be to tell the stories of now. Our cultural memory is so short that it’s nice to be reminded of the past, especially a demonised past that when it was the present, didn’t seem that bad. Mining the past is also a way to decipher the present, and to ask, what really has changed? In some ways, nothing. People have always been greedy, kind, stupid, smart, ignorant, innovative, strong and weak. I think we know our trajectory is cyclical, and that it’s spiralling out. How far we can continue before that spiral snaps, we can’t say, but we can see that the spiral’s material is getting thinner all the time. If we could all stop and look back and look forward and think about where we’re

Women Cinemakers heading as a species, I’m sure we could change things for the better. But will we? I don’t know that there was a particular cultural moment that triggered my response, but I feel there is always pressure to compete, to fit in socially, to have a career trajectory, to want and strive for more things that in turn create more pressure. If you don’t want more, you don’t fit in, and if you stumble or stop to take a breath, you have been surpassed already. Today there is even pressure to relax and be happy! We have been fascinated with the poetic quality of your approach to

to address your spectatorship

and we have particularly appreciated the way invites the viewers to create a personal narrative out of the structure of the film: would you tell us how much important is for you that the spectatorship

the

concepts you convey in your pieces, elaborating personal meanings? The silent era produced many socially conscious films that are aligned with the themes of my script —those of financial hardship, addiction, and a type of societal control imposed through moral pressure. Everyone has at some time felt out of place in their workplace or social sphere and it is often clearer when viewing a very personal situation through a different lens. I thought it would be fitting to let the darkest parts of the film shine through the lightness and joy of dance, the social comment be heard through silence, and to let the black-and-white treatment offer a temporal distance for the viewer to approach it as entertainment as much as a social issue film. Using both dance

Women Cinemakers and early cinema tropes offered me greater scope to touch on challenging themes in a light-hearted way. My wish is not polemical, there is a choice: take it on or enjoy a madcap ride with some lovely dance sequences. I want to allow the viewer to consciously or unconsciously absorb the underlying themes, unthreatened. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been

from getting behind the camera, however

in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? When I look at the early women filmmakers, who I think of as the ‘suffragettes of cinema’, like Alice Guy Blaché making over 300 films in her lifetime, and Mabel Normand, who had her own studio, I wonder what went wrong for us. Was there a turning point or did we just expect that the jobs would continue without a fight? Today it feels like a do-ityourself world for female filmmakers, as though there is an actual ladder for men to climb, that isn’t available for women. That’s not to say we don’t have many brilliant women filmmakers out there making critically and commercially acclaimed cinema, I just feel that there are a whole lot of obstacles to clear and once cleared, another is placed there. I remember a time when the names Gillian Armstrong and Jane Campion were spoken about just as frequently and with the same reverence as Peter Weir or Bruce Beresford, not because they were female filmmakers kicking goals, but because they were making films just as interesting, if

Women Cinemakers not more so, than the men being lauded by Hollywood. I don’t believe we are achieving equality in cinema, and I don’t appreciate what I think is a lackadaisical response to that, which is just putting women in roles for the hell of it. Or the pressure to write for women, about women, if you are a woman. Men have written women’s and men’s stories for eternity, why can’t a woman write a story about a man? I understand the need for exposure, so that we the audience becomes accustomed to seeing women in all different situations, but I don’t believe that just because I am a woman that I couldn’t direct an action film or write a man’s story. I was also watching an interview with Billie Jean King recently about women’s tennis, and she spoke about the struggle of being an active feminist and fighting for equal court time and equal pay for women. Then she said something to the young female interviewer like: I’m wondering if the position we are in, with equality still so out of reach, that we haven’t just expected things to be easier, because of the women who fought so hard before us. In some ways though, we are fortunate. It’s not an even playing field but we have the advantage of knowing that. Supporting one another, through media such as this, and actually mentioning the names of female filmmakers when in conversation will help. We have to continue to fight, always. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Carey. Finally, would you like to tell us

Women Cinemakers readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Yes, I’m working on a few projects currently. I have a short in postproduction, it’s a monster horror called

. I’m really into

female-led horror at the moment, I think women are exploring some very interesting stuff through the genre. I wrote it as a pilot for a web-series, but it can stand as a short film easily. I also have a feature in pre-production, this one is a little more like , in that it tackles serious issues in a humorous and light-hearted way. The title is

, and it’s about a dog who

is contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. On the eve of the bout, it is revealed to him that he is not a boxer, but a Staffordshire Terrier. This creates a crisis of identity for the protagonist, Stanley Stafford. The film asks how much the way we look and where we come from dictates our expectations. And, because I love to do this, it’s also an homage to boxing films, and particularly iconic scenes from films such as and, of course, . I’m also writing an outback thriller about a woman lying on a road in the middle of nowhere, after hitting a kangaroo and writing off her motorbike. It’s in a similar vein to

, and

, almost entirely a one-person film. I’m excited about writing a piece devoted to a female character, not because as a female I should, but because that’s how it formed in my head.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Betsy Redelman Mujeres del Barro Rojo [Women's Work] is a short film about women and clay. It follows the Mateo family through their process of making pots while touching on topics such as gender, craft, family, and matrilineal heritage. A collaboration project between the Mujeres del Barro Rojo [San Marcos Tlapazola, Oaxaca, Mexico] and the film crew [Portland, Oregon, USA], the film seeks to break traditional documentary tropes and pose an alternative to dominant narratives surrounding contemporary craft and ceramics.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Betsy and welcome to

: we

would like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training: you hold a Bachelors of Arts in International Studies, that you received from the Loyola University of Chicago and you later nurtured your education with an MFA in Craft Studies, that you received from Oregon College of Art and Craft. How did this experience influence your evolution as an artist? Moreover, how does your cultural background direct the trajecory of your artistic research?

Betsy: First of all, thank you so much for the invitation to be a part of this issue of WomenCinemakers. The team and I are honored to have been chosen and we are excited to share some of our thoughts about the film with you. was made collaboratively by a brilliant team of film makers in the US and Mexico. I’d like to take these first few moments of the interview to introduce you to them. Daniel Suárez Gaviria is an artist from Medellín, Colombia. He received his bachelors degree in Film from Yale University before completing his MFA in Craft Studies at Oregon College of Art and Craft. Daniel makes audiovisual collages that problematize colonialism. He worked as the subtitler for the film.

Film Poster by Horse

Amalia Cruz Martínez, Macrina Mateo Martínez, Griselda Mateo Gutiérrez and Maria Francisca Gutiérrez Cruz after the clay harvest

Women Cinemakers Brett Gerlt is a videographer and barista originally from central Missouri and currently based in Portland, Oregon. Brett studied Digital Film and Video Production at Missouri State University and has been doing a combination of freelance film work and news photography for the past several years. Brett worked as the the editor for the film. Yahira Hernández is an independent art director and motion designer originally from Puerto Rico and currently based in Portland, OR. She studied Motion Design at Ringling College of Art and Design. Yahira’s illustrations and animations are often hand drawn and feature smart color pallets and contemporary designs. Yahira worked as the animator for the film. Mujeres del Barro Rojo (Women of the Red Clay) is an all female collective of Zapotec potters from San Marcos Tlapazola, Oaxaca, Mexico, comprised of eleven female members of the Mateo family. The tradition of making pottery has been passed down matrilineally in their family for hundreds of years. Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City, as well as London, Belgium, Finland, and Berlin. The Mujeres del Barro Rojo were the creative catalyst and stars of the film, in addition to serving as story and content consultants throughout post production. Elia Mateo Martínez, one of the members of the Mujeres del Barro Rojo, shares her thoughts later on in the interview. And I, Betsy Redelman, am a potter, writer, educator, and film maker originally from central Indiana and currently based in Boston, Massachusetts. I served as the videographer and director of the film.

I also want to mention that our research was supported by a Craft Research Fund grant from the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design and by a grant from the National Council on Ceramic Arts Education. In the spirit of the film, we have decided to approach this interview collaboratively. You’ll notice multiple voices chiming in starting at question 2, and we hope you enjoy the plurality of our creative voice. So, getting back to your question—while at Loyola, I got a really strong foundation in the Humanities. In addition to International Studies, I minored in Women & Gender Studies, Anthropology, and Studio Art. I started throwing pots during my freshman year of college. I was in love with clay, smitten from the start, but I found the dominant narratives about the history of ceramics left something to be desired, with a nearly exclusive focus on European and Asian ceramics, most often from male perspectives. In my last semester of undergrad, I began fervently researching pottery traditions with a matrilineal heritage. I started looking at the Southwest and pueblo pottery, trailblazers like Maria Martinez, and even further south into Mexican pottery traditions. I came across this article about a family of women potters in Oaxaca that dug clay up on a mountain near their house, fired their pots in the open air, and while their pots baked, they would watch telanovelas and drink pepsi. That was it for me—the women role models in Ceramics I had been searching for. I said to myself, “I have got to meet these women.” One of the things I was able to really wrestle with during my time at Oregon College of Art and Craft was challenging

Amalia Cruz MartĂnez interview

Angelina Mateo MartĂnez feeding the fire

Women Cinemakers

conventional ways of thinking and ways of knowing. I was quite inundated with anthropological methods and pedagogy during undergrad. In addition to earning a minor in it, I also did a two year research fellowship in anthropology. It’s funny, once you become so engulfed in a field like that, it can become hard to see. You learn this “way of knowing” so well, that you almost don’t recognize it as a lens anymore, problematic though it may be. It was during my time in the Craft program at OCAC that I was really able to see that lens again, examine it, and begin my search for other ways of engaging with the world. I did a lot of that processing during the production and post-production of the film, and I think there is residue of that work, that creative struggle, in the film. we For this special edition of have selected , an extremely interesting video installation that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can . What be viewed at has at once captured our attention of your film is the way you have been capable of subverting the clichés of documentary filmmaking, capturing subtle emotional reactions to provide the viewers with such a captivating visual experience. While walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us what attracted you to this story? Elia: Yo en lo personal, ya tenia muchas ganas de hacer otro video de nuestro trabajo, pero mi intención era que el público pudiera ver todo el trabajo qué implica

ser artesana. Nosotras mismas tenemos que juntar la materia prima, no nos importa estar en el pleno sol, levantar cosas pesadas, estar cerca del fuego. Al contrario. Amamos lo que hacemos y nos divertimos mucho, porque es un trabajo limpio y puro de mucho valor, del que nos a enseñado nuestra madre, y eso se nos ocorrio hacer esta filmación, para que así la gente sepa valorar más nuestro trabajo. //Personally, I had been wanting to make another video of our work, but my intention was for the public to be able to see all of the work that it takes to be an artesana. We have to gather the raw materials ourselves, we don’t care about standing under the hot sun, having to lift heavy things, or being close to the fire. On the contrary. We love what we do and we have lots of fun, because it’s an honest and pure job with a lot of value, which we have learned from our mother. That’s why we wanted to make this film, so that people would know how to value our work more. (Translation by José Díaz) Betsy: My involvement in this film goes back a few years. After a year and half of at-a-distance research on pottery communities in Oaxaca, and a last-round rejection by Fulbright, in the summer of 2015 I set out for Oaxaca on my own, thanks to encouraging nudges from my mentors Eric Mindling and Matthew Groves. Over the course of two months, I apprenticed with potters in five villages across the central region of Oaxaca. The first door I knocked on was that of the Mujeres del Barro Rojo in San Marcos, the women I had read about in that first article I read over a year prior. Here I was, this young, goofy white girl who showed up on their doorstep asking about clay in poor Spanish, and they were so very

Women Cinemakers kind to me. We got up before the sun to dig clay up on the mountain, made pots during the day, and stayed up late burnishing, playing cards, and watching the Simpsons in Spanish. When my apprenticeship was done, I left with a full belly, a full heart, and a thick pueblo accent. The Mateo sisters and I became fast friends and I ended up staying with them a couple more times on that first trip, and then again several more times a few months later when I returned to Oaxaca for the summer. In the months in between, Elia and I stayed in close contact, chatting almost daily on Facebook messenger and WhatsApp. Toward the end of my second trip, Elia and her sister Macrina approached me about making a process film togetherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;from the digging of the clay all the way through the firing of the pot. They said that many people had made videos about them in the past, but no one had ever taken the time to document their process in its entirety, which was important to them. I had little to no experience with film, but happily (and perhaps naively) agreed. I think on some level I understood what I had to offer in lieu of film knowledgeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;time, humor, resourcefulness, familiarity with their process, and (most importantly) my close relationship with the family. We shot the film over the course of four days and it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until I got back to the US a few weeks later that I realized what I had gotten myself into. We had over 13 hours of footage, and putzing around in Windows Movie Maker was about the extent of my editing chops. After poorly producing a couple of five minute edits, I realized I would need professional help to do this thing right and, por suerte, I found Brett. features essential and elegantly structured composition: when what were your

Dorotea Mateo Sรกnchez harvesting clay

Maria Francisca GutiĂŠrrez Cruz and Amalia Cruz MartĂnez summiting the mountain

Women Cinemakers shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? Betsy: Aesthetically, to be honest, I thought a lot about what I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to do. I had seen documentary after documentary with camera angles and shooting techniques I found problematic (ie, always shooting from above creating a visual hierarchy, or focusing on objects in the background, effectively ignoring the subject). I always wanted it to be clear who was the center of attention and also use camera angles that depicted something about my relationship with the Mateo women. As far as camera and lens, that was largely determined by what was available, which at the time was an iPhone and a point-and-shoot Canon. At first, I saw this as a disadvantage. We were shooting all of these immensely beautiful and powerful scenes and I worried that our technological constraints wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do the story justice. A friend of mine (and also of the Mateo family) who is a professional film maker based out of Oaxaca City offered to help us. He came out and shot for a day with microphones and his $10,000 camera. We staged some of the demos with lighting, and eliminated peripheral noise (dogs barking, trucks passing, radios blaring) as best we could to improve the sound quality. I was sure that this was what we had been missing this whole time. When we watched the footage back a few days later, we realized we had lost something. Even though the quality was much much higher, the interviews had a stiffness to them, the textured landscape of family life now seemed dead. I am not making any sweeping claims about high quality cameras or professional sound equipment, but I do know that filming with a phone, in this instance, was the right choice. We

Women Cinemakers could not have made the film we made had we not. Many of the members of the Mateo family have a smart phone. It is an object they know well and are familiar with. Ofcourse not every moment of being recorded was comfortable, but having that increased sense of ease in front of the “camera,” more akin to friends taking videos of each other than subjects being documented, made for a vastly different kind of film. A much more layered, and nuanced, and honest film. In your short you leave the floor to Mateo family, finding a simple still effective way to walk the viewers to develope a bridge between their epiphanic journey and the viewer's inner sphere. In this sense, seems to reflect German photographer Andreas Gursky's quote "

While marked out with such a seductive beauty regarding the visual aspect, it also provokes the viewers' imagination: what are you hoping your film will trigger in the audience? Elia: Que la audiencia vea, que nos sentimos muy felices y bien orgullosas de seguir manteniendo viva nuestras tradiciones nuestra cultura, sobre todo portando nuestro traje típico, dominando nuestra lengua materna el zapoteco , y de ser artesana conservando la técnica de nuestros antepasados. También hemos sufrido mucho, y hemos podido salir adelante. No nos damos por vencidas. El barro nos ha sacado adelante y nunca dejaremos de jugar, de sentir, de tocar de moldear, el barro, pero con todo el amor, que se le debe tener a cualquier trabajo que uno tenga. //We wanted the audience to see how happy and proud we are of keeping our traditions and culture alive, especially by

wearing our traditional dress, being fluent in our maternal language, Zapotec, and being artesanas conserving the techniques of our ancestors. We’ve also suffered a lot, but we’ve managed to come out ahead. We do not give up. The clay has helped us keep going, and we will not stop playing, feeling, touching, and molding clay with all of the love that any job one has should be given. (Translation by José Díaz) Daniel: Historically, the documentary mode has been especially expected to deliver a “report on reality” (even the name, “documentary” suggests the “objective” presentation of a “document” grounded on truth and verisimilitude, (forgetting that every document is biased and subjective)). I addresses believe the very constructed-ness of the experience and the documents it produces. The filmmaker is not invisible (a flyon-the-wall as cinémá vérite would have it) but a participant. And the women of San Marcos are not mere subjects, they participate and interact with the “güera de Chicago” that is holding the camera. In “Sans Soleil” Chris Marker explicitly broke the “traditional” documentary paradigm: “Frankly, have you ever heard anything stupider than to say to people as they teach in film schools, not to look at the camera?” Films like and many others being made today are not afraid to break the fourth wall, to problematize their own modes of representation, to address the processes of their own development. The scene of the women discussing how many likes the video will get, the filmmaker exhorting a señora to keep washing her hands in the clay (“More, more” revealing her own directorial decisions), jokes about how Betsy is always filming... moments like these present a reality that is not exotic or faraway, but grounded in the same world

Betsy Redelman and Elia Mateo MartĂnez

Maria A stillFrancisca from GutiĂŠrrez Cruz interview

Women Cinemakers contemporary audiences might know, one of social media, selfrepresentation, and ubiquitous recording. Brett: I hope that people are empowered by the film. The film presents women who are strong, passionate, quick witted, and talented artists as well. Betsy: I hope it widens the audience’s view of the geography of contemporary craft. I hope it will encourage them to seek out more stories of women in craft, ceramics specifically, told in their own voice. I hope it will make people ask questions about point of view with a new awareness and criticality. I hope the film makes people think about process, and the value of process divorced from the capitalistic notion of a product. You may have noticed that we did not include a shot of the finished pots at the end of the film. Finished pots can be seen in the background of other shots throughout the film, in the home and studio, but instead of ending with the freshly fired pots as one might expect, the camera follows a trail of smoke into the sky and fades to black. This was a collaborative decision we made in order to highlight process and the value inherant in this history and this story separate from the product. I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve gotten from audiences and viewers about how we “left out” that part—usually from white US audiences, far fewer from Latin American audiences. I think it says something interesting about how white Americans engage with Latin American artesania or “folk craft.” Artesanas are seldom mentioned in the contemporary craft or ceramics scenes. For a long time, Americans engaging with the work of artisans has most often looked like buying their goods at a market or a fair-trade store accompanied with a heartwarming two-sentence story and a faded photo on card stock, whimsically tied to the work with a piece of twine. The value of that exchange is entirely wrapped up in the product. This is not to say

Women Cinemakers

that the product in this case isn’t exquisite or worthy of praise—it absolutely is! We are simply providing a space for the viewer to question where and how they assign value to craft. We have particularly appreciated your successful attempt to break traditional documentary, to offer surrounding contemporary craft and ceramics: how was your approach to editing in order to achieve such unconventional and stimulating results? Brett: Documentaries can be very dry. We wanted the film to capture the spirit of the Mateo family by being playful and fun, which is why we included the animations. We wanted to avoid making a film in the style of cinéma vérité and also let the Mateo family guide the narrative with their stories. When I came on to the project Betsy had already translated three interviews. I started building the edit around those interviews. I am not fluent in Spanish which made some of the editing really difficult. Something I found really interesting was how much I was able to understand without the translations. You can pick up so much context through body language and images. I had to rely a lot on that as I started editing and Betsy and Daniel worked on translations. We started adding more context with the language and we shuffled things around to make more sense. Betsy: I would describe our editing approach as a process of uncovering. We actually ended up making two films out of the footage I shot with the Mateos. The first was the process film they had requested, a step-by-step from clay harvesting through pot firing. But, when Brett and I were going through

the footage, I had this nagging feeling that there was a second film in there. A film more explicitly about gender, clay, and craft. After finishing the process film, with the permission of the Mateos, we began the edit on the second film— . I hadn’t shot the footage with that second film in mind, so when Brett asked me for a story to follow, an arc, I didn’t have one for him. Luckily, Brett is a very patient and skilled editor. It was a long, laborious job and took a lot of communication, and back and forth with me and the other members of the crew, but Brett was able to interpret our comments and ideas and really bring them to life. Now that I think about it, Brett was really our film’s midwife. It's important to remark that was made collaboratively using a horizontal structure, in which all of the collaborators had artistic license: how do you consider the collaborative nature of this project? In particular, can you explain how your film demonstrates communication between several creative minds with different backgrounds? Daniel: Besides giving my opinion (when asked) as the film developed, my main role was to make the subtitles. I was given great liberty to play with their timing (often overlaying them in a quirky way to mirror the speed of backand-forth humor) and syntax (sometimes choosing to reflect the idiosyncrasies of certain phrasings). At one time, I remember we were unsure of what the señoras exclaimed on an uphill climb. I heard a self-mocking and selfcelebrating “Tres abuelitas!” (“Three grannies!”) but Betsy heard something else, and the wind made it hard to make it

Maria Francisca GutiĂŠrrez Cruz and Amalia Cruz MartĂnez summiting the mountain

Macrina Mateo MartĂnez burnishing a pot

Women Cinemakers out. So we sent the clip back to San Marcos (via WhatsApp), and confirmed what the women were saying. This is, in my own experience in film, highly unusual. It reflects an ongoing relationship with the “subjects” of the film and great openness towards the collaborators.

cohesive manner, which is something I’m really proud of. I could not have asked for a better team. Even though it was probably a much messier and longer process, I feel really passionate about producing craft content in this sort of collaborative manner.

Brett: It was quite a different process than I am used to but it really worked. Traditionally film is made by teams working in different departments which can become very disconnected. Sometimes it can be hard to match the passion of the person who started a project. Betsy did a great job of making this a project that we all cared about by including us in the entirety of the creative process.

Your film touches on topics such as gender, craft, family, and matrilineal heritage: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that "

Betsy: For this film, I re-thought the traditional role of director to include crafting interactions between the individual voices and ideas of the crew in order to cultivate a collective voice. Even though much of the post-production work was computer-based, I found it really important for us creatively to physically exist in the same space. That looked like the four of us getting beers to talk through ideas, a couple of us silently co-working side by side, and talking through edits together in person in addition to over email. The professor Sarah Wiebe talks about collaborative film making as an anti-oppressive research tool and remarks that, “this prismatic process… sheds light on dissenting voices, while making space for and facilitating the expression of diverse perspectives.” This brilliant crew, each individual with their own unique talents and worldview, created something together that was greater than the sum of its parts. Our group synergy made it possible for us to express diverging perspectives in a

":what could be in your opinion in our unstable, everchanging contemporary age? In particular, does your artistic research respond to cultural moment? Daniel: Films like these, made in the digital age, will be read and interpreted in different contexts: by Latin Americans living in urban spaces (often disconnected from the traditions of craft and matrilineal empowerment mentioned), to second-generation immigrants who (as visible in some of the comments) experience a great sense of nostalgia when seeing the footage, to white viewers in the US who are being exposed to rural Mexico for the first time. I am excited to see how different groups will react to the text, and what each of us will find moving. Brett: There is so much separation right now in politics and in our culture. With all of this anxiety about the “other” I think connecting people is really important. The more we are familiar with other cultures and art the better we can empathize and relate.

Women Cinemakers I was very conscious that I was the only white male working on this project. I tried to stay very mindful of the topics we were exploring and how I fit in to that narrative. I wanted to take a back seat and really let others lead the project. We have appreciated the originality of your work and we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on in the contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something ' ', however in the last decades women are finding their voices in art: how would you describe your personal experience as a filmmaker? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary and collaborative field? Betsy: I avoided the traditional film school entry point and just jumped in feet first into my first film. Though things are changing, the documentation of both film and ceramics history share a world view that is often very white and very male. Living in this time where novice film makers not only have access to alternative histories and are able to learn techniques without paying institutional gatekeepers, but also have the abilitiy to self-publish on online platforms like YouTube—it is truly revolutionary. It provides an opportunity for people who feel exhausted by curriculum that doesn’t reflect their identity or experience, or perhaps couldn’t have afforded it. It also creates a unique opportunity for communities to take control of their own narrative, not only for women, but for people who identify as queer, trans, POC, indigenous, immigrants, etc.

It’s an exciting time to be a film maker. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Betsy. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Betsy: This film has made me into a film maker. After having such a positive experience collaborating with the team on this project, I have also started experimenting with using a collaborative approach to writing, and I could see that spreading to other parts of my practice as well. Elia and I have recently started talking about what a Part 2 would look like. We don’t have any firm plans yet, but stay tuned! For the immediate future, I will be returning to my work as a potter. I find that material knowledge can be so powerful when translated to other disciplines like film (especially when making films material knowledge). It changes the way you think, the way you interact with people and objects, the way you understand the world. These common denominators of women, craft, and community keep coming up for me, in my life and in my work. Turns out, you can find those three things in most places. I’m interested in producing more craft content that highlights the work of women, perhaps in my own backyard next time. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Macrina Mateo MartĂnez and Betsy Redelman

Women Cinemakers meets

Kirsten Burger Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

“It will be … that the music is very quiet. Quiet music. So that you’re able to leave. Grief. Crying. Pain. The pain is stuck somewhere in you. Within me.“ // “When I’ll be dead I will have a red casket. I will put on my Indian chief costume and enjoy death. // “I will have a red casket when I’ll die. With silk and everything. Very soft. (…) I will lie cozily in that casket, all cozy and cuddly. Everyone will take care of me, wash me. And then they’ll lower the casket. But I’m still alive. And my house belongs to me.“ These are the words of Mirco Kuball, the protagonist of “The Great Fortune“, a film by Kirsten Burger, Mikko Gaestel and Johannes Müller. The camera follows Mirco on his way between boutiques, his dentist, oculist, massagist, luxurious cafés and restaurants, etc. Yes, he does live at a huge castle in “Downie Street“ and yes, he happens to fall in love with guys. But, much more important, he’s an artist, which, as he states, “means being an actor. It has a lot of meanings. Artist is when you want to do something. Like acting in theatre. What makes you an actor … an actor wants to say something. Being an actor means: what to do? Something like: I am here. Or I am not here.“ A part of Mirco’s repertoire is the role of Parsifal, the “pure fool“. And, indeed, there is as much ’foolish wisdom’ or ’wise foolishness‘ in what he tells us about his own reality as there is in life itself. Although you wouldn’t want to lump them together, the same as what Mikhail Bakhtin writes about the “fools“ in medieval carnivalesque culture applies to Mr. Kuball, as it seems: “(…) they were not actors playing their parts on a stage (…). (…) they represented a certain form of life, which was real and ideal at the same time. They stood on the borderline between life and art, in a peculiar midzone as it were. They were neither eccentrics nor dolts, neither were they comic actors.”

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Captivating and refined in its balanced and effective storytelling, is a stimulating documentary film by filmmaker Kirsten Burger:

inquiring into the figure of Mirco Kuball, she demonstrates the ability to capture the subtle depths of emotions. This captivating film offers an emotionally charged visual experience, inviting the viewers to unveil the ubiquitous beauty hidden into the details of our everyday life experience: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers

to Burger's captivating and multifaceted artistic production. : Hello Kirsten and welcome to to start this interview we would like to invite our readers to visit and in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production. In the meanwhile, we would ask you a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your evolution as a filmmaker? Could you tell us your biggest influences and how did they affect your work? I come from an artistic and academic family that, on my mother’s side, was very elitist and, of course, provided me with a lot of opportunities, but in which I always felt quite lonely and judged, too. I didn’t have a lot of access to films in my childhood as I was neither allowed to watch tv, nor to go to the cinema. On the other side there was my father, a hippie from Vienna, who was out and abroad a lot, and only came to see us once in a while just doing whatever he wanted. That’s why, for a long time, I would have preferred to be a man since I associated it with „freedom“. As a teenager at the age of 14 or 15 I used to sneak out of the house at night to watch movies like „Easy Rider“ or „Quiet Days in Clichy“. My filmic and erotic glance was already influenced by a heterosexual masculinity at an early stage. It was much later that movies and filmmakers would have an impact on my artistic development at a more

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Women Cinemakers conscious level. I have always been living in my own kind of surreal world of images, so at first I studied Fine Arts. When I was around 18 years old I read everything by Cocteau and watched all of his films. This slow and gentle rhythm, the way of visualizing links between realities and fictions in a naive, painter-like fashion has been with me for quite a while and has certainly shaped my work. His attitude not to limit yourself to one artistic medium has given me a lot of freedom. According to my parents’ plan I was supposed to become a painter. During my studies in Vienna and Hamburg, I realized that I was too lonely. At that time, in the beginning of my twenties, I was certainly influenced most by Joseph Beuys, while the works of Valie Export and Bill Viola were also very formative to me. What these three artists have in common are, of course, the performative, politically activist and poetic elements, so maybe they were the one’s responsible for my going into the performative direction at first, and for working in the field of theatre over many years, not only as an actor but also as a director, and as you know, I’m still very anchored in theatre. Since theatre is absolute teamwork, it meant, at the same time, the end of my loneliness. I think I’m a person who is always open to new things and permanently in search of new forms of expression. Images and stories have always been crucial to my work, no matter how they are displayed or told. And probably it was just a matter of time until I came across the filmic „moving image“ in my own work. I still remember quite well when I discovered Maya Deren. I was still dancing back then, so was she, and that’s how it happened. I thought: „Oh, she expresses her whole own

world in her films!“. I was extremely impressed by her work and also by the fact that she was a woman who made her films just the way she wanted. It was the moment when I started to think that maybe for me, too, film could be the best way to express myself.

to explore and understand how humans function, how they feel, why they are doing what they are doing, and why we are here on earth. In this context portraits of people are, of course, particularly interesting.

I then gradually shifted into the direction of film. In Berlin I have met people who have been close to my work as a filmmaker and finally I have my own film collective „Expanderfilm“ which I make most of my films together with. The reason why my films are in the end rather documentary is certainly that my greatest concern has always been the „human being“. I have always wanted

For this special edition of we have selected , a captivating documentary film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. While walking our readers through of , would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to

meticolously schedule every details of your shooting process? Since I’m interested in all so-called „outsiders“ or „marginal groups“, disabled people are, of course, part of my work, too. I think, initially in my mind there was the question if disabled people might have liberties that other people don’t have, in the sense of a certain „jester’s freedom“. That question was probably what the film began with. I had already shot a film for a disabled festival, so we already had relevant contacts, for instance to „Theater RambaZamba“ in Berlin where most of the actors are people with trisomy 21.

When we met Mirco Kubal there for the first time, it was clear that it’s a very special condition to have trisomy 21, to be gay, an actor, extremely rich and to live at a castle. There seemed to be many contradictions inherent to that condition which interested me from the very beginning. I created the film in close cooperation with my two colleagues Mikko Gaestel and Johannes Müller. Back then, we went together to the castle to meet Mirco and his mother and talked with them about making a film. They agreed under the condition that Mirco Kubal’s mother would by no means appear in it. But

as she was so ever-present - as well as „death“ as a topic between her and her son - we decided to make her a subject, yet an invisible one, by pretending that she had recently passed away. This kind of mingling reality with fiction is quite frequent in my work but it usually happens by coincidence, out of an „inner reality“ that wants to absorb the outward. I always evolve my films by taking up subjects I come upon, so I don’t have a script. I have my questions in mind and just wait for what will arise. It’s a journey into the absolutely unknown. We just spent several days with Mirco Kubal once in a while, we lived with him, slept over at his place, practically didn’t have any place of retreat, which was exhausting but worth the effort. Until I have finished shooting and cutting a film I have no idea what will come out of it or at what results I’ll arrive. I’m totally open-minded and hardly plan anything. Only in the course of the shooting and while getting to know more about the protagonist, I make suggestions where else we could go, what else I’d like to do with the person. I’m just there, involved, close to the person and to her or his life reality. What matters most to me is mutual respect, trust and communication at eye level. features stunning Elegantly shot, cinematography and from a visual point, we have been fascinated with your clear and effective approach to narrative: what were your

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? I think I am very lucky to have Mikko Gaestel as a colleague and my camera operator because our preferences, rhythm, aesthetic ideas and our sense of humor are quite close to each other. Mostly I just need to tap him on the shoulder and he knows immediately what I want him to record. Our films are very slow and it seems like I need that slowness to get a better feel of the things captured by the camera. Perhaps Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a slow person in general. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m neither able to look at things nor to feel them quickly. We used a very light-sensitive camera for the film, so Mikko could shoot in the dark without extra lighting. We shot nearly everything on Sony A7s because of its full frame, dynamic range and photosensitivity. We had Canon L zoom lenses in order to achieve flexibility and for lowlight shooting we sometimes used lenses with fixed focal length. In you leave the floor to the figure of Mirco Kuball, finding an effective way to walk the viewers to develop between their own inner . sphere and the epiphanic journey of Could you tell us what did attract you to this particular figure? Perhaps it was the good manners, the behavior of someone brought up in an upper-class family which appear much more conspicuous when displayed by a disabled person. I wonder what kind of social rules were taught to him and are being taught to us.

At the same time you come to sense what lies below the surface - the sheer human condition, loneliness, a deeper level of existence that is usually more easily obscured by most people. This „aristocratic habitus“ is quite uncommon for a disabled person and the fact that he adapts it doesn’t always show him in a good light. Most disabled people live in rather precarious circumstances, so I was interested in the question which impact disability can have on the life of a rich person who is cherished and cared for and yet very lonely. I think it’s more inspiring to avoid clichés and not to put labels on people. Apparently, it already means breaking a taboo to not present a disabled person as a victim, but I preferred to interact with Mirco at eye level, even if that means that - like everybody else in this world - he doesn’t always show himself in a very likable way. What touched me most is the relationship between Mirco and his mother, since she is in reality very much alive and dominant. I think that she’s a curse and a blessing for Mirco. It’s an extremely symbiotic relationship from which he cannot escape. Although she touchingly takes care of him, she constricts his freedom at the same time. I think that a mother-son relationship like that can even cause a bigger dilemma than any disability does. It's no doubt that collaborations as the one that you have established with Mikko Gaestel and Johannes Müller are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Art and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers practice meet and collaborate on a project: could you tell us something about this effective synergy? Would you tell us something about the collaborative nature of your work? I enjoy working in a collective if it fits and I have often codirected films. The best that can happen is that there is some kind of creative friction, that you can discuss the work with each other. The division of tasks can also be an advantage. I can’t always cover everything that has to be done, so it can be more efficient to work together with one or two partners. But it has to happen more or less by itself. You can’t force it. Before starting to shoot „Das große Glück“ I had been working alone for many years, or with a team in which it was clear that the directing would be done by me alone. To direct a movie in close cooperation with a partner only makes sense if both are able to stimulate each other despite of all differences. It only works if you vibe with each other artistically. I can’t co-direct with someone who has totally different preferences, narrative styles, aesthetic ideas. You have to come from a „similar world“ somehow, otherwise there’s no way for me and I think it wouldn’t be possible to create a radical imagery either. Johannes Müller and I had known each other for a long time. We had been working together over some years in a collective for contemporary musical theatre. After having gone our own separate ways we wanted to make a film together once more. Mikko already has his own film collective and after our cooperation for „Das große Glück“ I became a member of „Expander Film“, too. Working together was so inspiring for us

Women Cinemakers that we felt like continuing it and I was ready for a new collective, anyway. Close cooperation can take much more time, of course. I think that it’s visible in the way the film is edited that we discussed every single detail. It was sometimes very exhausting indeed because we didn’t always agree to 100 percent and kept discussing until everybody would be convinced. It was very timeconsuming and you can’t always afford it but I really like to work like that. We dare say that your film could be considered an : how does effective allegory of everyday life experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? Sometimes I’m rather blocked by everyday life not finding enough time and calm for myself and my creative process within a patchwork family with five kids, or when faced with a bunch of emails to be answered and applications to be submitted. Therefore, I get up very early every morning in order to write for at least half an hour and to get a feel for which subjects are important to me at present. My life and my experiences are basically influenced by the subjects that I want to integrate into my artistic work. And the other way round. I can’t separate my life and my work from each other. It’s one whole. Sometimes, I do question it all, especially when I start to suffer from working too much without being able to

simply call it a day and go to bed. But, in general, it’s beautiful and it’s probably just meant to be like that. Most of those experiences, encounters and adventures, when one thing leads to another start being plausible and understandable to me only in the retrospective. Nevertheless, I don’t let myself be held back in that respect, even if in Germany there’s a lot of stereotyped

thinking about how it has to be or how you have to do it. I’m not interested in that at all. I’ll always just do what my inner voice tells me is the right thing. At the moment, for example, I’m acquiring knowledge about motion picture 8 hours every day and I’m shooting scenes for a new demo tape as a film actor. I find motion picture most fascinating right now, so I just do it.

We like the way you created entire scenarios out of : what are you hoping will trigger in the audience? I think that my work mainly deals with the matter of human existence and the question why we are here on earth. I’m simply interested in humans and how

Women Cinemakers they function psychologically. The human being portrayed in this film is a very rich, gay actor with Down syndrome who has a very dominant mother. I hope to be able to make the audience as curious as I am, to have it ask questions, to be surprised sometimes or perhaps irritated and, finally, to be confronted with their own thinking patterns which might have to be questioned. I like to leave enough space for everybody’s own interpretation and truth and I’m happy when people discover something in the film they find inspiring or exceptional. received lots of positive feedback and over the years has been screened in several occasions, including Belgrade International Documentary Film Festival and Montreal International Documentary Festival: how much importance has for you that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? It’s great, of course, that the film had so much resonance and received awards. We were also very happy to finally find a distributor - „Journeyman“. The thing is that I often work a lot for very few money and it’s surely terrific to see my work being acknowledged like that. That’s wonderful! I wouldn’t have expected the film to be that successful, especially since there are also a lot of great films that don’t tour so much. It’s nearly impossible to say for which reason one film runs well and another one doesn’t. And it’s obviously exiting to show one’s work at a festival without knowing how the audience is going to react to it. Getting a really good feedback for at least

Women Cinemakers some films or plays now and then, actually does help me to overcome a longer arduous stretch. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Well, it’s no secret that even nowadays there are still comparatively few female film directors and camera operators. Moreover, only a minor part of Germany’s national film budget goes to women. This is indeed a disastrous situation! It surprises me again and again that there are even female colleagues who apparently don’t see that. It’s a pity that I simply don’t have the time to deal actively with or do something against this problem. My mother is from Sweden, therefore I know how well everything’s organized there and which great achievements the 50 percent quota has brought to Swedish women working in film. I think there is still a lot to do but things are gradually changing. Why should we only receive images created by male directors all the time? I’m sure that on the long run nobody will want that! If we continue to make ourselves heard and call attention to our rights someday there will even be a

Women Cinemakers much greater change than the one already happening. And in the meantime we will have to live with the remaining difficulties and carry on undeterred! Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Kirsten. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? As always, I don’t have a clue. I make plans and in the end everything turns out to be totally different. At the moment I’m spending a lot of time dealing with motion picture as an actor as well as from the perspective of a director. As until now I have mostly worked as a theatre actor and director or as a documentary filmmaker, I would love to shoot a motion picture next. Apart from that, I want to do a documentary about homeless people in Berlin, perhaps next winter. Probably not the sexiest topic but it’s bothering me a lot these days. In autumn this year I’ll produce a theatre play in Tel Aviv with teenagers from Germany and Israel. It’s going to reflect on the situation they are living in and, of course, on Germany’s historical past. I’d also like to make a film about „Bauhaus“ on the occasion of its centenary. Let’s see what will happen. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Hsing-Ying Tseng Lives and works in Taiwan, Taipei

A man in his mid-forties opened a humble bookstore on an old street. A day at the bookstore would be, brewing tea and reading, but the man doesn't just sell books, he also plays films for people. At dawn, the audience - the old street’s residents would gather, and that is the moment when films are being played at the bookstore, and there, is another day of the old street. In the beginning of the film, the owner of the bookstore pulls down the screen, as if the owner is playing the movie for us (the one we’re watching.) What the film shows us are the lives of the people living on the old street. The traditional Taiwanese farms, the streets, houses, crafts from a particular period, along with just a few people. The scenes, which still exist in real life in the year of 2016, looks like an old film consist of lives from earlier Taiwan. The expressions on the resident’s faces while watching the film not only express indulgence of the projected film, in addition, how their lives are being perceived by themselves. They watch the film as if they are looking at themselves, we watch films as if we are looking at ourselves.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com Hello Hsing-Ying and welcome to WomenCinemakers: when walking our readers through your usual process and set up would you tell us if you think that there is a central idea that connect all your works? Thank you for the question. To be honest, the question troubled me for awhile, and only did I find that I have never given it much thought before, which makes me guilty of

selling my works and viewers short. And so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this chance of repentance. I revisited the focal points and directing techniques I stressed and used in my past works, the vocabulary, writing process, Mise-en-scène, editing strategies and screen performance etc. I have to say that I have no idea if future experiences will affect my central idea now, but to conclude my thirteen years (2004~2017) of as a filmmaker, I’d say, my central idea is “to let the audience see the essential purposes of , through the means of film”. In other words, the films made by director Hsin- Ying Tseng wish “to

preserve people, events, objects, materials, life, space, surroundings and emotions that will disappear as time goes by, in a film inside a film”. This might help to clarify the reason I let the actual audience of the film see the audience in The Old Street also seeing a film. The way this film was shot, edited and told were based on my thoughts on the purposes of the existence of film. And “seeing films” is one of human behaviors that I think will extend life. However, after some self-reflection, I think in terms of execution, I still have much to learn, but it is worth a life time for me to go down the path of film. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected The Old Street, an extremely captivating film that our readers have already staterd to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. While walking our readers through the genesis of The Old Street, would you tell us what was your choice for camera and lens? In terms of cameras and lenses, as a creator living in digital age, I should discuss the choice of choosing 8mm film as my shooting material. Before that, I was actually going to shoot the film digitally, only because I couldn't gather enough resources. But after I went further into the research and have done more field works, I sent the developed pictures I took with my film camera of the old street, to the film’s investor, and said to him I casually, “I think the visual quality of film would do very well to preserve the breath of the old street, it is closer to what I’ve seen with my own eyes, and reflected the warmth in my heart. It would be wonderful if the film can be made with film.” The investor— the one projecting the film in the film—looked at the pictures I sent him, and compared to works from other directors which were shot digitally. After much deliberation, the investor asked

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Women Cinemakers me “Can we make this film with film? If the problem is just money, don’t worry about it!” I said, “It is the most fitting choice to use film, both for the film and the old street.” This is the first time for me to witness how film can make an instant impact on a human soul. And this is the beginning of how I started shooting with film. Your style seems to be very analytical regarding the attention to details, as revealed by your elegantly shot statics: yet The Old Street establishes deep conttenction with the viewers: did you pursue such result in a spontaneous way? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticolously schedule every details of your works? First of all, I very much appreciate your use of the word “elegantly” to describe the image of The Old Street, I’m truly honored. Also, thank you for bringing up this question, it shows how intently you’ve watched and read my film, I’m very grateful for that. As a film maker, to have one’s work “seen” in such manner is a tremendous compliment. To answer your question, whenever I’m in the prep phase of a film as a director, I ask each section from compositions, designs, to control to be in their best condition, in order to reach the film’s best potential. This is a conscience I think every film maker should have, and it’s how every film should be treated. But I think if you’ve ever participated in the process of making a film, no matter how carefully it was thought out, “reasonable accidents” happen, and it is the faith of each film, and the way its film maker dealt with the accidents will determined how good a film is, in other words, how does a filmmaker connect the “accidents” to the “fixed plans”. This is also one of the aspects I find film making fascinating. For example, from my personal experience, “screen performance” has been the difficult part to “control” and is also the most

“unexpected”. It doesn’t matter if we were working with amateurs or professionals, whether it’s the choices they make at the moment, the simplest action done by some local residents, or a passerby riding a bike that got into the frame by accident, they all have a great chance to become a part of “screen performance” or “create” a language that was never thought of from the beginning. But it doesn’t matter if it’s the acting or unexpected situations, the author of the film has the final say, you have to make choices to fulfill your original “plans” or “designs” of the film. Even when you’re in the editing room, though every elements are

in control with fixed storyboards, different permutations would still generate “unexpected” intentions and Montage. This realization came to me unexpectedly. The more spontaneous I am, the more meticulous the film gets; and the more I try to work meticulously, the more spontaneous it becomes. Escaping from traditional narrative form, The Old Street features a brilliant storytelling: how did you develop the script and the structure of the film?

The version you’ve seen so far is actually very different from the first cut. The original version was edited based on the written script. Why did I re-edit it? I was deeply disappointed by the first cut, it didn't satisfy my expectations. I even blamed myself, thinking the lack of narrative was not what I expected from an opportunity to shoot with film, though each scene was just moving, but it just didn't quite make it as a whole.

always been my attitude towards my films. I usually edit my materials in the editing room in my head, and do a screening in the cinema in my head, if I thought it looked good there, I’ll then proceed to the process of actual editing. Interestingly, what’s on the mind can never be translated into the results. So I still have to sniff out the possibilities of my films from all the failures and disappointments.

And so I reexamined my materials, and contemplated on possible arrangements through Montage in order to give birth to a “new narrative”. “There must be another way” has

One day while contemplating, I thought, have I been stuck because I have been too contained by my own script, logic, and structure? So it came to me —while watching another

film—why don’t I take a different approach towards my materials? It is known that most film makers gather materials according to the written script, then connect and edit the materials in the same manner. But what if the goal was to use the shot materials to write a script? Which means, even though the materials I had at the moment were shot according to a written script, but what if I didn’t have a written script but only the shot materials? Would a new story emerge if I worked the other way around? How can I challenge myself as a director to express my kind of stories, thoughts, and aesthetics? As soon as I found the new mind set, the materials broke away from the original intentions and became flexible to new means. We have appreciated the film’s rigorous and expressive compositions: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In terms of my aesthetic decisions and choices of shots, I think it really depends on the genre and story of the film. However, for The Old Street, I will discuss it in three aspects: “Mise-enscène, camera angles, screen performance”. First of all, “Mise-en-scène”. The script was written with a premise of interpreting the old street with multiple single shots, which means each scene would only get a shot, and while getting the shots, the objects and local residents should not be moved and disturbed. I also ask the content of the image to include "people, actions, local elements, and atmosphere" simultaneously. So the first I had to do, was to decide on the locations. In order to communicate the rhythm of the people living on the old street, the second decision I had to make after the locations were chosen, was to decide on "framing" the contents I wanted. And this brings me to the next point "camera angles". The people in the frame, whether it's the local residents (non-actor) or residents that participated in the

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Women Cinemakers shoots (actor), their body languages and facial expressions were also important elements of composition. The Old Street also seems to address the viewers to aprocess of self-reflection: do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? Sometimes. I look forward hearing feedbacks from the audience after screening, especially from new faces, but the suggestions and feedbacks don’t really affect my creative process. The combination between sound and video plays a crucial role in the dynamics of The Old Street : according to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a 'sense bias' that affects contemporary societies favoring visual logic, a shift that occurred with the advent of the alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and moving images? I think sound and image compliment each other in the sense of completeness, expansion, filling up, supplementation, explanation, companionship, clarification, suggestion, reminder, depth, deepening, suspension, perfection, and dimension. They might also weaken each other directly or indirectly at times. To audience, the two is closely interweaved. Just like when you’re watching a silent film, you might still add in sounds that you find appropriate for the situation in the film. Your film brings to light the relationship between present and past and as you have remarked once, the scenes still existed in real life when you started to shoot, in 2016: could you comment this aspect of The Old Street? I feel deeply honored when my film was given the comment “between present and past”, because it isn’t something I had ever expected. So I gave it some thoughts. The terms, “past and present”

exist was because of “time”. When we are filming an event, a person, a space, a city…the moment we got it, it's the moment we lose it, “the instant present becomes the past instantly”. “Seeing a film”, as if watching a person, event, space, surroundings, emotion passing by. It is just like in The Old Street, while seeing the film, the local residents in it are also having a moment of nostalgia, as time goes on. The film in the film goes without saying is depicting the old street in 2016, which doesn't exist anymore, what's left is just the film and the beauty in it. When we look at it from another perspective. "Film"did exactly what I just said, it preserved the forever lost moments, and in those moments, nothing becomes the past, though time has past, instead, the moments will forever be in the film. Film prevents human from losing time, because it was locked inside a film forever. You can even fast-forward or rewind the film, as if you are in control of time. This maybe the reason why, people would take pictures and record images tirelessly, because it seems like they could help us "hold on" to something. So one would feel that nothing was lost. Allow me to digress a bit, the marks time has left on the old street, such as the mottled walls, the allies losing their grace, the old bricks, and the decays are signs of natural aging. But a lot of the so called "cultural restoration projects" are all trying to prevent old houses from aging, so they'd reconstruct and renew them. The houses after restoration appear to be new and pretty, which is ironic, when we then start to remember the marks time has left on the old streets, spaces, and farms. The old street after make over has lost its original scent and soul. To prevent natural damages, we as man has caused even bigger ounces.

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers Lastly, I'd like to thank the organization for the deep attention and thorough analysis my work has received. You have surpass the understanding and recognition I have for my own film. Based on your questions, the respect and attention you have for filmmakers is very obvious to me, and it is a rare for me to receive feedbacks like this in my own country. We want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? I think, for human being today, we will probably want to redefine and reconsider attributes of these terms: woman, female, lady, man, and male in a not so distant future. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Hsing-Ying. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? For now, I expect four things from myself. First, to shoot a feature film with 16mm or 35mm film, and will ask myself to construct a narrative style through my own aesthetic, film language and directing skill. Hopefully, I'll then discover a new vision. Second, I'd like to make a film, collaborating with other countries. Third, I look forward to bring my film into other countries, and share it with the audiences. Fourth, I'll continue my training in film theory, then present my ideas and incorporate them into my practice.

Interpreter: Evan Luo An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com