Meet the filmmakers – We are not islands

We like to have busy mornings!

There is plenty to do at Anibar, and we like to have busy mornings. In the Meet the Filmmakers section, we gather every morning at Cinema Jusuf Gervalla for an early recap with coffee, rakia and insightful discussions. On Thursday, we had the pleasure to listen to experiences, processes and behind-the-scenes moments of films competing in the Student and International Competition and a selection from the Commissioned Work.  

With Tuan Nini, Britt Raes, Delia Hess, Marta Reis Andrade, Lizzie Matts, Julia Tudisco and other professionals and audience, in this conversation moderated by Anastasiya Verlinska and Chris Robinson, we got to delve more into their processes on how they got to work in films. Starting with Tuan Nini’s film “Urban Frames”, which is also the trailer for Animest, the Rumanian festival dedicated to animation, showcased here in Anibar in the Commissioned work section: we learned more about the origins of this film, on being on an assignment to reflect on the urbanity of Bucharest, as well as the music that accompanies it. From finding the way to deal with being assigned to do a filmic work and her inspiration, she commented: 

“So, they just had these two words – Urban Frames, and they just told me to run with it. And I thought the words don’t give me any emotion, particularly, but it’s more like a location, it’s an environment. So I thought, okay, something was in the city. I thought, I need music for this and it’s a festival with international guests, so it’s nice to showcase a local band, and I searched through Romanian bands with music I liked, because I knew that was going to animate this music I have to listen to a lot of times, and I have to like it. And I found something that feels like it has a nice change. We approached the artist, who permitted us to use their music. And then I made a story.”

Britt Raes with “Creating Safer Spaces”, which was showcased before every screening, not only in Anibar but also in other festivals around the world, as part of a campaign against harassment of any kind during these festival gatherings. The creators of these sequences explained: “Together with Brit, we created, [or she created,] a series of three videos that could be played before screenings with the contacts of the person of trust, so it will be visible for everyone in case something happens, someone misbehaves, or whatever, and you want to report that particular person or that particular incident. [..]. 

The safety issue in events was the catalyst to undertake this creative process between the filmmakers, so this message can always be at hand for everyone. Raes explained: 

“So the dancing too close, drinking too much, the power dynamics of one person being a star and using their ‘Yeah’, that’s using their power, and I think, the original brief was just to have, like, one when you’re on 20 seconds. So, for different situations, or festivals, or some festivals I mean, they show the entire thing before the screenings.”

And this marks a way on how animation can help also be a vessel to mindfully raising awareness, communicating it bluntly, yet softly and creatively. 

This is the reason for this initiative to start, because there were lots of cases that turned out, and some of the cases, well, of course, it can be like a momentary misunderstanding. I don’t know, for instance, French people have a habit of kissing each other on the cheek when they meet. Maybe someone likes it, but it’s like a cultural difference. You say sorry, and that’s it. But of course, it can go further. And there are also some people who have been deported throughout the years. There have been incidents and so on. So, the situations were very different.

Next on was Delia Hess, the director of the short-animated film “On Hold”, who talked more about her own experience in working with this film, the need to understand the low moments in life and turn them, against all odds, into a meaningful story. When asked about this path from having an idea and putting the work in to create a film, she said:

“I think it’s an interesting film, because it can have different layers of interpretation. There’s a COVID vibe to it, the isolation, but just the freedom of the mind as well, kind of a celebration. I didn’t, before I fell into depression, I just felt very tired. I couldn’t make an effort to look at it. Things came afterwards I had the idea. 

From this moment of self-reflection and encapsulating the essence of understanding the dark alleys where the mind goes to a discussion on Marta Reis Andrade’s work titled “Dog Alone”, tackling a different take on loneliness. She said: 

“This film came from a moment in my life when I was feeling very lonely in London. I was about to come back to Portugal, so when I came back, I found that my granddad was going through a different kind of loneliness that comes with age and with the impairments of your own body. And the combination of moments, like what I was doing in my life, in comparison to realities. It makes me go back a little, and I can do something about it. 

From these works, the last two conversations were focused on the Student Competition Category, starting with Lizzie Matts’ “FRIED!”:

“There’s a big tangent line here, but the stone circles are also very tied into that activism, like as a cultural symbol-hood in the UK. And I’ve heard this thing that stayed in my head for a really long time, which was that the half-life of nuclear waste from now is as far away in the future as those stones were preparing the past. So, all of that just kind of made sense to me, and I was, but then trying to navigate and try and find a story that helped you through that kind of world.

Julia Tudisco’s “Children of the Birds” was the last film where she discussed more of the technical aspects and the inspiration between the visual poetics and narration in her film. Moreover, she focused on the process of perfecting the characters and how to portray different masculine and feminine energies and how they intertwine and develop. 

Through the array of questions, answers, jokes and sprite comebacks, we invite you all to join us tomorrow by 10:30 at Kino Jusuf Gervalla, for another session of Meet the Filmmakers.