Late yesterday morning (Sunday, 2.9) SBIFF honcho Roger Durling moderated an international directors panel at the Arlington theatre. The honorees were I’m Still Here‘s Walter Salles, Emilia Perez‘s Jacques Audiard (who also wrote and produced), The Seed of the Sacred Pig‘s Mohammad Rasoulof and Flow‘s Gints Zilbalodis (who also wrote and produced).
The combination of Durling’s questions and his guests’ thoughtful, open-hearted answers created an atmosphere of inquisitive calm and introspection. It felt very nourishing…a good-vibe thing.
Here’s my Cannes ’24 review of The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
In his Audiard chat Durling focused on the craft-and-transformation aspects of Emilia Perez. It follows that Durling behaved like a kind and gracious host by sidestepping the recent Emila Perez p.r. catastrophe, or more specifically the Karla Sofia Gascon nightmare about resurfaced tweets.
Stand-out quote #1: “My goal is to create an experience. Music is closer to filmmaking than any other art. It transcends culture. Filmmaking is a language in itself. Images are a language…they are not foreign. I’m not interested in manufacturing emotion.” (Zilbalodis)
Stand-out quote #2: “I’m Still Here is about overcoming loss…The real life Eunice refused to be seen as the victim. I would never embrace melodrama for the sake of theatricality. I would never betray her story. Trust the spectator. The film embraces the fact that we can overcome.” (Salles)
Stand-out quote #3: “When you live in a system of repression and dictatorship then being yourself becomes a challenge. When I started making films the first question I had was, how do I maintain being myself? So I used metaphors to express myself. But after my third film, I realized that metaphors in itself were a form of censorship. I had to turn limitations into solutions. The story began when I was in prison, when one of the officers told me he questioned his life and his job. This story and this chasm highlights the issue between tradition and identity.” (Rasoulof)
Stand-out quote #4: “I have this nostalgia for silent film. Films where there is purely acting and light. What I mean is that I try to escape from spoken dialogue.” (Audiard)
Stand-out quote #5: “I’m more of a literary fellow than a cinephile. I can do without images but I can’t do without words.” (Audiard)
