Dealing with Reality

How to interpret reality through images

“Dealing with Reality” – Hala Galal, Michèle Ohayon and Anders Østergaard, moderated by Matthijs Wouter Knol. Berlinale Talent Campus, February 8, 2009.

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Good afternoon everybody. “Dealing With Reality”, this session is called, focussing on documentary filmmaking, and especially the challenges of documentary filmmaking. I am very happy that we can offer you today three brilliant documentary filmmakers from quite different parts around the world. Hala Galal is a filmmaker, a scriptwriter and a producer, based in Egypt, and also part of the Egyptian Documentary Filmmakers Association. She made a couple of films, one of which being Women’s Chitchat (2004), which won the Silver Award for Best Documentary in Rotterdam Film Festival, and you are currently working on your next film, THE LIGHT POINT. When do you think the film will be ready?

Hala Galal:

By the end of this year I hope.

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Michèle Ohayon, an acclaimed filmmaker from the US, has worked on a number of films, which were very successful at a couple of festivals around the world. You worked on STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME (2007), COWBOY DEL AMOR (2005), IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE (1993), PRESSURE (1984) and COLORS STRAIGHT UP (1997), this last film, and I am only going to mention this one, won a number of awards around the world including for example South By Southwest, and was also nominated for an Academy Award. You are also a fiction writer, and you are also working on a new film called YTFY (YOUR GOVERNMENT FAILED YOU).

Last but not least, Anders Østergaard, a documentary filmmaker from Denmark, who also made a couple of acclaimed documentary films, the last one might be the most well-known as it is the most fresh BURMA V-J: REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY (Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land, 2008), which won at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

Maybe it would be good to start to ask you, Hala, on the films that you have made, for example on Women’s Chitchat, scriptwriting for documentary is always something that people keep on talking about, how should you do it, how far can you script it. How did you do that for your film?

Finding your protagonists

Hala Galal:

Actually in my work, I used to sometimes write scripts for fiction, and sometimes I really discover. With this film, Women’s Chitchat, which you will see a clip from, it was supposed to be another film, I was preparing a film about Huda Shaarawi, she is a feminist, very well-known from around 1919, she joined the Revolution in Egypt. She was the first woman who removed the piece of tissue that women put over their faces in my country in this time. And the reason that I met this family was that the woman’s mother was living in that time. She was young at the time but could still remember it. But when I met the family I decided to change the film and to make a film about Egyptian families, and how they change through the generations, and how the decisions they make in life change because of the changes in society. The interaction between them and society, and how they influence these changes or are influenced by these changes.

[A clip is screened – Women’s Chitchat.]

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Hala, these women are obviously talking about what they experienced themselves and maybe trying to change something for the next generation. I was wondering, your film is called Women’s Chitchat, you are a female filmmaker, could you tell us something more about how, if you are planning a documentary on such a subject, how it is for you as a female film director for the women participating in the film. How difficult was it to make this film and to get these women talking?

Hala Galal:

Of course, as you can imagine, it is not easy for these women to talk in front of the camera, especially about things like love, marriage, the love they had before the marriage, or while they are married, their work, their choices and their life. To let this relationship grow in a direct way I have to live with this family for a long time. And I must say, I love this family because they were very sincere, very close and very kind. To each other and to the film also. Also, when we first showed the film in Egypt in a theatre, they were there, all of them, and they were laughing and crying and a couple of them had some small quarrels about what they had said. It was a very special experience for me. I like it very much because of them. There are also other women in the film from other families but I mean, this family was very strong. And the relationship with their mother, who is not veiled, and their grandmother, who is also not veiled, who comes from another generation, is very kind. They are very tolerant of the differences in their family. And they are not like the stereotype presented in our TV or newspapers about our society. 

In documentary filmmaking, bad is good

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Michèle, let’s go onto your film, COLORS STRAIGHT UP. Maybe you could explain about the topics of the film, can you tell us more about the project?

Michèle Ohayon:

COLORS STRAIGHT UP we finished in 1997. It is basically a Cinema Verité film. The biggest challenge for me with every film, whether it is documentary or fiction, is how to tell the story in images. How to visualise your concept rather than merely talking about it or giving information. How do you interpret reality through images. COLORS STRAIGHT UP was a challenge because the story is about kids in South Central LA right after the riots happened, who were at risk, who were mainly in gangs but succeeded to get out through a performance arts group, though singing and dancing on stage they found a safe family where they could express themselves. Eventually they graduated from high-school and from college, which mostly was a very rare thing in that neighbourhood. My challenge as a white Jewish girl going to a pretty much all-black, dangerous neighbourhood, was to gain the trust of these kids so that I could really expose them in a three-dimensional way. One of the reasons that I made the movie was to strip away all the stereotypes that black and Latino kids had, especially after the riots, and to show them just as kids, who had, or are entitled to have, a dream, who want to have a future and not be dead or in jail by the age of 18. 

So, it took me about a year of research, going down to South Central and gaining the trust of these kids to a point where I felt it was okay to bring the camera and be invisible. And the other part of it is that I feel that it is a two-way street. One of the dilemmas that I am sure we all face is a) the invasion of privacy, and b) exploitation. In documentary filmmaking, bad is good. If something bad happens it is great for the film, but it is bad. So, you want to keep your judgement as a person rather than a ruthless filmmaker wanting to get the best shot. In this clip that you are going to see, Stanley, who was one of the Colors United performing artists group, he is a choreographer, he was the only one in his family who did not use drugs, did not go to jail, was not in gangs, but rather turned to dancing. He graduated from high-school, was sleeping on the footsteps of his school, went hungry for days, but succeeded to cross that stage and graduate. 

In the film, while I was researching, I found out that his brother was in jail. So I said to Stanley, I would like to visit your brother in jail, and he said, no way, I’m not going to visit my brother in jail, I haven’t seen him for years. But I felt it was really important to show what he could have become had he not joined Colors United. So, a year later we got permission to get into the jail and to interview Tommy. Tommy was a major gang member. The other part of it was they were complaining about their mother, who was a major drug-addict, and they grew up without a father. So, I said to Stanley, I really need to show your mother, and he said, no, I am really ashamed of her… and his mother also did not want to be filmed. It took a long time to convince her. 

What you are going to see is inter-cutting between the scene in jail where they are talking about their mother, and the mother. I felt that I had to give her a voice in order to be fair and balanced. But the other part of this scene, is that she had asked me to stop interviewing her, and I felt that I was really invading her privacy, I was entering her world. So my decision at that moment was, okay, I am going to stop interviewing her, but I am not going to stop filming. So the camera was running but I had stopped interviewing her. Those are the decisions you make on the ground as a documentary filmmaker. How much do I get in there to show you the reality, or the interpretation of the reality as I see it, and how much do I pull back and say, okay that’s it, I’m not shooting anymore. 

[A clip is screened – colors straight up.]

Michèle Ohayon:

I would like to explain the second clip which I didn’t realise was going to be shown. It is exactly the contrast that I wanted to show between the hardships and what is going on in the real life on the street; gangs, drugs, dysfunctional families and so on, and what they find on stage, the ability to be kids. And what you saw is one of the teachers who runs the programme is teaching them how to treat a lady, and how to approach someone if you want to have a date. So, there is a wrong way and there is a right way. And even basic things that we take for granted that we teach our kids, they have no clue. 

This leads onto a little story I would like to say. The big girl, Latoya, who was a gang member, eventually she went to college and graduated. But part of the trust process was to bring the kids into my house. In a kind of well-to-do neighbourhood, which they have never been to, they never went out of their ghetto. A lot of my friends said, you cannot bring them to your house because they are going to steal your stuff… And I was like, if I can’t trust them, then they will never trust me, so what is the point. So, Latoya came to my house, she was 18 years old, and she wanted to stay overnight. So I said sure, here is your bed. And she saw me tuck my child in. My daughter was about five years old at the time. She asked me if I could tuck her in. And I said, Toya, you’re pretty big, you’re 18 years old. And she said, yeah, but she was never tucked in. That was for me a moment where I said, I have to make this film. I have to show the real life of these kids. Not only do they go through obstacles as teenagers but they also have this life. Being and living in South Central is one thing, but as a filmmaker being there, you basically dodge the bullets. Not just the physical bullets but you don’t know where it comes from.

Looking for collaboration

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

These young people in your film really make a decision to go through that change and to change their lives. But sometimes it happens, and maybe quite often it happens that you are in a situation where your main protagonists don’t choose for things to change.

Anders, in your last film BURMA VJ, you decided to make a film about people doing something very particular in Burma, and then events took over so to speak. Can you explain to people who haven’t seen the film what happened?

Anders Østergaard:

Events took over is to put it mildly. I was embarking on a slightly obscure project actually, wanting to something on Burma and deciding to use as a platform for portraying the country, the fact that there are citizen journalists who are trying to film in there, and smuggle out the footage, and who manage to do so. The footage is then sent to Oslo where there is a sort of exile satellite station, which broadcasts these stories back to Burma as a news alternative to government television. As you know, Burma has a very repressive military regime, it has been so for about fifty years. But there was a lot of obscurity in the beginning because Burma was an unknown place, and in fact, the footage that they were able to show me was quite modest, quite circumstantial. Because of the danger of putting out the camera. They would shoot frantically for five minutes and then hide or run away. So they could only briefly touch on subjects like street kids or poverty in the rural areas, and that sort of thing. But I was intrigued anyway because I found a wonderful character called Joshua, who was not only able to communicate about what he was doing, but he was also very keen to do it. He had the energy coming from himself. 

Apropros the question of exploitation, I always look for collaboration. That is a preferable situation for me. If I discover somebody’s energy to communicate, and I can hook on that energy, I can try to facilitate his story. That was very much the set up for Joshua. It was also in a familiar field for me because since the footage was so modest, I had to build a universe around him, I had to get into his mind, understand his thinking, his background story, there would be a lot of flashback into his own personal history, and into Burma’s history. Sort of my home field compared to what I had been doing before. I mostly dealt with close stories so-to-speak, where I would know the end and the mythology. 

For instance, TINTIN AND I (Tintin et moi, 2003), which is about Hergé, an artist who passed away twenty years ago, and I had full control of how to understand his life. And this was more or less in the same genre because we had these interesting little pieces of footage but otherwise it would be a construction to make a film, which developed in his universe that was scripted. But actually, when we came home from the first shoot and I started writing, we started making some thoughts about what might happen in Burma, which could be a sort of third chapter in the story. It was a very modest ambition that maybe it might be Aung San Suu Kyi’s anniversary of so many years of rest, and there might be some trouble with somebody sticking their heads out in the street, and there might be some more to show. But what actually happened is was a complete revolution, or at least an uprising, which many of you will remember as when the monks got onto the streets. When the monks get onto the street you have to bear in mind that there are 400,000 monks in Burma, and they decided almost all at once to get onto the streets and to protest against the regime, which became phenomenal. A completely surprising turn of events in Burma where the students then came onto the streets, and ultimately normal civilians, taxi-drivers, everybody. In a kind of mass release, euphoric gesture they all got onto the streets and marched by the hundreds of thousands for change. Which didn’t come eventually. 

[A clip is screened – BURMA VJ: REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY.]

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Anders, how did you find, and decide to work with Joshua?

Finding the main protagonist

Anders Østergaard:

Well, that was the challenge, to find the character, in fact. We went to Bangkok in February 2007 and had the chance to meet twenty or thirty of these reporters who were coming out of Burma for camera training. And it was a bit uphill for us because these people were quite worried about their own safety, they were insecure in this big town of Bangkok, they felt alienated towards everything, even the Western trainers they were meeting. And then on top of that we had this documentary crew who wanted to know everything about their lives, which they are normally so meticulous about not revealing. So, even though we had a very fine understanding with the organisations it was difficult to access these people. And also, quite simply, their lack of English meant that I could not have the kind of interviews that I prefer where I am able to follow the details. I had to rely on a translator, which is not for me. 

Until I met Joshua. He was slightly younger than the others, less prolific in that sense, but very keen, he put a lot of questions to the trainers, he had a critical mind, and also he made beautiful footage. It was one of the last days of this shooting trip and I asked him to come around, and he turned up at night at our hotel, and he goes straight up and sits on my bed in a Buddha position and started talking. And with this wonderful energy that I was talking about before. A wonderful mix of a sort of boyishness but also a bit of a philosopher. Very reflective on the fate and destiny of Burma, and he was able to put himself into context into that. So, that was a gift. 

And all of this actually only grew when the uprising had started and because he was there on the spot he actually grew with the challenge. He made some of his best footage from the early stages. Then he got caught. He was arrested and interrogated. Ultimately he was released but he was pretty sure he was only released because they were interested what he would do next. So, he had to move out of Burma into Thailand. So, suddenly I had a main character who had left the stage. Which was a bit awkward. Until we discovered that his remote position in Thailand, trying to follow events in Burma… Also he was a catalyst. He would organise events for his colleagues to do inside, and he was carefully helping the footage get into the outside world, but his position was actually quite dramatic. Because he was with us trying to find out what was going on inside. So, that turned out to be a virtue, born out of necessity. It was a very interesting position to work from.

having to respond to events 

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

I can imagine that if something like that happens that you feel that it is not going to turn out in the way you planned it to… What goes through your head as a filmmaker in this moment? Are you already thinking of alternative things to do, or how to solve a couple of things, or do you just instinctively go on?

Anders Østergaard:

Well, at the first we were instinctually excited about what you, Michèle, said, bad is good. This was actually good in that people were coming out onto the streets, so we didn’t have dilemmas in that way. Of course we were excited that we suddenly had world history thrown in our hands. But actually, since I had been making these very controlled documentaries for many years, I was also frustrated and uneasy about having to respond to events rather than being able to control them, to be honest. So, it was mixed feelings, and when I look back I can see that I kept shooting scenes, which actually belonged to the old film with some kind of stubbornness, because I didn’t want to lose the sensibilities of my original project. I didn’t dare to leave my sensitivities just to become a chronicler of world events. I was scared it would lose personality. I was keen that we should know Joshua from inside out and all these things. So, that was a dilemma. We had this big collective story. We were the only people in the world actually who were able to put this story together, since this footage has not been assembled anywhere else. On the other hand, the artistic need to emotionally focus your story through a character. 

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

I am interested, that as a documentary filmmaker, you have this special relationship with your main characters in order to get the stories being told. For you Hala in your film, you had a very close relationship with the women in order to let them talk and tell the things they did. What is your opinion on creating and nourishing a relationship with your characters? How far can you go in that in order to also maintain a certain objectivity as a filmmaker?

Hala Galal:

This is very complicated, and it is changing all the time, based on which character and what the subject is. So, in my film the subjects were very intimate, very personal, and it took some time to convince them. And I am not saying I convinced them by talking with them but convinced them by building a personal relationship, so that it is okay to talk about these issues in front of the camera. And, I must say, we lost some of the people, and some of the characters in the family along the way. Sometimes the people have courage and then all of a sudden they lose that courage. Sometimes even after I shot something they changed their minds, they didn’t want it in the film. So it is something very alive and changing, this relationship. I cannot say in specific words how it can be built but it is something personal and you have to work on it like love and marriage and everything else. 

Objectivity in documentary filmmaking is an illusion

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Michèle, what is your opinion on this? You already told about Latoya coming to your place and asking you to treat her as your child in a way. What is your opinion on maintaining objectivity in order to keep your distance that you need as a filmmaker in order to be able, when things change, when reality turns sour, or something with your characters changes which you hadn’t expected, or you don’t like, how do you keep that balance?

Michèle Ohayon:

It is an ongoing conflict almost every minute that you shoot. One of the first films that I made in the United States called IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE (1993) was about homeless women who live out of their cars but hide the fact that they are homeless. They used to be upper middle class, they still have their nice clothes, but they are ashamed because in America money counts, and if you don’t have money you feel like you failed, so they were too proud to admit it. So, once I found them and interviewed them and they trusted me, part of me, at the end of the day, when the crew was all going home to our nice warm beds and showers, wanted to take them home with me. And have them sleep on my couch. We had a lot of discussions about this among our crew. But then I would be changing the course of reality. I would not be showing you the truth of their lives. Because how often is it that a homeless person runs into a filmmaker, who makes a film about them and ends up on their couch? That is not the real story. However, having said that, I couldn’t sleep at night, because I was thinking, here I am, and here is my subject on the street, freezing, sleeping in some car in a cemetery. That conflict is ongoing. Objectivity in documentary filmmaking is non-existent. It is an illusion. Even in the news, but they at least attempt to be objective, but there is no such thing. I’m not really interested in objectivity, I’m interested in a subjective interpretation of the reality. I don’t believe in the slice of life. It is my point of view no matter how you look at it or try to hide it, wherever you put the camera, whether I use music or sound effects, it is already subjective. By choosing a certain story to tell out of this reality, it is already my point of view. My reality is an emotional reality more than anything else. 

The first time I came to South Central LA, I saw this god-forsaken neighbourhood, and what struck me was for example the sound of helicopters. Every second. The sound of ambulances. The sound of police cars. The sound of shooting. Any sound but the sound of kids playing. So, when I came to the editing room, my microphones I guess were a little too good, so it only picked up on the dialogue and what was going on on stage. But I didn’t hear the helicopters. I didn’t hear the ambulances. I didn’t hear any of that. So, the purest of documentary filmmakers would say this is it, don’t touch it. But my feeling is, that isn’t true, because it was there. I did not succeed to record it. So what I do in the editing room is I reconstruct it. So I add the sound effects, I add the helicopters, and in fact I enhance it, I make it bigger than it is because I want impact. I want the audience to feel and be transported to this world, not necessarily in a subtle way. 

In another film STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME which I showed here in the Berlinale last year, it was about a triangular love-story that took place in two concentration camps. A man, who is unhappily married, falls in love with another woman, and they conduct a love affair during the time they were in the camps through love letters. So, on one hand my challenge here is a couple who are 60 years old. They survived, he divorced, married this woman and they lived happily ever after. But the challenge for me was how do I show the holocaust, which everybody knows about, in a way that was intimate and very subjective, through their eyes. And so I decided to really hang the whole story on the love-story, so that it is accessible. Yet, every shot that I choose is my point of view. It is a manipulation to get the story right. And, at the same time, in order to visualise the story I decided to do some re-enactments. And that is totally fiction. I wanted to give you the feeling of what it was like to be in this camp, and against all the horrors, still being able to sit down and write a love-letter. 

So for me, I use every tool possible. I have no rules whatsoever. As long as it tells the truth of the story, not the big objective truth that doesn’t exist. 

Remaining thruthful is the important thing

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Anders, how far did you go in that, and what do you think about the things Michele just talked about? 

Anders Østergaard:

I think first of all the point Michèle made about the helicopter is crucial. It is the key thing. It is the thing you need to do when you make creative documentaries. Recently there was a guy working for the Danish news who was sacked, because he made a report from Iraq, and he wanted to make a story about the cluster bombs. He was showing a village where things were happening and he had just been through a raid of these cluster bombs. In order to represent the story to his viewers he added some sound of cluster bombs. And of course he was fired. Because you are not allowed to do that on a journalistic contract. And I actually agree. Because what you expect when you look at the news is un-manipulated reports of what has been happening, within the limitations of your technology. That is fine. 

But this just goes to show what we need creative documentary for. Because when he is sacked he cannot be allowed, and this means we have to wait for Hollywood to come up with a film in five years time. We haven’t got time for that. And we cannot leave it up to fiction film investors, whether this film should be done because there are so many other considerations than the importance of the subject. So in fact it is an argument for why we need creative documentary and why it is a rightful thing what we are doing. 

The important thing is of course that this still remains truthful. That you are accountable for your own experience. You cannot manipulate a story in a way that you haven’t experienced. You should be doubtful about your decisions. You should reflect on the way you put it. But you know pretty well when you think the account I am giving is what I experienced, it is my understanding of it. And that is for the audience the only thing they can trust. They have to trust the director’s truthfulness through his works, through his karma of the film. I think somehow truth transgresses the film. You can feel it when it is true. Even if it is a representation taking all kinds of narrative tools and manipulations in that sense to get there. 

utilising the choice that wasn’t really a choice

Michèle Ohayon:

I wanted to add something regarding another film I made called COWBOY DEL AMOR. This film happened very quickly. Everything I said already about research did not apply at all with this film. Briefly it is about a cowboy-turned-matchmaker, who decided it is a better business than rodeo to match American men with Mexican women. And the American men were expecting these kind of slaves, and of course they got Mexican career women, totally beautiful, which they did not deserve at all. It was a kind of road-movie, and I went into this film not knowing anything. I didn’t meet the cowboy before, he just called me and he said, I’m ready for you, I’ve got a client who is willing to be filmed, come down here. And I had no money, but I said to myself, okay, I’ve got to do it. And I took my little DV camera, I wasn’t going to bring the whole high-definition camera crew, not knowing if I had a movie at all. 

Basically what he does is he goes to Mexico with a client who pays him say $3,000 to find a bride. They have five days. They go 600 miles into the heart of Mexico and they put an advert in the paper, “gringo looking for Mexican wife”, with a description of what this guy is looking for. So, I am following along, just shooting. And we finally end up in this Jim Jarmush-like motel room, waiting for the phone to ring as a response to the advert. A few hours later, this woman calls, who sounds perfect for this client. And the cowboy, the matchmaker, invites her to come to the hotel and meet the client. They meet, and the sparks are flying. And I am setting up my camera and fighting with the lights and all alone, and the brother of this Mexican woman tells me I cannot film. And I am like, what? This is the movie. I have to film. I think they were very religious, and I think the family didn’t even know she was looking for an American husband. So he did not allow me to film, and I am like dying, it was a good scene and so on. 

So, at the end of the meeting we go back to the hotel room. And by now we are very close, the cowboy, the client and myself, and yet we couldn’t be farther apart in our worlds. Politically, culturally, everything. But you kind of learn to love your subjects so you can tell the story. So, Rick, the client, asked me what I thought about this woman. And I was like… part of me was, “she is really nice”, but the other part of me was, “she doesn’t want to be filmed”. So I don’t really want him to marry her because then I have no movie. So, I totally lost objectivity, and I said, “I think she is really nice, but I think you should look further”. And sure enough, thank god, on the last day, when he is ready to marry this girl, and I am like, fine, no movie, but at the last meeting there comes this woman who just blows everyone away with her smile. And I asked her if she minded me filming, and she said, of course, no problem. 

So, this ended up being the core of the film, and like I said, I shot on a mini-DV, I had no idea that this was going to become part of the movie. And then I decided, because I wanted to shoot on high-definition, that from now on, everything that I shoot in Mexico, I shoot it on mini-DV, and everything that happens on the other side of the border in the United States with the client, or any other clients, will be shot on HD. So, you basically utilise the choice that wasn’t really a choice, it was a given, you turn it into a stylistic choice and you use it for the movie. So, now you have the very slick American life against the DV raw look. The clip you are going to see is the client meeting this girl for the first time, and the cowboy trying to do his job. 

the documentary just a step towards fiction?

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Many people talk about documentary being a stage for filmmakers, that after they have tried a couple of documentaries they might be ready to do fiction. What is your opinion about that? Would you be interested in doing that?

Anders Østergaard:

Well, personally I never understood the idea, the notion is completely alien to me. I have always been instinctually attracted to documentaries. It is what I know, it is what I can do, it is what I am. And of course I find there is plenty of challenge in developing this genre. It is one of the most exciting times for this genre. We managed in Denmark with my previous film to make a lot of people to go to the cinema to watch a film about a rock band. And ultimately I find that reality writes better scripts. The stories are amazing, and the characters are wonderful in their complexity. I could never invent the kinds of characters that I am dealing with. And the way you are blown away with reality, for me, there is nothing that could live up to that.

Hala Galal:

I work in both, and I like them both. I believe they are so different, and diversity is something essential in our work. I did a fiction short film before, and now I am preparing a feature, and I have done documentaries as well. I believe there are no degrees.

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

work in both fields, but in what way can they strengthen each other? Are there connections, because you think you are able to invent a story as a fiction screenwriter, that it might make it more easy to deal with reality when things change?

Hala Galal:

I believe it helps. It makes a person see from different angles. I don’t believe there is a reality, one reality. And of course, I agree with my colleagues, there is no such thing that we have to be objective, but the reality is something very changeable and different. We are trying to make films about what we feel and think now, honestly and sincerely, but this also might change at the next moment. And another person can see from this reality another point of view. When I change from working in documentary to fiction, I keep in my mind this thing, and this helps a lot. When I make fiction films I remember that real scenes are very effective. And vice versa.

more tools in your toolbox to play in fiction

Michèle Ohayon:

For me, I just want to tell good stories. And what is the right medium for that? Is it theatre, is it television, is it film, fiction whatever? It definitely feeds one another because in documentaries you learn to think on your feet and you still have to get enough coverage even though you have only one take. So you can go to the editing room and make it exciting. Like COLOR STRAIGHT UP, the whole dance performance was shot with one camera. Normally in fiction you have three or four cameras, one on a dolly and all of that. I couldn’t afford it. And also I think you develop a strong instinct about what is a real character and what sounds fake. What sounds real in dialogue and what doesn’t. And I think that there are times in documentaries where I wish I could tell the past. For example in STEAL A PENCIL, the whole story of the wife, she was dead when I started filming, so I didn’t have her story. And I really wanted to tell it. And the only way I could tell it was to write a script. 

I think in fiction you have more tools in your toolbox to play with and to tell the story. It is much more challenging, in my opinion, to make a documentary because you have no actors, you have people who first have to get acclaimed with the camera, whereas actors are very used to it. You have no script, you are basically telling the story as you go. You are finding the story as you go. Even though you come to the set and you know what you want to do, you have a concept, you know what you hope will happen. And then it changes and you come up with a new story. And you have to be able to adapt and re-write it as you go, in your head. So for me, and now being part of the documentary branch of the Academy, my goal in joining was to explain to people, and to educate, that documentary filmmaking is a craft. It is not just taking a camera and running around the subject and trying to catch them in a good moment and shoot. It is a craft. You have to have in mind what kind of story you want to tell, how do you want to tell the story, what is the best style, what is the best equipment and so on and so forth. So, it is very rewarding and very challenging. If I never made another fiction film in my life that would be fine. I started in fiction, and I feel it is in me, and I love to do that as well, but it is not one against the other. It feeds one another. 

Responding to the world and adding

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

What made you decide to become a filmmaker and also to focus on documentary? Maybe you didn’t choose to focus on this, but when did you find out as a filmmaker that you wanted to make documentaries?

Anders Østergaard:

I discovered documentaries in fact because I had ambitions of cinema when I was about eighteen, twenty years old. I was flirting with the thought of maybe applying to film school, which at the time didn’t have a documentary department so the whole framework was fiction. This was the only notion I had of cinema. But then at the same time I had the urge to make a film about my grandfather. A very primitive first exercise into cinema, and I discovered documentary. By filming him, and finding out how totally engulfed I was, and how I felt totally at ease with that kind of communication. Because there wasn’t a documentary department at the film school I went to journalist school, and there is no doubt that I was thriving on the journalist school, I wasn’t particularly frustrated that I wasn’t doing art but journalism. And maybe it reveals that I have a certain curiosity. I like to respond to the world, rather than being my own self-contained universe. I like to respond, and then add what I have. And that kind of dialectic just works best for me, and that is why I feel, this is what I am. 

But I agree with Michèle that the story can make tremendous demands and that is what I experienced because I use a high degree of fiction or fictionalisation, or re-enactment in my films, dictated by the needs of these stories. So, even though I made this big declaration of documentary pride and blabla, I might end up one day discovering that I made a 90% fiction film in order to show the story I want to communicate. It might happen that way. But it is just not an ambition. There is no plan.

following a story or creating a story?

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

If you have a topic and you think this is really interesting, or the character is really intriguing, and you want to tell the story because you feel there is a story, is it easy to convince the characters of the story you want to tell?

Hala Galal:

Regarding documentary, I think I follow more what is happening with the characters. Like for example in this film, I had a topic and when I met the people I felt I had to change my mind and this was okay. To follow these people would be much better than to stick to the first idea that I had in my mind. With fiction films it is totally different of course. You create everything. But when you follow the character you also have some challenges … but I believe I follow more the person that I feel will influence the audience as they did with me when I first met them. I don’t really push them to follow my story. I leave myself a little bit free with this space. 

Michèle Ohayon:

It almost feels like the story chooses me rather than me choosing the story. If I hear of something and it stays with me for a few weeks and I think about it then I know I have to tell that story. And it is a big commitment because documentary can take a year to five years. In this particular case of my latest film YOUR GOVERNMENT FAILED YOU I was actually asked to do the film but I wasn’t sure I really could dive into the world of American politics. But it stayed with me and I felt this was the right time to tell a story about national security and how we solve it. You kind of get immersed into that world. You live it. You think about it, you read about it, this is your life. My kids always ask me, Mum, where are you now? What is your world right now? And it is something that, for me I would rather make fewer movies but movies that I feel I am strongly behind, that I can tell the best story possible and that I am proud to show to my kids later on. I think we all are choosy about the journey we are taking. It is a very emotional journey. We are dealing with real people with real struggles, with life and death reality, and it is not to be taken lightly. I don’t know if you want to show a short clip from the film YOUR GOVERNMENT FAILED YOU?

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Yes. Maybe you could tell us something briefly about your new project?

Michèle Ohayon:

Yes. So, YOUR GOVERNMENT FAILED YOU is about the national in-security told through the eyes of Richard Clarke, who was in the White House for thirty years and under four administrations, who was the one who ran the situation room right after 9/11. He is the one who warned against Al Quaida way back, nobody listened. And when he heard that the government was going to go to Iraq as a result of 9/11 he decided to resign, and he said, I don’t want to be a war criminal, and he left government. Cut to two years later. Throughout this recent election he was close advisor to Obama, he was offered to be the Head of CIA, but he turned it down because he was too disillusioned with the way the government machine works. The clip you are going to see is about one of the threats that we are dealing with in the movie, which is cyber-war, a virtual war that is happening between countries right now, and this is one of the things that he warns against, and it is still not being taken care of up till today.

 [A clip is screened – YOUR GOVERNMENT FAILED YOU.]

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

When will the film be finished? 

Michèle Ohayon:

Hopefully for the next Berlinale.

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Is there anybody from the audience who would like to ask a question?

the obligation to put a mirror at the world

Question:

I have a question for Michèle. Anders spoke a bit about how he came to documentary and the training. You briefly touched on your background but I was just wondering if you could tell us something about how you discovered documentary or what sort of training you had?

Michèle Ohayon:

I was born in Morocco, I grew up in Israel and went to Film and Television University in Tel Aviv. One of my first fiction films was a love story between an Arab and a Jew. That was before the Intifada, and the pressure that existed, that you cannot even have a human love story because of the political situation. And I felt that the world, my world, was burning under my feet. There were Palestinians who were oppressed, there were Arabs who were trying to make it in Israel, having a career and facing massive obstacles, and Israelis were trying to make peace and couldn’t do. It was a mess, it still is a mess. And I just decided that I had to tell that story, the real image of it. 

My first documentary was about an Arab actor, very talented, who was trying to make it in Tel Aviv. And then I just stayed in that medium. I couldn’t even think about making fiction, or making a comedy. I was quite of on a mission, on a drive, I have to tell this story, I have to tell the other side, I have to put a face on the so-called enemy. Then, when I kind of relaxed about it I went back to fiction. But I do feel that as a documentary filmmaker you kind of have an obligation to put a mirror at the world and reflect it to the audience and to show this is what is really happening. And if you see the tapestry of the films, even just the three of us here who come out of the documentary world, it is extremely reflective of what is going on. I feel like our job is to have our hands on the heartbeat before Hollywood even comes up with it, we are the first ones on the scene. And we are the first ones reporting in a way. And so I just felt the urgency of telling the story as is rather than fiction.

do films change lives?

Question:

Did it ever happen to any of you that one of your films changed the lives of your protagonists after the film, and if so, did this affect your further work?

Hala Galal:

No. I have to say when I decide to make a documentary it is not the topic that attracts me in the first place but the characters. A lot of times when I meet a character and I would like to make a film about his or her life, what happens is, because of the fact that they are telling the story of their life in front of the camera, they review their life and their feelings. So sometimes, I cannot say their life changed but slight things in their decisions or feelings towards people in their family or something, can change. And this happened in this film Women’s Chitchat between this family for example. 

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

How about you Anders? Maybe did something change for you yourself in making these films?

Anders Østergaard:

I wouldn’t say that. But, of course you are influenced by the projects you go through. You discover new worlds, and suddenly you discover the political thing, which I had never really dealt with before in that sense. I don’t think I changed my focus. But it is amazing to see that your film can function as a piece of politics. At the moment we find there is almost no one left on the stage to talk about Burma in this film, and this is incredible, and reminds us of what documentaries can do, after twelve years in business. So that is a revelation for me. As for the protagonists I cannot say that. Yes, their lives change in the sense that they become movie stars and they have to respond to that reality, but they are driven by their cause, and if that promotes their cause then it is fine with them ultimately. So, I don’t feel that we have messed up people’s lives. 

an opportunity to release pain

Michèle Ohayon:

I feel like my life has totally changed by every film I make. It is an emotional journey, I learn so much, I never look at the world in the same way after I make a film because I get a different angle. Mostly I feel grateful that I have what I have, knowing the hardships that my subjects are going through. And I also feel that the reward of these people exposing themselves and opening themselves up and really sharing with you the most intimate moments, is that their life is changing forever. 

When I look at every one of the films I have made I can give you specific examples. The latest one, STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME, the love of this man from the camp, when we started filming she said, Michèle I am not emotional, you are not going to get any emotions out of me, this all happened sixty years ago, I am numb to any pain. And I thought, okay, let’s start. Two days into the interview she revealed something to me that the love of her life was killed very early on, it was an unresolved love, it is a long story, but she burst out crying. The whole crew was sobbing. It was so emotional. And it was the beginning of a cathartic process that she went through during the movie. She never went to therapy, she didn’t want to deal with it, she didn’t want to talk about it. And by then, after the almost five years of filming off and on, she came to me and she said, my life has changed, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to release all of this pain. Not only that but her kids, now in their 40’s and 50’s came to me and said our mother has changed, she is lighter, she walks around the house naked, she does all kind of things she never did before. So for this couple, she is 85, he is 95, it is a whole new life. They travel with the film, it is like a whole new world has opened. 

The cowboy needless to say is a celebrity everywhere he goes, he wears his hat at all the festivals. I mean it is crazy what happens. And I think it is great because it is really a reward for… it is torture being in front of the camera for so long and having me in their face all of the time. I don’t think they know what they are getting into when they say, sure you can make a movie about us. But I am there, all the time, like a fly on the wall. There is no way that their life will not be altered after going through such an experience, even if the film is never shown. Just being able to open up and share and to dig deep inside to your truth, if you are able to peel these layers, it is great. And my life would not be the same had I not met my homeless women, my gang kids, my matchmaking cowboy, my holocaust survivors and now my national security expert. It is what made me who I am.

Matthijs Wouter Knol:

Thank you all very much for this conversation on this panel.