Directors Notes

At the beginning of this year I would have never imagined that one of my cinematic highlights would be an Icelandic feature about estranged sheep farmers, but Grimur Hakonarson’s Rams is a film filled with such deep humour and an even deeper humanity, that I was rapt from its opening frames. Grimur joins us on the podcast to share how he overcame challenges of funding, weather and sheep casting, to scoop the prestigious Un Certain Regard award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

In a remote Icelandic farming valley, two brothers who haven’t spoken in 40 years have to come together in order to save what’s dearest to them – their sheep.

I had to think about the spiritual quality of the sheep, and then the material quality of the sheep.

What if God was not only real but lived in Brussels with his wife and unknown daughter, spending his time exacting a series of petty and cruel torments on mankind? That’s the scenario which award winning Director Jaco Van Dormael mines to great comic and visual effect in his fourth feature The Brand New Testament. Jaco joined DN to discuss how he creates cinema in which perceptions of reality match our own non-linear thought processes, and why despite featuring gospels, disciples and God himself, The Brand New Testament isn’t a film about religion.

God exists! He lives in Brussels. He’s a real bastard, odious with his wife and daughter. We know a lot about his son, but very little about his daughter. Her name is Ea and she’s ten years old. One day, she revolts against her father, hacks his computer and leaks to the entire world their inevitable date of death by SMS…

I thought it was normal you know – you make a short film, you have an Academy Award, then you make another.

Well known as one of Israel’s busiest film editors and the director of the 2007 Cannes short Death of Shula, Asaf Korman’s debut feature Next to Her (At Li Layla) provides an intimate and very personal look at the themes of co-dependence and unhealthy symbiotic relationships. Ahead of Next to Her’s VOD and UK cinema release on the 11th March, Korman joins DN to discuss the practical necessities of crafting characters who are slightly removed from their real life inspirations, and why a career as an editor is the perfect film school for a director embarking on his first feature.

Chelli is raising her mentally disabled sister Gabby all by herself. When the social worker finds out she leaves her sister alone in the house while at work, Chelli is forced to place her in a day-care center and the void left by her sister’s absence makes room for a man in her life. That man, Zohar, tears another crack in the symbiotic relationship of the two sisters, as they are slowly drawn into a strange threesome, where boundaries between love, sacrifice, nurturing and torturing are broken.

I think success is very dangerous.

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak, Something Better to Come is in my opinion one of the most important and powerful social documentaries of recent times. Featuring the personal stories of multi-generational families living on the garbage dumps just outside of Moscow, the film provides a heart wrenching insight into the agony some people must endure in order to survive, and the hard fought battles which must be won to change one’s life. At the centre of which is Yula, a young girl whose desire for a better life will inspire even the most downtrodden of individuals. Hanna joins us on the podcast to discuss the trials and tribulations of this 14-year long project, and how it almost killed her in the process.

Her name is Yula. She lives in Putin’s Russia. Her home is the largest garbage dump in Europe. This is the inspiring story of her life. For 14 years Hanna Polak followed Yula as she grew up in the forbidden territory of Svalka, a dump thirteen miles from the Kremlin. The film is Yula’s story, a dramatic cinema vérité documentary about coming of age and maturing to the point of taking destiny into one’s own hands.

This is by far the most difficult and the most unhealthy and dangerous project I have ever embarked on.

If you’d like to help Hanna achieve her crowdfunding goal of ensuring Something Better to Come is seen across the globe be sure to pledge your support.

Centred around one man’s violent struggle to protect his livelihood after industrial collapse, Stephen Fingleton’s The Survivalist provides a tense depiction of how people forced to accepted their old lives are over, live a vicious new existence. Stephen joined us to discuss how he created the contained post-apocalyptic world of The Survivalist and provides a beautifully worded, but brutally honest depiction of what it is to be a filmmaker.

In a time of starvation, a survivalist lives off a small plot of land hidden deep in forest. When two women seeking food and shelter discover his farm, he finds his existence threatened.

When I decided to become a filmmaker 12 years ago I wish I could have a conversation with my younger self and try and get him to desist.

The Survivalist arrives in UK cinemas and on demand today. You can prepare yourself for its dystopian world by watching Stephen’s powerful proof of concept short Magpie.

A masterclass in how to translate production efficiency into maximum emotional impact, Jakob M. Erwa’s sophomore feature Homesick, sees an ambitious cellist’s dreams of four walls, two people, one happiness disintegrate as the pressures from her demanding career and less than hospitable new neighbours slowly erode her grip on reality. DN caught up with Erwa at the London Film Festival to discuss why he wasn’t willing to be delayed by traditional financing routes and how his choice of location dictated the shooting sequence of his tense psychothriller.

Ambitious cello student Jessica receives the invitation to an international contest. A great opportunity – but at the same time enormous pressure. Stress begins to gnaw on Jessica’s everyday life and soon reality and imagination blur.

As a young filmmaker you don’t have more than your passion because you don’t have the skills yet. You have to work to get the skills & if financing takes 3 years that’s a lot of time for a young filmmaker!

https://archive.org/download/DN333HomesickJakobMErwa/DN333HomesickJakobMErwa.mp3