”I am ready for questions, suggestions, I look at you, I look at her, I look inside of me…
I don’t know what exactly to tell you about what I do… I mean… Well, I shot a movie and now I try to make another movie. What I am doing, I do it for me to feel good, and if by this I make some other people happy, it turns out to be even better than I expected.
A movie, that I have watched a lot of times is Possession directed by Andrzej Żuławski, which is a horror. But it’s horror as a state of mind, this movie always scares you and makes you feel strange. When I watched it, outside was a hallucinatory weather, but you know, this movie gives you such an estate of coldness, rain, gloomy. When I went out to smoke, I felt cold, I felt like it was raining, when actually outside was a meltingly hot sun. What I want to say, is that this is what I would follow in a good film, in a film which is made really really well, specifically this thing, when the movie manages to give you such a state of mind.
I actually wanted to learn theatre direction, but when I arrived to the Academy, they didn’t have the course of theatre direction and so, I got to make movie, without knowing what film is. Finally, I ended up loving film. I ended up being addicted to it. I came to this, when I started working at 100 Risings, because it was a long process of research, questions, intern fights. Because things don’t always come out the way you want them to.
When I saw the final product, I said to myself, that this is the movie I am not ashamed of watching and showing to others and it is the movie of which I am proud and happy. It is just like a child, you have it and, it doesn’t matter if it’s bad, crippled or lame, but it is mine I mean… I know very well what are the weak points of the film, but these were the possibilities at that moment. I don’t have anything else to do, but enjoy the way how it turned out to be.
The beginning of the movie… these things actually don’t matter, because a thing done is a thing done. No one is interested in how was made the background, why and what for. Everybody wants to see the final product and experience a feeling of good or bad, or whatever.
The meaning of my life now, is not to let the film that I’ve made to be my last film. I mean, not to lose this motion of the moment and do something more. And now it is this moment when you search, try, see: it works or it doesn’t, you write, cut, delete, put, drink a coffee, for example…
You know what is the thing now… is that, hey, you can actually do anything, you can do anything, ANYTHING CAN BE DONE, it is just about searching for the personal motivation, because no one will come and move you on. It is all about yourself.
For me all this thing about life and love is a thing of a stage of the moment, of a personal evolution, a thing that you live and you have to see it, how is it. It’s a state of mind, which you shed. The fact that you sadden people that you meet at the moment… You put some existential questions, to which I don’t look for an answer. I don’t know, this is a question to which you don’t know how to answer.
The things you do, like the daily routine, the fact that you have to wash the dishes. I fucking hate that! But well, I must do it! You just stand there and… I am quite tall and I lay my head on a shelf and start washing. And while you wash, you start thinking, I mean it’s a thing of meditation in the end. And meditation, in fact, means this – a thing when you sit down and put your legs in a cross and put your hands on you knees and start thinking that a celestial body or whatever enters you. True, but the celestial body can reach you also through a plate, that you wash. I mean, you just stand there and keep repeating a thing, and at a given moment you shut down off the thing that you are washing the dishes. You continue the movement and your brain is thinking of completely other things, it thinks if it’s okay or not such an attitude, if it’s okay or not this montage. And then, there is another thing, we have the luxury to do this.
People, that have ordinary jobs, jobs that don’t allow you to think of these things, I don’t know, a doctor, a fireman, they don’t have the luxury to stay and think of “how am I feeling today”. No, the person knows that he has to go and damp down the fire and is concentrated on not burning out… But we don’t. We have the luxury of washing dishes and thinking of the state of things around the world, and this is a luxury actually.
Unfortunately, people see our work as a hobby, while it isn’t. It is also a desk job, which you have to do everyday. To read, to watch I don’t know what photo, or I don’t know what sculptures, to watch a movie and to think of your project. And you stay from 9 a.m to 5 p.m and do this. This is also a method, in the end.
I don’t think, that these things come just like this, that you just walk on the street and the guardian angel comes down to you and puts the fingers on your forehead and a genius idea comes to you, NO. You are in the trolleybus and an old lady pushes you, outside feels very hot and you sweat, and meanwhile the old lady hits you with a bag full of cheese, which smells heavily, you tell to yourself “This is it, maybe in that particular scene I have to make this actor hit particularly in this way”. It’s a thing, that you can not foresee, actually. It’s a thing that happens, I don’t know why and I don’t know how, and I can not explain it and I don’t know why would I explain it.