cinematographer and head of the NFTS’ Directing Commercials course, Stuart Harris, about directing opportunities in the commercials world (something I didn’t have much experience in) when he told me about the competition and urged me to apply. For those who don’t know, The ADCAN awards are for unsigned filmmakers and animators to make a commercial that fits one of their charity briefs. If your commercial is chosen as a winner, then the filmmakers are invited to mentorship meetings with industry leaders, workshops in all areas of production while also providing charities with content to promote their cause. Having read through a packet of 8 different charity briefs, the one that I was immediately drawn to was a charity called, WERK For Peace who were asking for a vibrant dance film to inspire people to join their cause. Now I should say that I’ve been a fan of musicals since early childhood when I had The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz and basically every animated Disney Princess movie on a constant loop. I had also seen pretty much every single musical on Broadway while I lived in New York, so it’s safe to say that when the Damien Chazelle film was released, I saw it the day it
Women Cinemakers opened in the UK and fell in love immediately. It was vibrant, fun, exuberant - everything I could ever want in a musical. Therefore when I read the brief for WERK For Peace, a mental image of the opening sequence from La La Land popped up and I knew it was an idea I had to pursue. Elegantly shot, is reveals a keen eye for details, and demonstrates the ability of orchestrating realism with intimate visionarism: influence your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, how did you structure your editing process in order to achieve such brilliant results? I knew quite early on that we would only have 1 day to shoot this commercial because I hadn’t read the ADCAN briefs until less than a month before the submission deadline - so my main priority was structuring the actual shoot in a way that the edit would be quick. It started with the first person I called when the idea came to me, my incredible cinematographer, Samira Oberberg. I explained what my idea was and that I wanted to make the commercial look as close to the original source as possible, with only a tiny fraction of the time (and BUDGET!) of the actual film and she helped me figure out what it was about that opening scene that really resonated with me in the first place, then we worked out how we could replicate those elements with what we had to work with. Hilariously that meant instead of a stunning crane shot of a sunny Los Angeles highway, we had my tiny cinematographer sitting on the shoulders of my tall, muscular choreographer, Ashley Nottingham, for a DIY crane shot which ended up working out so well in the edit. The other major factor in the edit was the musical track the dancers were performing to. Lindsay Wright, a highlyinterview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers accomplished composer I met at the NFTS was the next person I contacted for this commercial and as soon as I said the words “I want to make a musical inspired commercial in the style of La La Land” she sent me a track she’d started for another project that ended up being scrapped, that she had composed while listening to the La La Land soundtrack and it fit so perfectly with what I had in mind that everything started coming together very quickly after that, paving the way for a smooth shoot and a quick, seamless edit by another of my talented NFTS friends, Rachel Roberts. We have appreciated the way your approach to musical conveys sense of freedom and reflects rigorous approach to the grammar of body language: how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of choreography and ? How much importance does play in your process? Ashley Nottingham and I met very early on in the process of developing this commercial. I had been researching top choreographers in London who taught the style of dance I was wanting to use for La La London, and Ashley’s name popped up. I sent him an email through his website, not really sure if I was aiming too high but considering it was for charity, thought I should be a little bit jammy and just go for it. I was thrilled when he agreed to meet me for a coffee to discuss the project in person and as soon as I played him the track that Lindsay Wright had composed, he was onboard. It also turns out that he’s one of the loveliest people on the planet, so working with him on this was an absolute joy. Ashley teaches dance classes at Pineapple Dance Studios, a hotspot for dancers who are either already performing on the West End, or heading that way. So Ashley had access not only to rehearsal space, but also to a host of immensely talented dancers who were willing to give up a few days to work on La La London. interview
Women Cinemakers interview From our coffee conversation, Ashley knew exactly what I was looking for in the choreography, so he went to work coming up with a routine that while structured, was also adaptable depending on factors like weather conditions (we were shooting outside in England!) or incase a dancer dropped out or godforbid was injured. Ashley and I only had a day in the rehearsal room with the full group of 11 dancers before we shot the commercial, so it was crucial we had all of the elements as close to nailed down as possible before we got to set. It certainly helped that Ashley had spent 20 years as a professional dancer, so could take my direction easily. Between the day in the rehearsal room, and the actual shoot, we lost our location, so the actual shoot took place on a street just around the corner from where I was living at the time. The choreography had to be tweaked at the last minute and elements of the dance had to change entirely to fit our new environment, but we made it work without any drama. More subtle details were spontaneous, for example one of the dancers closes a car door because there was a nice car that was going to be in our shot, so we decided to use it. I also think it’s important to be adaptable as a director, so allowing for improvisation is a key part of my process - even when working on something as choreographed as this. Featuring refined and well-orchestrated choreography by Ashley Nottingham, involves the audience into heightened visual experience: what were your aesthetic decisions when conceiving this stimulating work? In particular, were you interested in providing your performance with an that reflect human condition? I had never worked with a choreographer before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ashley or know what I could ask him to do,
Women Cinemakers
A still from Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers other than show him the opening scene from La La Land and ask him if he could come up with something that looked like that but also had a powerful message about inclusiveness and LGBTQ+ rights. But he and I talked through my ideas and the rough story I presented to him really resonated, so together we were able to come up with a way to express this story that we hoped would reflect the human condition. We needed one dancer to feature who would drive our narrative and that’s when Ashley suggested one of his students, Toyan ThomasBrowne, a young man with tremendous talent and passion for performing. Once we had a face to centre our narrative around, the rest of the story came together organically with Toyan’s wonderful performance to anchor the plot. It's important to remark that was made for made for the LGBTQ+ charity WERK for Peace. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once remarked that " ": what could be in your opinion in our unstable, everchanging contemporary age? In particular, does your artistic research respond to cultural moment? The charity WERK for Peace was formed as a response to the 2016 terrorist attack where 49 individuals were massacred while dancing at Pulse Nightclub, a gay bar in Orlando, Florida. Their mission is to use dance to promote peace and equality - often through huge, loud, glitter filled, dance parties masquerading as protests. As soon as I read about the charity, I knew I wanted to get involved. By turning a horrific event into a joyous celebration of life, love and the pursuit of equality for all - it’s so inspiring. We are living in crazy times. I can feel myself becoming more and more desensitised to news headlines which would have been interview
Women Cinemakers completely shocking just a few years ago. I’ve lived in some of the richest 1st-world countries as well as some of the poorest 3rd-world countries - I know first hand that some problems are universal, and some are culture bound. As a filmmaker, I tend to gravitate more towards the issues that are universal because sometimes I feel that I don’t really have my own culture because I was raised in so many so I treat my films the same way I treat meeting new people - I find common ground. With La La London, I knew that everyone at some point in their lives have felt like an outsider, so taking that universal truth and applying it to the larger issue of LGBTQ+ equality was my way of responding to the slow shift in that cultural movement. As an independent filmmaker, I know that my work will reach an audience, even if that audience is just a couple of people on their mobile phones - I still feel a responsibility to use this platform to promote causes that I feel are important, if not for the betterment of others, then for my own piece of mind - to know that I’ve made some effort to create social and/or cultural change. has drawn heavily from and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such powerful resonance between urban environment and choreographical gestures. How do you consider the relationship between environment and your creative process? I believe that environment can have a massive impact on the creative process. When I’m looking for inspiration, I love to sit and people watch in busy public places - train stations, museums, coffee shops, as long as I can sit and watch people going about their day to day lives, my mind will start creating stories. interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview I find small spaces that are devoid of life incredibly constricting and one of my worst nightmares. If I can’t find something inspiring about an environment, I can feel myself being drained of creative energy which will inevitably make me miserable. I actually just moved out of a flat for that reason and it feels wonderful to be free and feel creative again. In you sapiently mix choreographic gestures with the ordinary qualities of the ambience, and we have appreciated the way such coherent combination addresses your audience to a multilayered experience. Art historian Ernst Gombrich once underlined the importance of providing a space for the viewer to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how important is it for you to trigger the viewer's imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal associations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? I think as filmmakers, we have a responsibility to not only entertain our audience but to evoke an emotional response from them. There is nothing I love more than watching a film and coming out feeling like I’m somehow a slightly different person than I was before I watched the film. I think it’s so important to create art that evokes some kind of response, even if it’s not necessarily a positive response - to be able to ask yourself what it was that inspired, or moved you in response to what you’ve just watched, it’s so powerful. I would love nothing more than for someone to see something I’ve made and to come up to me and tell me that it made them
feel something because of their own personal association to the subject matter. I do find it quite fascinating when people see things in my work that I may not necessarily have consciously intended but can fully appreciate how they’ve responded to what I’ve put out there, so I would say I am very open to interpretation from others. Another interesting film that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled and can be viewed at . With its simple and the same time brilliantly structured storytelling, imparts unparalleled to the narration: we have found it particularly moving and we have appreciated the way it gives to the viewers the sense they are watching : would you tell how did you develop the structure of your film in order to achieve such moving authenticity? Moreover, do you think that your being a woman provides your artistic research with some special value? Being a woman in the arts can be really difficult. I sometimes feel that we have to work 10x harder than our male counterparts which is why we tend to over-prepare, over-analyse and overresearch everything we do. I put a lot of time into researching the different sign languages from around the world and story books for children that could be translated into British Sign Language. I find it a normal part of my process because I want my work to be as authentic as possible. Authenticity is a key-word in my life. In everything that I do (not just film) I strive to be as honest and authentic as possible. I don’t like playing mind-games. I rarely have ulterior motives. I 100% believe in karma. When I write stories, even stories that are Women Cinemakers interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
not grounded in reality, I want them to come across as authentic as possible. I think a big part of that comes from the actors which is why I cast the wonderful actress Patricia Loveland as the main role of the grandmother - because she has grandchildren in real life and knows exactly what it’s like to work hard at something for the sake of making your family happy. It’s also why I cast Evie Mitchell to play her granddaughter, because Evie had never acted before and I wanted to work with a child who really was a child and not a “child actor”. She was naturally curious and a little bit nervous which was exactly the performance I was hoping to get. The storyline itself is so simple, I wanted to put a positive spin on the old saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” which is how I came to write a short story about a grandmother learning sign-language to read a bedtime story to her very young deaf grandchild. It’s the combination of the performances and the beautiful piano piece composed by Adam Orridge that allows the film to tug at the heartstrings in an authentic and moving way. reveals your ability to capture the expressive qualities of human body and has reminded of Gerhard Richter's quote, when he remarked that " ": as a director particularly interested in musicals, how do you consider the relationship between moving images and sound within your practice? Coupling songs with moving images has the ability to define reality and cement an action in our minds to shape our memories and evoke emotional response. When I was still learning about filmmaking, my favourite subject to shoot was my Godson, Hugo. Starting from when he was just Women Cinemakers interview
Women Cinemakers interview a few weeks old, I would film him weekly and as the months went past, I had hundreds of hours of footage of him that I decided to cut together to give to him (or his parents really) for his first birthday. I spent days deciding on which song to use as the audio track because I wanted it to be fun and upbeat but also serve as a heartwarming reminder of those days we had spent together. He’s 9 years old now and still loves to watch the videos I made of him when he was a baby and the songs that I chose are still so special between us. Anytime I hear one of those songs, I am transported back in time to those wonderful days spent with such an important person in my life. As a person who loves musicals, Sweet Dreams was almost the exact opposite of La La London in terms of sound and energy. Sweet Dreams is quiet and warm, a reminiscence of being put to bed as a small child. The piano piece feels woven into the story not the main focus as it was in La La London. It’s amazing how the tone of a film can be completely changed based on the music or sounds that you choose. Before leaving this conversation we want to use this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing: what's your view on the future of women in cinema? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? I think it’s incredibly difficult being a woman in cinema, but I do think things are changing. There are so many incredible women I look up to who are paving the way for directors like myself, creating opportunities, saying Times Up to predators
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
who take advantage of women, even starting initiatives to get more female diversity into film criticism so that it more accurately represents the culture we live in. Getting projects green lit is a struggle, especially for women, but I’m optimistic for the future of women in cinema and truly hope that there will be a shift in the diversity of stories that make it to the big screen, preferably with women at the helm, and I hope to someday be one of those women. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Madeleine. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? At the moment I am working on two extremely different short films, one is an animation project that involves a musical number (of course!) the other is a dramatic short film set in Senegal. I’m extremely excited to make them, but both are in need of funding, so I’m working on securing the funds at the moment, which is never easy. I’m hoping my work will progress to making feature films that inspire people and tell beautiful, authentic stories. I was raised on Disney films, they shaped who I am as a person, so my dream is to one day be a director at Walt Disney Pictures, making films that will inspire the next generation of dreamers. Every project I make now I hope is a step in that direction. Walt Disney himself said “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them” so that’s what I’m doing. Thank you for having me, I’ve loved getting stuck into these insightful questions! interview Women Cinemakers An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected]
Captivating and refined in its balanced and effective storytelling, is a stimulating short film directed by Ayasylla Ghosn and brilliantly performed by Andrea Goldman: featuring gorgeous An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] cinematography and keen eye for the details, this captivating film offers an emotionally charged allegory of the human experience: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Goldman's captivating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Andrea and welcome to : to start this interview we Andrea Goldman Women Cinemakers meets Lives and works in Los Angeles and New York City As an artist, I’m dedicated to creating intimacy of the soul by opening new spaces, inspiring and sharing the truth of being. I focus on work that asks questions which open up uncomfortable spaces and places. Most of my work as an artist pushes the boundaries of form, genre, style and relishes in juxtaposition. I’m the cofounder of Viscus Film (www.viscusfilm.com) with my partner Marem Hassler. Viscus has garnered numerous laurels and festival recognition for its slate of shorts. We are currently in production with our first feature: Pen Pals. In 2010, I established the box collective (www.thebox-collective.com) as an artistic collaborative to promote a new kind of experiential theatre in the New York art scene & beyond. Original work has premiered in New York, New Zealand and throughout Europe. I believe in exploring provocative themes that hit the audience right in the gut--evoking visceral sensibilities and leaving a lasting imprint on the psyche. For more about my performance work: www.andreagoldmanweb.com
Women Cinemakers would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production. You have a solid formal training and you studied at New York Stella Adler Studio Conservatory and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, England: how did these experiences influence your artistic evolution? Stella Adler became my artistic home in the crazy busy city. It was a beautiful and inspirational experience. Studying at Stella Adler really emphasized the growth and evolution of the human being as the artistic being-- fostering curiosity, ensemble and a true environment for risk-taking, and going beyond the comfort zone. A tremendous focus was on cultivating the imagination, discovering the artistic voice and heartbeat. One of the most significant events for me at Stella was meeting Marem Hassler, who became my best friend and creative collaborator. We now run Viscus Film together. I remember we had an assignment in one of our classes from the Kahlil Gibran book, The Prophet, where we were meant to create a performance piece from one of the sections. I chose the piece on Love. At that point, and probably still, I was obsessed with bathtubs and the filling and draining of bathwater as a metaphor for love. So I wrote this piece and shared it with her that involved me stripping naked in her living room. She said she knew then that we would be collaborators for the long haul. We went on to create a many experimental pieces in our interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers free time, and this was the beginning of our filmmaking collaboration. I decided to go to England because I wanted to deeper understand the classical tradition and especially Shakespeare. A lot of my original work is more deconstructed and experimental in nature, but I believe understanding the building blocks and the most traditional forms is essential to deconstruct. Working at the Bristol Old Vic was challenging with a tremendous focus on technique and moving from a form and then filling it. I worked with some incredible teachers and directors. I think the combination of Stella Adler and the Bristol Old Vic gave me the tools to move both ways—outside in or inside out, and I’m grateful for that. Also, while I was over in the UK, I started developing a performance piece that we went on to do in Berlin with my company the box collective, and that was a life-changing experience and a step on the journey of finding my artistic voice. In particular, how does your cultural substratum as a creator of experiential performance direct the trajectory of your artistic research? I’m not interested in linear narratives. Most of my work is about challenging notions of time and how we experience emotions. It’s always interesting to me how time can extend and contract—how one minute waiting in the doctor’s office can feel like eternity, but kissing a lover who is leaving never to return can feel much to short. I like to explore narratives that deconstruct or new ways of telling stories, pushing up interview
against the traditional forms or genres and questioning them. I’m not super-interested in strict-realism. I enjoy the exploration of where reality and the subconscious collide, thus the language frequently ventures into the poetic. I enjoy charting the landscape of dreams and the imagination, places where memories exist in the present. New spaces, new places, new definitions of self and time. For this special edition of we have selected , a captivating short film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your sapient narrative is the way it provides the viewers with such . While walking our readers through the genesis of , could
you tell us what did attract you to this particular story? This story was a serendipitous creation. I had to go to San Francisco for a meeting to see a performance space, and we thought let’s shoot something, why not. You can’t go to San Francisco and not think about the Golden Gate Bridge. So that was lingering in our minds. On the way up we crafted the story, the character, the concept. It was very free-wheeling. Suicide is such a taboo subject in our society. It’s hard for people to talk about, it’s hard to think about, it’s skirted under the rug. I volunteered on a suicide crisis hotline during college and I would listen to the callers’ stories and feelings and try to help. So the challenge to really explore the psychology of a woman and her last moments and what she might be going through was riveting to us. In
Women Cinemakers my work, I’m focused on the creation of intimacy. How to create an intimate connection with myself as an artist and therefore with the viewer/audience. If I can open up spaces inside, then hopefully, spaces inside of whoever is watching will also unlock or unravel. Charting this journey, while uncomfortable, is also something that might be buried deep inside so many people who are scared to talk about it, or share their fears or thoughts. Just by bringing this portrait to the surface, I hope that it creates a dialogue on both a subconscious and conscious level. And those who may be in need of someone to talk to might indeed reach out and feel less alone. From a visual point of view, is elegantly composed and features stunning cinematography, with a keen eye for details: What were your when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? I threw this question to Ayasylla Ghosn, our director, who chose to shoot with the Sony A7S because it performs particularly well in low light conditions. “Since we were shooting entirely on location, we needed to have the freedom to move around darker areas and still get a clean image. As far as glass goes, we almost entirely shot this film with a 50mm 1.2 (Canon). Shooting at 1.2 allowed us to have the shallow depth of field I was looking for to create this dreamlike, surreal, hazy and almost claustrophobic visual style. We opted to shoot the Golden Gate Bridge scenes in the early hours of dawn to use the marine layer as a natural interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers diffusion for sunlight. This gave us the very soft and diffused light we were looking for as we were trying to avoid harsh shadows and direct sunlight to properly shoot this dramatic scene We like the way you created entire scenarious out of : we have appreciated the way you created between your character's epiphanic journey and the viewers' emotional sphere. How did you develop your character and would you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of a performance ? How much importance does play in your practice? In this case, we wrote a script and then threw the script out and focused on the character living and breathing in the now. For me it was about finding this woman at the edge of her world and what she might be feeling, what thoughts were running through her head. Then Aya Ghosn and Marem Hassler would ask me questions and that’s how we created the dialogue. Ching Casanova-Tapia art directed the world and made sure it was vibrant and alive throughout. The shoot was very in the moment, very spontaneous and improvised. There was something so immediate about this character and her circumstances, that whatever came bursting through felt so much more palpable and necessary than what we had previously scripted. Depending on the work, it’s always a dance interview
A still from
Women Cinemakers between the skeleton you’ve created in terms of script and what happens right there in the moment. I find building the infrastructure allows me the total freedom to twist, bend, contort and sometimes completely break it and honor what is happening in the moment. You have to have a team that you completely trust and have incredible communication with to work in this way-- and I’m so grateful for these women. Featuring essential and at the same time brilliant storytelling, escapes the boundaries of usual narrative, to inquire into an ever shifting internal struggle: as an artist particularly interested in exploring provocative themes that hit the audience right in the gut, what are you hoping will trigger in the audience? I don’t really like to put an expectation on what an audience will specifically think or feel. Across all of my work, I mainly hope that the audience feels something, that the breadth of their emotional spectrum is extended or something new opens up inside of them. In our current society, so many people are not living the full-extension of their humanity, shoved into cubicles, the breadth of their human emotional spectrum is narrowed and cut short. If this work holds up the mirror, gives breath and opening to something new to a part of themselves that is uncomfortable or unfamiliar that is the goal. It’s not about putting a name to that feeling or that space. I’m looking for the work to create an openness and allowing for the intimacy of self to flow. We daresay that that you explored in , could be considered an effective allegory of human experience: how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films? I’m constantly working towards as much transparency in my being as possible. Becoming quiet and still in order to hear the deeper vibrations of the universe and how we are part of an inter-connected system of energy. Long walks, long baths, meditation, spending time with trees, learning to listen, is all part of hearing the stories that I share. Right now, I’m very focused on the cultivation of joy. Falling in love with something everyday, whether it be a leaf or a wave or the way someone smiles. Also, trying something new all the time. Constantly being a beginner. Right now, I’m playing with watercolors. Being a beginner and that state of mind is all about living in the unknown, and that’s where we have to be to create without judgment. Traveling around the world is one of my largest sources of inspiration. I spent time on an original work, (co-created with Julia Watt, Christopher McElroen and Troy Hourie) in New Zealand. Before heading there, I was in the bathtub and I leaned forward to turn off the water and was completely paralyzed. It took me 40 minutes to crawl from the bathtub to the bed of my apartment to call someone. I laid on my back unable to move for 6 hours and finally called the ambulance.
Women Cinemakers I went to the hospital but all they wanted to do was give me drugs and knew I needed a deeper kind of healing. I had one week before having to get on the plane to New Zealand, so I went to various natural healers, energy workers, and a shaman. This deep excavation of self began a new journey for me, which is currently inspiring much of the world I’m creating. I traveled the South Island and the vibrations of the rivers and the seas and volcanoes were so loud and so vibrant. As artists we are shamans, transforming energy, telling stories, but we have to be open, we have to be able to hear the different languages, the unfamiliar, the new, the old vibrations, in order to share them. Marina Abramovic once remarked the importance of not just making work but ensuring that it’s seen : as an artist particularly interested in , how is in your opinion online technopshere affecting by the audience? Do you think that today is easier to a particular niche of viewers or that online technology will allow artist to extend to a broader number of viewers the interest towards a particular theme? I’m very old-school in many ways, but I do think that technology is allowing more visibility for less-mainstream work. There are so many artistic communities online, and technology allows easy access to finding those who vibe with your work-- sort of creating a tribe. So in that way, I interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers think it’s effective for getting the word out, sharing work, creating a dialogue. I’m drawn to live performance because it’s about an experience in the now. With film and digital technologies it’s about how to create that now again and again. I sometimes think the reason we keep watching films we love is because each time we experience them something new in us is open or opening, which allows us to see something new in the work. All of the new digital platforms, like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are incredible for emerging filmmakers. The amount of original content being produced is amazing. You don’t have to wait for someone to make your film, you can go ahead and do it. And that is liberating. The moving sound tapestry by Dani Campos provides with a sense of intimacy as well as with an enigmatic atmosphere: how did you choose the audio commentaries for your videos? And how would you consider ? Dani Campos (http://www.danicampos.com) is my songwriting husband. We’ve worked together on the development of numerous theatre pieces. I write the lyrics and he creates the music, and it feels like a marriage of souls. For this piece, I knew he was the person to do the music because he composes from such a deep intuitive knowing place. I never tell him what to do..He instinctively knows. It’s such a beautiful collaboration we have. So in this interview
case, it wasn’t any different. We sent him the cut of the film and he worked his magic. Women are finding their voices in art: since Artemisia Gentileschi's times to our contemporary scene it has been a long process and it will be a long process but we have already seen lots of original awareness among women artists. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? Everything is changing, especially given the movement. Women are stepping into the light and are now empowered. Female directors are garnering more and more recognition, and the numbers in the box office show how audiences want to see more work from a female perspective. For so long, the male lens has been directing what stories look like, what romance looks like, and sex. And it’s so important, which is what we are all about at Viscus Film and the box collective-- to create work that expresses the feminine POV. And it’s not always pretty. It’s about the exploration of the surprising, beautiful, but also perverse and unexpected facets of the feminine. At the box collective, we always say “we tell dirty stories” because it’s about embracing what society has dejected and deemed the “ugly” sides of women and rediscovering the beauty for Women Cinemakers interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
ourselves. And at Viscus, it’s about the guts, the viscera, and not being afraid to delve deep. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Andrea. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Currently with Viscus Film we are working on our first feature, , that Marem Hassler wrote and is directing. We’ve already shot some very juicy scenes with Angela Rockwood and myself. I play a performance artist whose very being is about the orgasm and in this case with Octopuses. But overall the piece is about sex and intimacy from a female POV. It’s not always pretty nor is it covered in rose petals, but it’s gritty and it’s real. I just had the opportunity to work as an actress with one of my film director heroes, Nicholas Winding Refn, on his new series , coming soon to Amazon. His focus and passion was inspiring. I’m currently writing some new pieces, inspired by my travels to New Zealand and the shamanic journey. I’m actually writing it as a book, and it will translate into a film called As my work evolves, I hope it continues to raise the vibration, inspire breath, depth and curiosity. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Women Cinemakers interview
Hello Hale and welcome to WomenCinemakers: we would like to introduce you to our readers with a An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media, that you received from the prestigious Columbia College Chicago: how did this experience influence your Hale Ekinci Women Cinemakers meets Lives and works in Chicago, USA Pictorial histories, identity, gender politics, and traditions from my Turkish upbringing form the basis of my visual vocabulary. My work can be compared to my main influence, indigenous textiles - colorful, pattern-based visuals derived from merging symbols with myth from which they acquire hidden significance and esoteric symbolism. Similarly, I explore my heritage, my alien status living in the US, and the rich history of “women’s work” through non-linear narrative videos and mixed media paintings that are juxtaposed with craft. Historically, textiles and photos are used as a place for recording information and telling stories - like a language, at times hard to decipher. As a foreigner, I’m fascinated by language, especially idioms, systems of communication, and approaching the indigenous visual patterns as a form of typography. I transfer collaged photos of collectives and families onto paper and fabric surfaces; figures painted atop the works act as focal points. Framed with crochet edgings, these pictorial scenes are presented like tapestries and headscarves, telling my sometimes-cryptic personal folklore of mixed language, politics, and spectacle. Applying techniques of collage to the moving image, my multi-layered, animated videos explore immigrant identity as seen from both Turkish and foreign perspectives. Using a combination of field video, green screen, still images, and drawings, I craft non-linear narratives where relations, identity conventions, rituals, and women’s issues result in tense scenes that reflect the universal bizarreness of traditions and stereotypes.
Women Cinemakers evolution as an artist? My MFA was a turning point for my body of work. A lot of my process and things that I do started from the experiments I did and the classes at Columbia College. Until then, I had never dabbled in creative writing. I started to write absurdist short stories at Word and Image class with Sherry Antonini, which then became the basis of my video work. I continued to take some other creative writing classes at their prestigious Creative Writing MFA program which helped me develop my writing voice and produce a group of text to work from. I developed my collage-like video style during an independent study with Paul Catanese. Using the green screen and After Effects were all things I started to do at Columbia. In other words, the style of video work I do today is based on my days at grad school. You are an eclectic artist and your versatile practice reveals the ability of crossing from a media to another: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit http://haleekinci.org in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select a medium in order to explore a particular theme? I come from a truly interdisciplinary background. In high school, I was a science focused student. At undergraduate, I double majored in Art and Computer Science. Most of my network are non-artists from all kinds of disciplines like sociology and economics to finance. As a curious person, I interview