#beldocs

Abel Ferrara attending a talk on James Benning.

Interview to Juan Alvarez Neme by Tamara Markik about the screening of “The Smelting of Time” at BELDOCS

Where did you find the inspirations for “The smelting of time” movie?

- The film was born from a single idea. Is it possible to capture the moment when an wild animal lose it’s savage spirit? That was the starter, the spark. Then somehow, as the project developed, I felt that there was a relation between the two stories that the film finally put together. Yet I didn’t fully understand the connection I followed my intuition. So they did my fellow producer, and my sound designer friend. It was an exciting journey. 

Who are the hands that save the planet and why there are no more, although we all point out the love for nature?

- I believe I can not answer this question. I really don’t have an optimistic picture in my mind of our future. I am interested by what Greta Thunberg and these kids are doing with the school strike right now, but we’d keep failing in the key subjects that will define humankind’s future.

What was your thought process while filming “The smelting of time”?

- I believe films have its own private world. Trying to comprehend what I was doing took me to develop many layers of writing. Most of them remain hidden. But the main idea was to put into tension complementary territories, intellect and instinct, culture and nature. The diptych structure serves this purpose, and of course also time. Can we film future time in a documentary? 

What you want your film to achieve?

- The film is an open thought more than a statement. I always feel it should be concluded by the audience. I know this could be frustrating sometimes, we are used to receive everything so digested like little pigeons. But I love when it happens to me as an spectator. Sometimes a movie go beneath your skin and you spend days with its company. Could be just a feeling, a glimpse of an idea, or an image that comes suddenly to your mind. Or you just hate it. It’s a possibility. The important things is that your film is alive, like a movement waiting for someone to resolve it. 

On which projects will you do in the future?

Beldocs 2018. predstavlja muzičke i plesne dokumentarce

Ovogodišnje 11. izdanje Međunarodnog festivala dokumentarnog filma Beldocs domaćoj publici predstaviće čak 98 filmova u 14 programa, uključujući veliki broj svetskih i evropskih premijera. Beldocs festival biće održan od 7-14. maja u nekoliko dvorana. (more…)