All language subtitles for Cinergies - Dialogue Between Naomi Kawase and Isaki Lacuesta

When I attended

Las Palmas film festival

I enjoyed myself

and it made me feel
full of life.

There I met Mr Isaki.

Well we actually
only spoke for about 5 minutes.

In reality we barely
knew each other

but we started talking.

For this reason
I'd like you to understand

that cinema
thrives on words

it is the fruit of exchange

and communication
among people.

Your style obviously changes

depending on who you address.

If I'd written to another filmmaker

I'd have done it differently.

Writing to Naomi

makes you adopt
a particular style.

This aside

I don't think this was
my first filmed diary.

Some films speak
in the third person

th characters
who are not the author

but reflect the personality
of the person behind the camera.

Sam Peckinpah for example
never appeared

in his films but they
transmit what he was like.

I made some films years ago

in which the narration
the text

or what's being said

has nothing to do
th my life.

But the images were
from my domestic life

and they were saying:
''I love this woman...''

There are moments of love of desire

captured in films
from years ago.

And even if the plot
is unrelated

they're a kind of personal diary.

I saw the first letter from Mr Isaki

when I met him

for the first time in Las Palmas.

I had the impression...

that he was a serious person.

In this sense
he's rather masculine.

As for me

I like to have fun and I'm laid back.

Sometimes he seems to get upset

when I play a joke on him.

For this reason
I finished my first letter

thinking that
I should be more serious.

- The first one?
- Yes.

In the second one
you changed your mind.

In the second one I felt fear.

There's no single
explanation for this letter

it has an undercurrent

of hidden meanings.

Therefore you have to
really think about it

in order to understand it.

I sent the second letter
which is about the present

about being here
and the things I'm doing.

Well...

I went to his home town

and I thought
he'd show me many things.

We went to a lake

where the lake bed
is volcanic ash.

We strolled around.

Then we went to a place
that looked like a museum

but it made me a little afraid.

I've been thinking it's sad
that in the 21st century

''virile'' and ''masculine'' are insults.

20 years ago it would have been fine.

Sorry?

She said that she
found me masculine.

20 years ago that was a compliment

now it's a criticism.
And so...

I feel humiliated.

OK but...

Naomi...

I forgot to turn the earpiece on...

- Can you hear Isaki?
- Now I can. What was she saying?

For some time
I've wanted to work

on a kind of cinema that
speaks of the present the past

and also
interprets the future.

That's not asking much is it?

I don't think that films

only talk about the past
and the present.

I like to think of them

as bottles you throw into the sea
that will turn up again one day.

In fact this third letter
is also conceived

in relation to the fifth.

The tone changes.

That's something I wanted to do:

use different tones

so we could show
our different sides.

The reasons
that I work in cinema

are about striving
to know myself.

I mean I didn't admire

any famous director
in particular.

And I didn't want to work

with any actor
who I particularly liked.

Above all I wanted
to explore myself.

So I began working
in the world of cinema.

That's more important.

When I create a work

it has a great
influence on my life.

And the influences
that you come across in life

lead you to walk forward.

Me walking
ll be the subject of a letter.

So it has a
synergistic effect

because everything is connected.

I guess that's
how it works.

You like to direct films
and everything it entails

that's why you do it right?

No I always thought
I would write.

I'll change to Catalan
the Generalitat's paying for this...

I'd always thought
that I would write.

And later I started...

I hesitated between studying
economics or film.

I wasn't strong on economics
so I went over to film.

And I discovered something
I'd never imagined

a bit like what
you're saying

that I wasn't interested in film
as a way of telling stories

or as a way of creating
a way of life or a status

but as a way of
creating experiences

that I wouldn't
otherwise be able to have.

This is something
that I often say

because I think it's important.

When we made
La leyenda del tiempo

I lived with those people
for many months

in an intimacy that was unthinkable
without the camera as an excuse.

All the trips
we've made this year

have been
thanks to making films.

The same goes for being
with Naomi now.

And it's not just the
life experiences you have

during the shoots

but also
their consequences.

And another important thing

is your relationship
with the technical team.

I like to shoot with a team
that's like a family.

Many of them are here today.

You can tell the focus
is worse in this film

the sound is worse

because I've had to make it
alone thout them.

That's something I like
working with friends.

What we were discussing

about filming bodies
and ghostly presence

is almost inevitable.

It's part of the natural
essence of cinema.

In itself cinema

embalms
characters.

I thought that Darder
was probably my main influence

my putative cinematic
father because

in the 1 9th century
before cameras existed Darder

did the same thing as
the Lumières in the 20th:

he wanted village folk to see
what Africans were like

what wild animals
were like.

And also to keep alive
dead bodies from the past

in some sense.

Now I think
it's appalling...

Darder did some
appalling things

and in the 22nd century

people ll think that
filming people like we do

is just as terrible.

The films I'm interested
are those you can apply this to.

When we watch films...

the film I showed
about Banyoles

is the first film
made in 1 907

by Segundo de Chomón
an essential filmmaker.

Aside from the mise en scène
the charm of these films

is seeing people and places
that no longer exist

but remain alive in the films.

In other words we're the
taxidermists of the 21st century.

All I do

is film things
that are irreplaceable to me.

This means that...

in reality...

I'm going to
change the subject now...

I'd like to film in Spain.

It's also true

that I enjoyed myself
in Las Palmas.

Suddenly I found myself
facing Mr Isaki

and he suggested doing an
interview there in Las Palmas.

Like now Mr Isaki

started to talk
about many things very quickly.

And I thought...
How complicated!

I guess
it would be more fun

to talk as friends

in a place like the port
for example.

I also ate sardines
and other things.

The taste of those sardines
like the taste of ice cream

is something I will never forget.

The taste of the paella

we ate in that village
we went to together...

There at the lake
we met a man

two women who were tns

and some men
who looked like fishermen.

All these things
made a deep impression on me.

These things
are part of everyday life

but there's a limit when
it comes to filming them right?

We have a memory.

But it is lazy.

Today you'll go home
and tomorrow you won't remember

the colour of the clothes
Isaki is wearing right?

You ll probably
all forget.

It's blue...

Memory becomes
lazy like this.

Then again

film is a little bit
like memory.

Basically

I transform memory
and express it in filmed images.

In this sense
I'm like a translator.

I try to translate things

through cinematic
images.

I think it's very interesting
to use films to translate

the dramas of people's
everyday lives.

I capture the landscape
that I want to preserve.

I create the landscape
that I want to preserve.

Well I think I do.

I'm sorry.
I rejected the chat.

In Las Palmas there was a
misunderstanding with the organisers.

I was actually going
to Fuerteventura.

In any case

It'd be terrible if it ended up
seeming like Naomi is the vitalist

while I'm the European
theoretical intellectual

so I'd like to point out
that what she just said

is a great example
of film theory

and that between
each shot of the boat

we were fucking
on the beaches of Fuerteventura.

I won't show you those images.

The Mourning Forest.

has anybody seen it?

OK great.

What a strange lot!

Everybody who has
seen it is here.

In this film

there's a young woman

between
25 and 30 years old

whose two year old son
has died.

But the actress
isn't even married

and has never given birth.

And obviously

she hasn't
ever lost a child.

So this sadness
is pure acting right?

But I wasn't convinced
by her acting.

Even if it was fiction...

I wanted the girl
to really feel sad

and totally alone.

I put that girl

in a very small room
with a tatami

thout a bathroom
so she could live on her own.

For the first half
of the shoot...

I talked to the whole team...

but I totally ignored her.

This is a terrible thing.

Imagine a director
totally ignoring an actress.

Then she'd go home
and be alone again.

Then she started
expressing herself really well.

Once we had filmed those scenes

I told her I had been
watching her the whole time

and that she could relax.

After that

we shot some scenes
that were more lively.

What am I trying to say?

That the most important
thing for creation

is reality.

I really wanted

each of that
girl's cells

to be totally pervaded
by sadness.

I think it's important
to express reality in this way

so that audiences
do not feel

they're watching
some made-up story

even if it is fiction.

When I'm aware of a feeling

the ordinary things I feel

I want to transmit it
to the viewers

exactly the way I've felt it.

It's difficult to know
how much you affect

the lives of others

and it's a big responsibility
for those of us who make films.

In La leyenda del tiempo

the final sequence
where Makiko starts crying

and cries a lot

was planned
as a fiction sequence.

As Naomi said
the search for truth

was not so much
in the filming

but in the casting
of the characters

who had lived through
similar experiences

so in the shoot
we were inviting them

to re-live them
in front of the camera.

It's a curious expression:
''to live in front of the camera''

as if actors were dead.

It's inevitable
to ''live'' in front of the camera

unless you film corpses.

In this sequence

Makiko had to call
her father.

It is a fiction sequence

and there was nobody
on the other end.

She was being told
her father had died.

And she had to start crying.

We'd tried it several times

and she cried very well
because something

very similar had happened
to her in real life.

But on the day
of the shoot

Makiko
couldn't cry.

We couldn't film it.

We let it go and moved onto
another scene

and while we were filming

Makiko was sitting
on a bench beside us

and she started
crying inconsolably.

We turned the camera around
and started filming her

and it's a long take
that runs for 5-6 minutes

of continuous tears.

Later Makiko told me
they were tears of frustration

because of her failure to cry
when we were filming the scene.

We argue about this
every time we meet.

She claims that she wasn't aware
she was being filmed.

But I'm convinced that she was.

When I watch the the raw footage
in the DVD extras

I know the exact moments
when Makiko shows us her face...

she turns her face to the camera
so the light shines on it.

This was near the end of the shoot
so she knew how it worked

and how
to approach it.

And I bet...
I can point out the moments

when Makiko offers us
her face so we can film her.

But according to her
- and she really means it -

she is convinced
that she didn't know.

That we were
filming secretly.

That brings up questions
about the filmmaker's rights

over a character
or a person.

If we were filming
Makiko secretly

at an intimate moment

we were exploiting
her private life.

I don't think we were.

In any case she authorised us
to put it in the film.

Given my rhythm
of life and work

I'd love to make
one feature film a year

or every 10 months
but this is impossible in Spain.

It took me 4 to 5 years
to get each film off the ground.

If you don't do anything
in the meantime

you lose the rhythm
of your work.

Picking up a camera

becomes charged with meaning
and that's not right.

Filming should be a natural thing

th a certain lightness.

If we look at
the history of cinema

all the great masters
made many films...

The filmographies of
the greats from Ford

to Bergman Hitchcock Goddard

they all made many many films

compared to
today's filmmakers.

There's no comparison.

There seems to be some prestige
in not doing much.

I don't share that at all.

I'd like to work
as much as possible.

Luckily I've had
other projects between films

commissions

where I was asked

to participate
in exhibitions or...

I'd be given a premise

but I could do
whatever I wanted to.

Nobody ever said

I had to make a particular film
th a particular story.

They gave me the subject matter
and I had total freedom

so I've done
whatever I've wanted

I've had fun
I've kept learning

and trying things
and I'm sure

if I'd had to wait until
I could make a feature film

I'd still be trying
to focus the camera:

in the first film I'd have
learnt to turn it on

and in the second one to focus

and I'd have to wait five years
to learn to film a character.

The short films
I've made

which haven't been shown

although that's
not important

have allowed me
to discover things.

Naomi's work

hasn't gone
down that path

but one of her films
was a commission:

Letter from a Yellow
Cherry Blossom

a commission by Nishii

a writer who was terminally ill

which she filmed
in the last months of his life.

He had terminal cancer.

He called me one day

and told me he had
two months left to live

and he asked me
to make a documentary

about the time he had left.

First I wondered
why he asked me to do it.

When I asked him

he told me that he chose me
through intuition.

I couldn't reject
the intuition

of somebody who had
two months left to live.

That was all.

With the third letter we'll see...

When you make a film

it's important
to reach a certain point

of course.

There are four parts:

exposition development
climax and resolution.

If you watch until the climax
you ll stay to the end.

So as long as the
plot develops

as long as the audience

watches to the end
and gets to the resolution

that's the whole point.
Will you go first?

Sorry? I didn't
understand the question.

Would you make the third one first?

I'd decided on an ending
but it's very likely

that I ll change it
now that we've met.

Now that we've been together

I might change
the fifth letter.

I find it curious

how it changes things
getting to know each other

through the
audiovisual letters...

what an ugly word!

Getting to know each other

through the
letters we have filmed

through the films
we had watched

or meeting in person.

I think that I've learnt most
about Naomi

through her films.

I got to know her best
through her films

then through the letters
and lastly in person.

I have found

that films are a very clear
personal expression

while in private life
there's a need...

there's a need
for protection.

Firstly thank you because...

the letters are great
I really liked them.

I wanted to ask you

particularly in the case
of Isaki's letter

which is more constructed
and elaborate

to what extent you used

the correspondence format

to channel or direct
projects or ideas

that might have been
breng in advance.

And also why it has to finish
th two more letters.

I'm curious about
the protocol or pact

that structures these letters.

Now that you are
getting to know each other

to see each other

perhaps you hadn't really
seen each other in the letters

perhaps you could continue

but I don't know the protocol

behind these letters.

Perhaps you could say
something about this.

Well firstly...

a little explanation
for Naomi:

the other day we were discussing
Spanish directors

and she said she really
liked Victor Erice

and we told her there was
another one who was very good...

that's him.

He is a very good
Spanish filmmaker.

José Luis Guerin Naomi Kawase.

And now the question.

In a sense these letters...

are an outlet for ideas
that were on standby

just like commissions
provide a chance

to formally try out feelings
that you want to express.

You take the opportunity
to do it when you can.

As for the protocol

we had set ourselves
some game rules:

to make four letters
which would start by explaining

that we had only met briefly

as a process of
getting to know each other

and end with a letter
filmed by the two of us

in the same space

which is the one we filmed
in Banyoles the day before yesterday.

But all the footage we shot
is unusable

because the camera
chewed up the film

and the only thing
we've filmed together

is an invisible film
a film you can't see.

So we've decided to swap

that joint letter...

Well my idea was to take
her to Banyoles

the place
where I grew up

and yesterday when we
saw there was nothing usable

Naomi suggested
that I finish it.

For me it was important
to make a fifth letter

because the third one brought up
things that are interrupted

which ll end in the fifth.

When I told Naomi

she suggested
a plan:

I would finish a letter
from Banyoles

and she would make one in Nara.

That conclusion
would make sense

In regards to
documentaries

I think they're a little bit different.

There is another self

on the other side of reality

watching what I have
experienced in my own skin.

As for Mr Nishii...

I say it in
Mr Nishii's film.

In the film

Mr Nishii said
that film is a recording

and I told him that
in my documentaries

the most important thing is memory.

I said this because
I think recording

is part of a place

that we don't
usually belong to

something that is kept

in an art or natural sciences
museum.

Nevertheless now I feel

that films
are recordings.

And that's why
everybody can watch them.

It's good that viewers
think different things.

And memorise
those different feelings.

I think that's good.

I'm especially interested

in capturing moments
from real life and real emotions.

And I don't care
whether I capture them

using traditional documentary
techniques

or fiction techniques.

That doesn't matter to me.

What matters is what we capture
not how we do it.

I was thinking about
what you said earlier

and I think that
the importance of an influence

is more about
personalities

than nationalities.

For some years now

we've been hearing about
Oriental filmmakers

Filipinos South Americans

who have not watched films
and make ''primitive'' cinema.

That's obviously not true.

Kiarostami has an incredible
cinematic knowledge

which isn't obvious because
of his temperament and talent.

With Raya Martin people say:

''He has created a new cinema
because he's in the Philippines

and he hasn't seen anything...''

and the guy spends
all day hooked on...

...YouTube and Facebook.

He has watched everything
just like us.

I'd like to know whether Naomi

showed her films
to her great-aunt

and what she thought
about her way of working.

What did she think
when she saw herself filmed?

I started making films

that dealt th subjects
that were close to me.

At first I dealt th
the person I lived with.

I've made 3 or 4
fiction films now

and I've experienced many things.

But when I want to identify
with myself

she always comes up again.

She is somebody
essential to me.

When I was born
my parents separated.

That's why I have a suspicion
or a doubt...

The doubt that perhaps
I would not have been born.

But she took this
idea out of my head.

It's clear that I owe
my existence to her.

I make films that deal th this.

At first I was aware
that she saw the images.

When she saw the scenes

that contain
the most powerful words

she told me that she felt

as though she would be
th me forever.

Now she can't
follow the images

because she's senile
she has alzheimers.

But when I turn
the camera towards her

she seems to be very happy

as though she were
participating in my work.

Do you have
any advice for

young filmmakers
who ll come after you?

She has more experience.

I thought Isaki
was older than me!

I'm older
but I've made less films.

Isn't he older?

How old are you?

I'll try to overtake you.

33.

33?

I don't have much experience
and I can't give advice...

but I can say
that my intention

is to go further on my own and...

reach the other side of the Earth.

- Yes.
- That's true.

In the centre it's hot
but apart from that no problem.

I was just remembering
when we released Cravan...

and we went to festivals
for first works

and filmmakers would tell me

they were presenting
their first film

which they'd made to get
a foothold in the industry.

They said: ''This film
was a commission

but the next one will be
closer to what I want to make''.

But they never
made the second one

so they only made one film

and it wasn't the one they'd
really wanted to make.

If you only make one make sure
it's the one you feel like making.

My advice: always try to do
what you want to do

rather than what you're asked to do.