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REUTERS
Gianfranco Rosi , born in 1964, for more than 20 years documentary films. For “Sacro GRA”, where Rosi accompanied the life of the ring road in the Italian capital, he was awarded in 2013 at the Venice Film Festival with the Golden Lion. For the film “wildfire”, for which he for a year watching daily life on Lampedusa, Rosi received at the Berlinale 2016 Golden Bear.
SPIEGEL: Mr Rosi, your previous films were far away from major issues that have directly to do with the current debates of our day. When you went to far hitman in Mexico or to everyday life at the beltway of Rome. Why did you choose the theme of refugees
Rosi: I have not chosen the theme. I was asked if I wanted to make a film on the island of Lampedusa
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. Who
Rosi: From the Istituto Luce, an Italian archive of newsreels and documentary work that produces itself and movies. At that time, the situation on Lampedusa was catastrophic, the island’s name was inextricably linked to the tragedy. For most of the reporting on the media attended. They came for a short time there to make their images. Most journalists saw that as an island with people who live there, who have to live with it. In the beginning was the idea of making a short film
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. How was the feature film from
Rosi: When I arrived, there was no paradoxically migrants on Lampedusa. The hotspot Center was closed, which was being renovated after a fire. My first encounter with the island was determined by a feeling of emptiness, of tenseness on something that happened far away from the people but knew that it would reach again. All images that I had in mind were absent. That was three or four weeks so, and I was sick, had a bronchitis. So I went to the doctor, and that doctor was Dr. Bartolo, who is now established in the film. I told him that I am a filmmaker and he said to me: You must make this film. I replied: I do not know if I’m going to be able. He then handed me a USB stick and said: Look at this. I am sure you will make come back and the film
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. What was on the stick
Rosi: The history of 20 years, doctor Bartolo’s personal encounters with migration. There was incredible material on it. So I moved for a year to Lampedusa
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. Why do you have calculated a child, the twelve-year Samuele, made the protagonist of “wildfire”
Rosi: My instinct told me that I needed a child as a protagonist. It would have been difficult to have an adult as the main character, with which I would have to talk about migration. The child is a parallel world could create that is contrary to the reality of migration. For me that meant more freedom
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. Why do not show how the refugees on Lampedusa
Rosi: because there are none. You arrive and go right back. Your life is subjected to a bureaucracy. In October 2013, the People came not directly from Africa to Lampedusa. There were interactions with the people on the island. In December 2013, the policy created a new limit on the open sea. A militarized zone, patrol boats of the army. The incoming people are intercepted and dispersed at sea. On Lampedusa they stay two or three days. So it is difficult to build a relationship with them. The only time that I succeeded in that was with a rescue that I was able to accompany: Nigerians had perished with their boat. With them I was able to talk, spend time filming it. . This was an epic moment, worth more than hundreds of interviews
SPIEGEL: In your film you will see the conversations between Nigerians – acting almost staged, because in their stories all is said, what we need to know about migration history
Rosi:. With the exception of one scene in the film everything is as it has been done. No specifications, no stage. Such moments arise when one is one and a half years since. You have to wait for these moments. If you spend just a week in Lampedusa, which is something not happen. . But if you spend a year there, then you will be rewarded by the gods of the documentary (laughs)
SPIEGEL: the political dynamic has influenced the history – that from spring 2015 the Lampedusa phenomenon suddenly the European theme was
Rosi: Since I was almost done with the shooting. My last scene I’ve filmed in August, in October 2015 I started to cut. For me the limit was reached when I had filmed death. That’s something you never want to do as a filmmaker. It was clear, I can not continue filming
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. How is filming one death without issue it
Rosi: I was 40 days in this military boat, and every day there was a rescue that was normal, nothing bad. And suddenly one day, the dead came. And I asked myself: What am I doing, what am I doing? Finally I decided to film. The world must know that the lower deck of the boat are dead people. It’s like in a gas chamber, how people die there. The captain of the ship said to me: “You need the film, the world must know.” The smell of dead bodies was unbearable. The moment I left everything, I could not shoot
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. There was therefore no question, if you show it or not
? Rosi: the big challenge was death not for sale to the sensationalism. not to tell him to be pornography, but as something urgent matters. I bring the audience slowly along. My responsibility was precisely the fact that the audience does not cry, My God, why are you showing me this? But they say: My God, how can this happen? If that is the reaction while looking, then I’ve done my job properly. I had this scene capture on average, I had to overcome. In the last 25 minutes of the film no word falls. It’s like mourning
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. Why do you have the material of the USB stick not actually used? You would be so might open a historic space
Rosi:. That’s not my way of working. I like to close the door. There are so much information in the world, on the Internet, on television. Therefore I close the door. And the ending, which is then only looking through a keyhole. The rest is outside. I’m not Michael Moore
SPIEGEL ONLINE:. But you intervene with “wildfire” in a debate
Rosi:. It’s not fair, how to deal in Europe with migration. In Italy for years people come on, 450,000 people in the last 15 years alone on Lampedusa. And then Austria is Germany in summer 2015 suddenly surprised: Ups, get the monsters, the aliens are here and make an invasion. I do not want the policy to say what they should do. But I can say what I think about what politics has done so far: zero, nothing. We know that people die, we allow that to happen: torture, rape, death. Instead of asking us how we deal with it, we ask, we want these people ever have here? Everyone flees from its responsibility for Europe’s history. We know that walls do not help falling sooner or later. Everything will change, and we must accept that there will be this change.
Read the current SPIEGEL a portrait of Gianfranco Rosi (paid service).
In video: The trailer for the film “wildfire”
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