World Courant
There is a second capturing the spirit that drives Agnieszka Zwiefka’s documentary Vika! and it includes the character on the middle of the movie — an 84-year-old Lithuanian-born Polish DJ — as she sums up her gown sense, as a lot as she does her life
“The older I get, the extra colourful I grow to be,” says Wirginia “Vika” Szmyt.
The movie, which screened Monday on the twenty ninth Vilnius Worldwide Movie Competition (VIFF), is a slight departure from Zwiefka’s earlier productions, together with the a number of award-winning unlawful refugee centered The Queen of Silence (2014), in that it comes undoubtedly softer by way of its subject material. Vika! can be nothing if not inspirational, as its protagonist mixes up her drugs behind the DJ decks in nightclubs and at occasions in Poland and past, whereas sharing her ideas on growing older and revelations from a captivating life, in between scripted musical interludes.
The movie has helped flip Szmyt into a significant superstar at residence, and overseas, as Zwiefka explains throughout a video name from the sidelines of VIFF.
“She’s even on an enormous billboard,” says Zwiefka. “She’s generally getting irritated by all the eye as a result of she will’t stroll down the streets usually anymore with out being endlessly stopped. Even on the airplane right here I swear one third of the airplane was pointing at her.”
Vika! is a Max Authentic coproduction, the second of a three-film deal Zwiefka has with Warner Bros. Discovery, and it has been a success with audiences throughout the European pageant circuit.
“I feel I’ve by no means made a movie that has such a various viewers,” says Zwiefka. “I’ve sufficient expertise now to know that that is one thing you can not predict. The dynamic of the viewers has its personal guidelines. It is very mysterious.”
How did you come to seek out this fabulous lady and make a movie about her?
It really began from the subject, not the girl. It began from my concern of growing older. I needed to persuade myself that I can age by myself phrases, that I can nonetheless be myself after I’m 70, plus 80. I feel what scares me probably the most just isn’t the truth that our our bodies age, however the truth that I I cannot be myself intellectually, psychologically — that I won’t be able to deal with that. So I began to search for girls who would defy the stereotype of growing older, particularly the one that’s related to Jap Europe, as a result of we are likely to ignore our senior residents, particularly girls. They’re instantly invisible and so they disappear from the general public sphere.
And also you beforehand knew Vika?
I knew about (Vika’s) existence. I went to her events, I admired her power. So I requested her to leap on this loopy journey with me, as a result of it was a loopy journey, nearly 5 years within the making. And he or she agreed, finally, after she bought to know me and the thought behind the subject.
Did she take some convincing? As a result of the movie reveals loads of very private issues.
I feel deep in her coronary heart she is an activist. And he or she actually hoped that with this movie she will encourage different senior residents, particularly girls, to mainly take their lives into their very own arms and do one thing about it, to not simply sit and await the grandchildren to go to. In order that was what bought her connected. However the issue was that Vika is a really secret particular person with regards to private life. Within the movie, there are some tales that even her sons weren’t conscious of.
‘Vika!’
Agnieszka Zwiefka
Why, then, do you suppose she went for it?
I instructed her that in case you do not present your weaknesses, in case you do not open up, nobody will consider that they’ll have colourful and exquisite senior years. With all of the ache and sicknesses, after all, with generally growing loneliness, they do not must cease residing. That is what bought her into the movie, and she or he began to open up.
What have been the challenges in making a considerably lighter movie than your earlier work?
It was a totally completely different expertise as a result of normally we make movies about dramatic conditions and this movie is concerning the pleasure of life. So how do you seize that? How do you create a dramaturgy round everydayness? And I feel that was the largest problem.
What was behind your determination to deal with documentaries?
It is a massive query. I am a really visible particular person. I consider that pictures converse greater than phrases. I am obsessive about filming and even in my private life I take loads of images. I suppose I simply wish to maintain some components of the world as a result of they could by no means be saved in any other case. You already know, prefer to memorize them. Movie is an excellent medium additionally to discover your creativeness. That is why I wish to make these documentaries that embody the usage of creativeness, not simply normal TV movies. I wish to play with the style.
How are the alternatives for documentary makers in Europe immediately?
I feel we nonetheless have a fairly good state of affairs in Europe however I see that increasingly more very talked-about content material is required, like true crime tales, not creative documentaries. And that is a disgrace for me, after I see {that a} subject wins over an creator’s imaginative and prescient. I consider in movies that mix each necessary present points, however nonetheless have this fingerprint of the director and that differs from what you see on TV.
What else have you ever been engaged on?
Silent Timber (which final week made its world premiere at CPH:DOX pageant in Denmark). It tells a ghostly story from Poland, by the Russian border, the refugee disaster. It is a story of a 16 12 months outdated lady whose mom dies within the forest, mainly freezes to demise. Now this lady has to grow to be a mom for her youthful brothers, and a helpless illiterate father. So it is a story concerning the finish of childhood. We’ve animated components in it based mostly on the lady’s drawings. We made her drawings come alive in a sequence of animated sequences. It is once more (like Vika!) a hybrid, however with out musical components, as a result of I consider that we at all times want to make use of the language that our protagonists, our characters converse, to inform their story.
And a particular shift in temper?
It is prefer it’s the alternative. We’ve loads of lights and glitter (in Vika!) and this different movie is far darker, and really, very disturbing. However what I attempt to do in all my movies is to search for mild. Like the sunshine inside folks of their hearts and minds, even within the worst instances
Polish Director Agnieszka Zwiefka discusses her distinctive doc ‘Vika!’
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