BERGMAN ISLAND Q&A | TIFF 2021

hello welcome to the tom international film festival and to the q a recording for bourbon island by mia hansen love screening as part of our gala section my name is andrea picard and i'm a senior programmer at tiff and it's my pleasure to be here today with the film's writer and director mia hansen love welcome mia thank you uh you're no stranger to tiff mia we've shown all of your films at the festival we did a retrospective of your work at the cinema tech so we're really pleased to be showing bergman island which is your seventh feature and your first in the english language it's phenomenal congratulations on its success already well thank you very much for inviting me again and i i wish i was i would be with you in toronto i know complicated times but thank you for your time today uh i just wanted to start uh with faro the island um i know many people have gone also and i was curious did you go there first on your own like birdman pilgrimage or to work on a project or did you go there specifically to make this film um the first time when i went to foru i already had the idea of writing this film but i wasn't so i wasn't so sure so in a way i went there to see if to confront my id to the experience of the island um there was um there is this thing called the bergman week that happens once a year during a week uh they show some films of bergman and also some other films and they were inviting me to to screen some and introduce some of my films and i took this chance uh because i already had the idea of maybe one day writing a film that would uh be set on fojo i took this chance to travel there and see what happens so that was the first time and that was a very strong experience and and then i went back the year or maybe two years after because the year after i was shooting at film i think that was things to come and so two years after i went back and this time i really wanted to write um the film and so the second time when i went when i went back i stayed during the months and i wrote a part of the script there in one of the houses of birdman where i stayed well the landscapes are absolutely exclusive many of your films you render the natural world so beautifully i'm wondering what um what the landscapes do for your imagination you seem to have an affinity with nature yes i think um places are always a starting point from your not the main but one of them i mean i think um they can be a motor depiction a place of fiction they're almost like a character to me what i mean is when i write a story it's not only about the storyline or you know the pitch of it to me the atmosphere of the place uh really is uh crucial and i think uh i've had um uh very organic and effective relationships to places uh uh for all of my uh films that places that have been inspiring to me but not no place has been as uh central and as inspiring as a forum um to tackle bergman would be hugely daunting but the film is not really about that i mean it's very much about a woman who can see her life in fiction also so there's a tremendous sense of freedom and yet uh chris vicki crips's character says when she first arrives that she finds the landscape it's too beautiful it's too oppressive but you obviously didn't feel that yes actually my experience of riding on the island is i think different to the one i described about chris you know although i had identi in many ways you could say i identify myself with her and i've been uh through these dabs while i write i i i felt often very vulnerable as a script writer uh so the the the the doubts of her the lack of self-confidence is really something that i i i feel very close to and i and identify myself with but on the other side um and it it it's surprising maybe but uh my experience of writing on folio was very different it was maybe the first time that i actually um that for me writing was actually easy and um that there was that suffering was not so much part of the writing process because it usually is for me uh but i never felt as uh freed and as emancipated uh as as as though as the one time when when i when i was riding on florida and and i will always feel i think a grateful uh towards to that place that that it allowed me to feel such a great uh uh freedom and the the film is so breezy and enchanting and then there's such this juxtaposition between the mental landscapes that we have in our mind from bergman's films um did you encounter that at all or no yes i thought that's something that was interesting for me from the start when i arrived on forum was that the full photo that i discovered was very different from the one that i knew from bergman's film of course on the one hand you can feel bergman's presence everywhere and it's part of what my film is about although as you said it's maybe not the main subject of the film but it's still part of that this how a place can be haunted by by by the presence of an artist who we admire and how we deal with that so on the one hand there was there was this this this very strong feeling of the omnipresence of bergman and on the other end i discovered uh a a landscape place a territory that was very very different maybe thanks to the fact that i went there in the summer when you have you know white flowers everywhere it was extremely sunny it was very enchanting um extremely nice i have to say but very different from the more um frightening or you know dark place that we we that very different from from the vision we can have of it uh through his uh films and i and and somehow i think that um helped me a lot to find my space on the island because if the island had been exactly the way you see it in his films uh i don't know if bergman island would have been possible but because because i i looked at it in a different way or at least i saw a different place that allowed me to find my own you know to to have the feeling that there was another story to tell that there was another way to look uh at this place than than the only that the one way we know from vernon's film and did this inform your decision to shoot in scope yes it was exactly because because it's interesting because you know for a long time i thought i would never film that in scope i actually um most of the time i don't film in scope the only theme that i had been filming in scope was eden right for very specific reason but it's not a format that i that i often am attracted to and uh especially for that film i thought i would i would not film that way because that was a format that seemed so different from the films of bergman in a way it seemed too far from his grammar although i i didn't it's not like i defined my style and my film um only in relation to the films of bergman of course not but to me there was something symbolically that for a long time i thought was problematic if i if i was going to film in scope and then uh when i went there and i realized like how much um the horizons was um present for me when i was there that that that it was so powerful to be because it's so flat and and and um you have so much space you know uh and there is so so much void also that the horizon is very present and and when i realized that and it's not something we had seen in these films and and to me it was a uh it's it was a very strong feeling and um that's that's how i started actually together with the do people filmed and even more to decide that it made actually sense uh to film the the the the island like that and that it because the island was going to be also a character of the film to film it and give it a new look and to give that freshness to the perception of the island really made sense and that's how it led us to to be filming in school yeah i mean it's exquisitely beautiful with all the expanses and the huge sky there's also a sense of freedom involved i feel yes i've noticed as well of course yeah i want to talk about the discussion sorry am i interrupting you no i i i meant it's also part of this idea of emancipating i mean it's a film about emancipation in many ways and symbolically i think deciding to film in scope was part of this process of emancipating uh myself from the influence of bergman as well and in some ways the film is also creating a process and i think earlier the film is also about the creative process the process declaration yes and i really love the nuances between chris and tony you know you show this couple that's obviously very tender with one another from the beginning when he's cradling her head and in the airplane but then also the loneliness that they feel in their own sort of paths of creativity um can you talk about that a little bit yes i i think indeed this creative process and how it worked in a couple where they both are writers was really the starting point of the film for me i said earlier for how important uh finding this place for her for in order to be the set of that film was really the moment where it became real for me but on the other hand i think long before i even think thought of for the film i had this idea of making a film one day about a couple of directors and and through that double portrait actually reflects on what it is to write in a couple and how you can find or not find the right balance between the complicity that you want to have with your partner on the one hand and and on the other hand then this necessary loneliness that it means to be a writer or a filmmaker you need to have your own private space and you you there is a territory within you that the other one cannot go into and i think you have to accept that distance and difference and that's difficult and and so there is a tension here between us comprehension and complicity and distance that i wanted to study through that film and as you mentioned you set up this double upload with part of chris's film but then also you have the interjection of the filmmaking that mizonabim which i think does really interesting things to blur the the temporal dimension of the film i'm curious about this choice well it's it's something that happened uh while i was writing there i i think when i went there i i must have an idea that i may open this kind of doors where in the in the story and and that i would let myself go into the film that she was actually writing but it's really when i was there that it became obvious that choice and i mean it's it's been something really intuitive um but but my desire was to really try to find the form in the film that would express uh what it is for me to live and um write stories write films and live in the imagine in my imagination as well and uh i think that's that's construction with the film within a film as you call it mison ibm is it wasn't ever something theoretical for me it's just that it it it felt to be the one construction that allowed me to really catch exactly what it is to live half of your life in fictions you know because it's really like this to me uh i really feel that there is sometimes a confusion in my life between uh my my everyday life and my films which are often inspired by things of my everyday life you know and i i i go from one to the other and it's it gets mixed in a way that it really creates sometimes sometimes overtigo where you don't know anymore what's real what's fiction where where you really who you really are where you are um as a person where where is the most of you where what is the more real about you and uh and i thought that that confusion that confusion that it creates but that i wanted to create because i find its confusion very stimulating actually very addictive as well and uh i think for me making this film was a way to try to to to express to write to through the right form what exactly this confusion is so it creates a confusion and purpose because that confusion is i think part of my my writing process we're almost out of time but i really want to ask about the casting i mean the cast is superb between vicky kreps and tim roth mia wazakowska anders danielson lie can you talk about these choices these are all actors who i um admire a lot um for different reasons i mean i i have a different story for each vicky i discovered as many people when i first saw her in phantom thread by protomas anderson where she was a wonderful and sinner time i i wanted to work with her although um i mean and that that was just a couple of months uh before she got on board on the film because actually the film uh was supposed to be with greta gerwig and for some reason well you know greta girl where she had to direct her own film at the same time so that happened very quickly and then uh when that happened uh i didn't have to hesitate for a minute actually because vicky was on my mind as an actress who i wanted to work with one day but i i didn't think that would happen so quickly she has this balance of vulnerability and self-confidence about her that i found quite unique she's very luminous very strong in many ways but at the same time she has she has a lot of sensitivity and and uh and and softness as well so she has this very uh special balance about her presence that i feel very connected to and also i thought she had the right type of presence for a filmmaker i don't think it's something easy to be as an actress it's not as i mean i don't think any actress is a it's not only a matter of being a great actress but could play directors and be credible in that part and i think vikki she has she had that kind of look and authority about her that i can i can believe she would write her own films and direct them as for mia she she's an actress who i i've wanted to work with for a long long time i i just i'm a huge fan of of her in many films uh but what i like most about her is an innocence that she managed to preserve although she's been in many many films she has a lot of experience but she still has this youth and innocence about her that moves me deeply in that i find a quite unique team i had seen in many films of course i um i never thought i would work with him to be honest just because he was an actor who i admired but not somebody that who i think i thought i would make a film with but at some point there was something about her his presence um not so much because of the tough guys that he played in many films but more about the complexity and the yeah the the complexity that emanates from him because on the one hand he has this thing of being very masculine i mean um selfish and on the other hand uh there is femininity about him i find in his way of walking is worth talking there is a sensitivity that you cannot see in many films where he plays because he is used to so many bad guys you know in films but you can see when you meet him and i'm very sensitive to that as well as i'm sensitive to the fact that he directed directed his own film years ago and that and and um it's a very strong film and and and that it's a film that that that reveals i think um uh an interiority about him but also a suffering a vulnerability that i somehow um that that i wanted to to you somehow in the character and that helped me believe that it was a director as well and uh anders daniel i'm also a huge fan of him is this norwegian actor who i had seen also in a couple of films especially um joachim tries uh first films and oslo 31 of august and he's really my type of actor i don't know how to say it more simply there is a darkness and a melancholy about him that [Music] does impress me a lot he has this thing of being both very charismatic but on the on the other hand he has you know he's also a doctor in his life i know and um he's not only an actor and it's something i can really see in his way of being even in front of the camera that there's something more about him uh i don't feel like i'm filming an actor uh when i film him like i'm filming a person um almost that that comes almost beforehand to me when i film him and that's something i i i enjoy a lot and that i i enjoyed especially for this character okay i'm slipping in a tiny question it has to be brief um what's your favorite birdman film i had to ask do you have one yeah i don't have one but there is one that i have a special relationship to uh and i think it's uh the film called the touch which is not his most famous it's a film with bb anderson and eliot gould one of his only or he's only probably filming english mother party in english because of it that means present smackdown yeah it's just on the computer channel many people are re-watching it now um thank you for this conversation thank you for being here we hope to host you in toronto with your next film well i hope too and i hope if i come back i can come back here physically next time thank you very much

Channel: TIFF Originals

Views: 20

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, TIFF21, TIFF Bell Lightbox

Id: bEu-6Vkt9Kg

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021