From violence in cinema, to not watching films at all once you’ve made one, there were shocking and cool revelations at this year’s DFI industry meet, featuring filmmakers Jim Sheridan, Leos Carax and more.
It’s always a thrill to participate in the Masterclasses at Qumra, and this year was no exception. As Richard Peña pointed out, when commenting on his own good times putting the individual sessions together, each Masterclass felt like a film festival, a retrospective dedicated to the wonders of Jim Sheridan, Claire Denis, Leos Carax, Toni Collette, Martin Hernández and Atom Egoyan. So here are a few takeaways from each of these esteemed Masters.
Claire Denis’s take on violence in film
During her morning Masterclass, Denis touched on violence in cinema and said she would never portray violence in a film gratuitously because “violence is like a volcano.” She continued, explaining “you can lean on the green grass and look at the blue sky, and suddenly, it erupts.” In these violent, hurtful times, she is absolutely right, and my own favorite films lately have been ones that question violence. She confirmed this herself by saying “we are in this world where violence is exploding and hurting our feelings, but I don’t think I want to do a movie on that. But there is always a moment when the script is taking shape and suddenly there is violence erupting. I cannot stop that.” So gratuitous no, but cinema violence that makes us question it as a human race, yes.
Leos Carax on watching other people’s work
Turns out, he doesn’t. Yup, you read that right. During his morning at Qumra, inside the Museum of Islamic Art, the enfant terrible turned homme impossible admitted to having stopped watching films once he started making them — now more than 20 years. “I don’t watch films anymore,” he said, and later declared “I’m lucky to inhabit this island — my real teachers were silent films.” Yes, but, we could argue, he doesn’t watch any films at all? Not just avoiding Barbie and the likes? Seems Carax is the maestro of broad statements and even stated during the talk that “a filmmaker doesn’t know how to do anything,” which is why he became one, he said, “and the miracle is finding the right people to collaborate with.”
Oh, and if he was a dictator, Carax declared, “a nice dictator, I would not allow people to share more than 24 images a year,” because he feels that too many images in our society is bad for our health. Which is also a reason he doesn’t like digital film as the new medium never gives the eyes a pause.
Jim Sheridan on the difference between film and digital
During his masterclass, Irish auteur Jim Sheridan also talked about the lack of darkness in digital, whereas watching good old fashioned film from a projector provided “24 frames a second,” and created “10/15 minutes of darkness in a movie which was hypnotic.” Digital can also manipulate the image, and Sheridan said that people nowadays have “less respect and faith in images.” He joked that instead of Lawrence of Arabia, while in Doha he could be “Jim of Qatar,” and equated the mosques of the country to the churches of his native Ireland. The sacred is always around us, if we look.
When asked by a Palestinian filmmaker in the audience how to portray the events of October 7th and the ongoing Israeli Hamas war, Sheridan pointed to the 1942 film Casablanca. “It’s the best propaganda movie ever made — [Jack L.] Warner’s family was in the camps and he’s trying to get America to join the war,” yet the film isn’t openly doing that, rather subliminally — with a soft touch and the beauty of cinema. Which I guess brings us right back to Denis’s statement about violence in film.
Toni Collette on finding one’s self through acting
With meditation as an integral part of her life, Collette admitted during her Masterclass that she is at peace with herself, unaffected by what others think of her. She said that playing other people helped her find herself and access parts of her personality that she hadn’t realized were important or that she had denied. “But now, it has got to the point that I know who I am. And I want to protect that and I want to live my own life.” Although she had agreed to meet with journalists individually, she then backpedalled and never did. I imagine that closing herself off this way helps. I also noticed this once before in NYC, when sitting across from her at a mani/pedi place, the actress and producer never lifted her eyes from the phone she held in her hands.
Collette also said that was is most important – in acting or in life – is to find the real connection within oneself. “If you don’t connect with yourself, there is no real life to be had. The connection you make with yourself is the beginning of everything. And storytelling is a great connector.”
Sound editor Martin Hernández on the art of sound
The two-time Academy Award nominee took the audience on a bike ride through his Mexican town, with sounds and music he had recorded on iPhone headphones. He also reminded us that French composer Maurice Ravel came up with his wondrous music while walking and Hernández incorporated some of Ravel’s compositions in his sound bite, designed especially for the Qumra Masterclass. It made me think I was in the wrong business, this writing thing here. Sound is so much more evocative and immediately appreciated. It transported me on that bike ride and I could see a whole scene laid out before me, though the auditorium was pitch black and so was the screen.
Hernández reminded filmmakers and industry insiders attending the Masterclass that sound should go unnoticed. “When you hear it, it’s a lot like an actor overacting,” he said. He also admitted he doubts himself all the time, but showed a photo that said “I can because I think I can,” featuring these words which he repeats like a mantra to himself. About his connection with the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whom he met when he was just 19 years old, Hernández told me, in a one-on-one interview the words he told his son, when they were invited to Sakamoto’s house. “Think that you’re going to visit Bach,” because that’s how important Sakamoto is to contemporary music.
Atom Egoyan on making films to deal with pain
No one tells us about displacement and features pain more cinematically than Armenian Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan. His Masterclass proved very emotional for me, as his films remind one of the power of cinema. Particularly in displaying and explaining where words often fail.
Talking about the Armenian genocide, Egoyan said that making films about such excruciating chapters from humanity does not mean it is a healing process. “These films are a record of what is happening – and continue to happen – most recently with over 20,000 Armenians displaced in September 2023.” The latest bout of violence against a people persecuted, much like the Palestinians are.
“When I tell their story, I am acknowledging what they experienced,” Egoyan continued, “my film is not going to change their pain or heal them. But it is interesting that sometimes you meet someone who say they felt cathartic after watching the film – and it is meaningful that they felt that, and you feel blessed that you can transit that emotion.”
Egoyan said about documenting the Armenian genocide in Ararat, his 2002 film, “the immediate pain was distanced, and I was able to contemplate on the catastrophe from far; I feel less equipped to deal with it when it is actually happening. What you see in Palestine right now is unimaginable; it is real and getting worse. We cannot be reflective about it because we are in the thick of it and the huge impact it has is not just going to go away.”
All images courtesy of the Doha Film Institute, used with permission.