Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.09.2013, Blaðsíða 25

25 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 15 — 2013
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RIFF
‘Days of Gray’ is a post-apoca-
lyptic fable set in a world without
language. The dialogue-free film
shot in Iceland features a score by
the Icelandic band Hjaltalín. It is
the first feature by the NYC-based
director Ani Simon-Kennedy
How did this film come into
existence, and why?
Cailin Yatsko, my cinematographer,
and Hrafn Jónsson, my writing partner,
went to see Hjaltalín perform in Prague
when we were all living there while in
film school. Their music completely took
my breath away and we immediately be-
gan to build a story around their music.
After sharing the concept with the band,
they decided to create an original score
for the film. So the music gave life to the
movie which gave life to the music.
Is there any element of the film that
you're especially interested in shar-
ing with an Icelandic audience?
I can’t wait to be able to present
the film at RIFF since it’s been a little
over a year since we shot in Iceland with
an all-Icelandic cast. I had never been
to Iceland when I first started writing
‘Days of Gray,’ but from everything I
had researched and from what Hrafn
had told me, it seemed like the perfect
setting. ‘Days of Gray’ really couldn’t
have been filmed anywhere else but in
Iceland, and being able to work with and
befriend so many Icelandic people, I re-
ally believe that between their solidarity
and resourcefulness, it’s the one place
on Earth where you could survive the
apocalypse.
In ‘Naked Opera,’
director Angela Christlieb follows
Marc Rollinger, a terminally ill
Luxembourgian civil servant who
travels around Europe attending
productions of Mozart’s “Don
Giovanni,” staying in high-end
hotels and treating himself to rent
boys.

What did you learn in making the
film?
In a technical sense, I learned how
to shoot a documentary like a fiction film,
but without a script and without knowing
what will happen the next day. This put
me in some really delicate situations
because Marc is not an actor, he is a real
personality, and he tried to control the
movie. So I learned to improvise in very
critical moments—as long as there was
enough champagne and boys, things
were OK. In a human sense, I learned
about how people behave when they
suffer from a critical illness.
What's the most interesting re-
sponse (rewarding, critical, thought-
provoking or bizarre) you've thus far
received from someone who's seen
the film?
In Tel Aviv someone in the audience said:
I can't believe a woman made this film.
“The Moo Man” is a profile
of Steve Hook, an independent
English dairy farmer, who has a
very close emotional bond with the
cows that produce his raw milk.
Andy Heathcote and Heike Bach-
elier are co-directors:
What did you learn in making
the film?
We learned a lot about cows, what
nice creatures they are, full of individual
character. We learned even more about
raw milk, but also about how impossible
it is for farmers who are interested in
animal welfare and in producing good
quality food to survive in a world domi-
nated by supermarkets. So ultimately we
learned a lot about the mechanisms that
destroy small family farms worldwide.
What's the most interesting re-
sponse (rewarding, critical, thought-
provoking or bizarre) you've thus far
received from someone who's seen
the film?
The most challenging response so
far was from the ex-deputy agricultural
minister in the UK who came to one of
our screenings. He claimed we portray a
very idyllic way of farming and if all farms
were like this in the UK we couldn’t feed
the country. To hear this argument from
someone who should be at the forefront
of protecting small farms was shocking.
Plus, it is not true anyway.
The Italian-born, English-based
producer Uberto Pasolini’s newest
effort as a director is ‘Still Life,’
starring Eddie Marsan as a self-
contained government employee
whose job is to locate the next of
kin of local residents who have died
at home alone. He winds up grow-
ing close to Joanne Froggat as one
such relative.
What did you learn in making
the film?
Before writing the screenplay I
spent a year researching various aspects
of the story, and I became increas-
ingly aware of the growing isolation that
touches so many people in our western
cities where the breakdown of the family
unit and of old neighbourhoods con-
demn vast numbers, both old and young,
to lives without true human contact. So I
have certainly become more sensitive to
the need of involving oneself in the lives
of others and letting others come into
your own life—things that appear obvious
but are often hard to make real.
“Spaghetti Story,” a competi-
tion title, concerns a quartet of aim-
less young people and a Chinese
prostitute in modern-day Rome.
Ciro De Caro is the writer and
director:
There have been films about aimless
young adults trying to discover what
they want out of life since at least ‘I
Vitelloni,’ though the specifics vary
greatly from generation to genera-
tion. Do you think of your film more
in terms of what it has in common
with other stories in this tradition, or
in terms of what makes it new?
I really tried to learn something from
the masters of the classic Italian comedy,
a kind of sad comedy, permeated by
this particular Italian “skill” of laughing
about problems and taking life with irony.
What I tried to do was to put our real
life, our everyday little tragedies, in an
ironic movie, because that’s the Italian
way (I think) of telling stories. I’m far
from putting myself at the same level of
the big masters of Italian cinema, but I
think that, in this particular moment, as a
young Italian director, I have to treasure
this legacy we have. Because we Italians
have no money to make a Hollywood
movie right now, and even if we could
find such money, I think the result would
be something “wannabe Americano.” We
should remember that we have this par-
ticular ability to make great things from
simple stories in a simple way. That’s why
the title of my movie is ‘Spaghetti Story’:
it’s made like a spaghetti dish, which is
simple, genuine, economical and Italian.
D A Y S O F G R A Y
FEATURING DAVID LAUFDAL ARNARSSON DILJÁ VALSDÓTTIR AND VIKTORÍA RÓS ANTONSDÓTTIR
WITH GUDMUNDUR INGI THORVALDSSON BRYNDÍS PETRA BRAGADÓTTIR AND MARGRÉT HELGA JÓHANNSDÓTTIR
EDITOR PERRY BLACKSHEAR PRODUCTION DESIGNER NELL TIVNAN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY CAILIN YATSKO
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS KJARTAN THOR THORDARSON AND KRISTINN THORDARSON
PRODUCED BY ALICE BLOCH ANI SIMON-KENNEDY AND CAILIN YATSKO
STORY BY ANI SIMON-KENNEDY HRAFN JONSSON CAILIN YATSKO WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ANI SIMON-KENNEDY
© 2013 BICEPHALY PICTURES LLC, SAGAFILM EHF
BICEPHALY PICTURES PRESENTS IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH SAGAFILM
FEATURING AN ORIGINAL SCORE BY HJALTALÍN
WWW.DAYSOFGRAY.COM