Kate Maveau, a Belgian film director, producer, writer and dancer. You made a short lesbian film Shimi (2012). In one of your blogs you wrote about it as: „it tells a story which is close to my heart. The screenplay is based on a precious friendship that has been lost and changed my life completely“. Why and how? It ended with his death. The film does not literally portray that friendship. No one but myself has ever pushed me to my limits. Whenever I meet someone I get inspired. People open up and I feel a certain naivity sprouting from friendships. You tend to trust someone and hope to gain their trust back. You do what you think is best especially when the other identity is amazing. You want to get to know them. Impress them. And that is what happened in SHIMI. Keely is amazed by her counterpart hence her naivity. Even when their morals do not match. It was merely symbolical. I once lost myself in my naivity during a friendship which had nothing to do with that person. Now I look at people in a more cold and rational fashion. I learned I don't have to pretend but remain true because every choice you make is your own. And that makes an introvert person like myself awkward. Does personal experience(s) and/or sexual orientation of the director and writer should be an important part for writing a lesbian story? I read that Max Färberböck who directed Aimée & Jaguar wanted to write about a lesbian love story for a very long time. When he was 14 or 15 years old and was in Paris on a trip he saw two women standing in front of a mirror in a hotel, and he thought, “'What are those two women doing there?' They were looking at each other in the mirror, fully dressed, and I thought they might be lesbians — I was a little tense about it. This image came back to me one day when I was searching for a story — I said to myself, 'Who were those women?' and I started to fantasize about them.“ No. In our correspondence you said that you know many lesbian actresses that are prudish regarding shooting sexual scenes and if a lesbian story involved sexual scenes you would not hire them as actresses. You believe that sexual orientation of the actresses does not matter in a lesbian film as long as she does/they do her job properly? This is taken out of context. I don't mind about someone's private live(s). This does not influence me when I look at their art. For a long time I have wished to ask: do you have any explanation to why there have been so few choreographies involving lesbians? Lesbians in dance (and/or lesbian dancers) are even fewer depicted then in films, theatre or paintings. No, not really. Do you think that lesbian love story and its main characters should portray certain important values, such as goodness, fairness, honesty, truthfulness and story to have either moral, political, philosophical message and/or background? No, it can but it does not have to. Do you think film art should be progressive and try to change world for the better (i.e. portraying more diverse, inclusive, free, democratic relationships and world)? No. Film art is a strong medium. It can be used for all purposes as long artists remain the right to offend. What are your plans for the next film or another project: does it involve also lesbian character(s) and if yes, how? I am working on a few scripts but they do not involve lesbian characters.
0 Comments
Interviews with women in film industry, research institutes, art organizations ...Archives
July 2023
Categories |