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| VIFF 2007 Interview - Daughters of Wisdom director Bari Pearlman |
Daughters of Wisdom of VIFF 2007 |
by Jason Whyte
“DAUGHTERS OF WISODM is an intimate portrait of the nuns of Kala Rongo, a rare and exceptional Buddhist Monastery exclusively for women in remote and rural northeastern Tibet. Some shy, some outspoken, all committed to the often difficult life they have chosen, the nuns graciously invite the camera into their vibrant spiritual community and offer us brief flashes of insight into their extraordinary lives.” Bari Pearlman on “Daughters of Wisdom”
Is this your first film in the VIFF? (Or the first film you have) Do you have any other festival experience? If you’re a festival veteran, let us know your favourite and least-favourite parts of the festival experience.
This is my first film in the VIFF, though not the first time I’ve submitted a film! I have toured the festival circuit extensively (and still do somewhat) with my previous award-winning short documentary MAH-JONGG: THE TILES THAT BIND. Though I have produced documentaries for television, DAUGHTERS OF WISDOM is my first feature documentary that I have directed. We world premiered (and won two awards) at the Brooklyn International Film Festival in June 2007 and played at the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax before VIFF, but we’re really just getting started. As far as my feelings about the festival experience, I love the process of making films, but of course I make them to be seen, and there is nothing as rewarding as having the opportunity to share a film with an audience. For me, every time I see my film with an audience is like seeing it fresh for the first time, because no two audiences have the same response. And film festival audiences are the best audiences because they are so receptive and so excited about seeing the film with the directors present to talk about it. I’ve only heard great things about the Vancouver film fans, so I’m particularly excited about VIFF.
Could you give me a little look into your background (your own personal biography, if you will), and what led you to the desire to want to make film?
I had worked on some friends’ films in college but had never pursued the idea of filmmaking seriously, though I was an avid consumer of films. Words were my first love. I taught myself to read when I was three and never stopped. I eventually earned a Masters Degree in Literature. But as a writer my strengths were always in structured academic writing, and though I loved verbal storytelling, I could never effectively write the short stories or scenes that were in my head. When I finished my Masters Degree, I ran screaming from academia, and decided it was time to try something new. Documentary filmmaking seemed a natural fit, because I enjoyed just sitting down to speak with people, and then having a wealth of raw material to shape together into a compelling narrative without ever having to write it in the first place. It also satisfies the puzzle-doer in me. There’s nothing better than the ‘aha!’ moment when you finally stumble upon a film’s spine, and then it all takes shape from there.
Growing up, you were no doubt asked the eternal question “When I grow up I want to be a …” Finish this sentence, please!
I never liked that question and always cheekily answered ‘When I grow up I want to be happy.’ Mission accomplished.
While you were making the movie, were you thinking about the future release of the film, be it film festivals, paying customers, critical response, and so forth?
In this case, while I was making the movie in an old wooden monastery in the middle of nowhere with no running water or electricity, I was thinking more about how I was going to charge batteries and keep the dust out of the camera. And it was a film that was very much about staying in the moment and being present in order to get in sync the very foreign and gentle rhythm of my subjects. I honestly didn’t know if it would ultimately be embraced by the larger public, but I was pretty sure that there would be people that would want to be transported into that world, and that we would find them somehow.
How did this project come to fruition? If you could, please provide me with a rundown, start to finish, from your involvement.
While I was researching a very different film about Buddhism that never got made, I met Lama Norlha Rinpoche, who is a Tibetan Lama and the abbot of a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York, about two hours from Manhattan. Though I wasn’t a Buddhist, I connected with him and started visiting his monastery on weekends when I could. One day while I was eating lunch, he just said ‘the next time I go to Tibet, you should come and make a film about my people.’ I said yes immediately, but of course it then took three years of planning and scheduling before it actually happened.
What was the biggest challenge in the production of the movie, be it principal photography or post-production?
It was definitely a rigorous trip and we had to be creative about technical issues like camera power and relax about more personal issues like the DP and I being together 24/7 without killing each other. Also at 14,000 feet, an already heavy tripod feels like a ton of bricks. But I would say that across the board, the language barrier was the trickiest. We had an interpreter who did an amazing job, but of course there were moments we missed and issues of patience with the subjects as we stopped to find out what was going on. And then getting 60+ hours of footage transcribed and translated from their micro-micro-dialect was impossible back at home, and everything had to be prepped and shipped back to Tibet where I found some university students who I bought a laptop for so they could type it all out. It took three months to get everything back, and then Carla Ruff, the editor, did an incredible job at intuiting where to cut based on cadences and inflections in a language she didn’t understand a word of. Finally, we still needed Lama Norlha Rinpoche’s translator to go over the final edit with us to make sure we didn’t miss any words, which of course we had.
Please tell me about the technical side of the film; your relation to the film’s cinematographer, what the film was shot on and why it was decided to be photographed this way.
I had never worked with Gena Konstantinakos before I hired her, but she had come highly recommended by colleagues of mine in documentary production. Her verite work demonstrated an incredible eye for details and nuances, which I thought was very important since she was going to have to do a lot of intuitive shooting without always knowing what was going on. This was a film we couldn’t research in advance or pre-cast, so we just got there and started observing and shooting here and there until we found our subjects and stories. We didn’t have permits to shoot so we needed to enter China with a camera that looked like it could have been bought by rich tourists shooting their summer vacation. So we shot on the Panasonic DVX100A camera in 24P mode with a 16:9 anamorphic adaptor and a shock-mounted shotgun mic. This was the state-of-the-art prosumer camera in 2004, and in Gena’s hands, the camera beautifully handled the saturated colors of the natural environment and the daylight-only shooting.
Talk a bit about the festival experiences, if any, that you have had with this particular film. Have you had any interesting audience stories or questions that have arisen at screenings? (This can also apply to non-festival screenings as well, if you have had one.)
One of the most interesting questions I’ve been asked is how difficult it was to adjust to being there in such a ‘primitive’ place. It took no time at all –I found it a total relief to get off the grid with no cell phones or modern conveniences and just be in such a natural environment with such peaceful people. On the contrary, it took me over a year to adjust to being back in New York. The intensity with which everyone was hustling and bustling around made no sense. And what do we need 20 kinds of toothpaste for?
Who would you say your biggest inspirations are in the film world (directors, actors, cinematographers, etc)? Did you have any direct inspirations from filmmakers for this film in particular?
The film for me that made me want to make films was “Blue Velvet”. It was so well-crafted and so funny and so primal. All of David Lynch’s films are like that to me. I also love the intellectual decadence of Peter Greenaway. And the stark realness of Ingmar Bergman Of course, I make nothing like any of those films. When we were editing DAUGHTERS OF WISDOM, Terrence Malick’s New World came out, and we talked a lot about the magnificent space in his films. And we looked at the films of Frederick Wiseman where the main character is always the community formed by his subjects, with no overt story arc, which was very appropriate here. And then of course The Saltmen of Tibet was a huge influence, as well as Into Great Silence which I had seen at Sundance just before we started editing.
How far do you think you would want to go in this industry? Do you see yourself directing larger stories for a larger budget under the studio system, or do you feel that you would like to continue down the independent film path?
I’m in documentaries and will likely always be independent. I’d love to find the right producing partner(s) and not go it alone so often. That would be life-altering.
If you weren’t in this profession, what other career do you think you would be interested in?
I’ve had many interesting jobs but filmmaking is the only thing I’ve ever done that has sustained and fulfilled me and I would/could never stop. That said, I’ve certainly gotten frustrated and down about the ‘business’ side of filmmaking and trying to get funding and recognition, etc., etc., etc. So I have and will likely question whether it’s time to move onto something more stable and less crazy. But I get even more miserable thinking about not making any more films, and always end up getting revitalized in knowing I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing.
Please tell me some filmmakers or talent that you would love to work with, even if money was no object.
I don’t really have an answer for that one.
Do you think that you have “made it” in this profession yet? If you don’t believe so, what do you think would happen for that moment to occur?
I haven’t successfully pitched a project and gotten it started (or finished) without a lot of sweat equity and personal financial debt. I’d like to pitch my next project and actually get it funded from start to finish.
How important do you think the critical/media response is to film these days, be it a large production, independent film or festival title?
I think unfortunately it’s the only way to get distribution. If you don’t have a splashy award-winning festival career, you’re not going to get the deal you’re looking for, at least in the U.S.
If your film could play in any movie theatre in the world, which one would you choose?
Are there any left worth pining for? I’d like to play everywhere from the small arthouse theatre with no heat and a caving-in roof, to a huge theatre like the Castro in San Francisco. Heck, I’d love to take it back to Tibet and have the nuns watch it on a portable DVD player.
Do you have an opinion on the issue of “A Film by (Insert Director Here)” ? Is this something you use? Many people collaborate to make a film yet simultaneously, the director is the final word on the production.
Filmmaking truly is collaborative, but for the most part, it is a group of artists coming together to pool their talents to fulfill the vision of one person, the director. I think there was a time when no one would ever think that “A Film by Frederico Fellini” was a snub to anyone else. But we live in a world of such heavy marketing now, and directors have unfortunately become ‘brands’, and more than ever films are ‘products’ rather than works of art. I think that’s where the ‘A film by…’ becomes an issue, because it does now feel more like it’ s erasing everyone else’s contribution.
What would you say to someone on the street to see your film instead of the latest blockbuster playing at the Cineplex Scotiabank Megaplex?
When was the last time a film made you feel transported?
No doubt there are a lot of aspiring filmmakers at film festivals who are out there curious about making a film of their own. Do you have any advice that you could provide for those looking to get a start?
Get going.
And finally…what is your all time favourite motion picture, and why?
Oh, the ‘if I were stranded on a desert island with nothing but a movie theatre and one movie’ question…..I have to cop out on this one (like everyone else, I’m sure) because there are so many films that I like for so many different reasons. Peter Greenaway’s tableaus take my breath away. Bergman’s compositions are breathtaking. I can watch a David Lynch film 10 times and never see the same film twice. I love old Katherine Hepburn films, and Jack Lemmon gets me every time. I love the whimsy of “Tom Jones” and the frustrations of “The Five Obstructions” and the pitch-perfectness of “Down By Law” and the craft of “Man With a Movie Camera”. Maybe “The Wizard of Oz”, maybe “Lawrence of Arabia”, maybe “Citizen Kane”. Oh, Battleship Potemkin. That’s it. If you have to ask why, watch it again.
The 2007 edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival runs from September 27th to October 12th. Hundreds of films from all over the world are being screened over 15 intense, film loving days. For more information on this film, when it is scheduled to screen and information on many other films this year, point your browser to viff.org. – Jason Whyte, efilmcritic.com
link directly to this feature at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=2278
originally posted: 10/05/07 05:07:19
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