"A short Q&A for a portrait" - we kindly asked filmmakers of this year's Viennale, and their answers are amazing. This is RADU JUDE, director of NU ASTEPTA PREA MULT DE LA SFÂRȘITUL LUMIJ:
1. Why did you want to make this film / tell specifically this story?
The film has two main stories taken from real life. Both happened 15-16 years ago, and I felt, after all these years, not only are they relevant but they are also highly exemplary for the post-totalitarian world of today's Romania - and maybe not only for Romania.
2. What was the biggest difficulty you encountered in the making of your film, and how did you overcome it?
My lack of talent. I didn't overcome it.
3. What would you like / hope for the audience to take away from your film?
The whole film.
4. Which film has disturbed you most, and why?
Shoah by Claude Lanzmann. Near Death by Frederick Wiseman. Homeland: Iraq Year Zero by Abbas Fahdel. And all the videos (maybe by ISIS or from different wars and catastrophes) where death moments have been recorded. On a different level, some porn films I watched when I was a teenager.
5. What do you like to do to be creatively inspired? Anything in particular that prompted your inspiration for your latest film?
I don't know what to do to be creatively inspired, so I don't do anything. I just work and when the deadline comes, I have to make the film, which I must do without inspiration, unfortunately. This film was prompted by a severe facial paralysis I suffered in 2019, which made me remember a man who suffered a work-related accident. I had filmed him for a corporate video many, many years ago, and I've always felt guilty afterwards for being a small part of the system organised by the corporation to blame him.
6. What, in your view, is the “purpose” of cinema?
Jacques Rivette already answered, and I trust him: "The role of a work of art is to plunge people into horror. If the artist has a role, it is to confront people — and himself first of all — with this horror, this feeling that one has when one learns about the death of someone one has loved."