How did the Warsaw festival go?
The organizers planned it generously. They had a huge number of films, including a number of very interesting ones, but just before the start of the festival, the number dropped to fifty percent and from the beginning the halls were filled to some twenty-five percent. It’s a strange feeling when you’re sold out and then a quarter of the spectators are in the hall. But on the other hand, there were people who wanted to be there, they had it as a need. And that’s fine.
–
You could not be at the award ceremony due to the measures. Were you at least at the world premiere in Warsaw?
I made the world premiere there on two screenings, and now we’re all waiting to be able to put the film in theaters. We are considering the beginning of February, because we believe that what is happening now will not end by the end of the year, and we do not want to present Men with Rabbit Ears online. I would like the audience to see it in the cinema, because online is only half the experience.
–
How did the Warsaw audience react to your film?
This is difficult to answer. I heard laughter, I felt that the audience was reacting relatively well, but then it lit up in the hall and you could only see the veils and the eyes above them.
–
The whole situation is terribly unnatural. We lose the feedback we had from discussions with the audience, because the filmmaker, unlike the theater actor, has no other feedback.
–
The name Man with Rabbit Ears suggests what the title character will look like, on the other hand, it is difficult to imagine anything under it. What is the film about?
Originally, screenwriter Mark Leščák and I came up with a television series about ten different professions, in which ten conflicts appear. But the televisions were not interested in him. So we started preparing individual parts as films.
–
The first was Interpreter (at the Berlinale 2018 he played in the Special section and won six Slovak annual awards Sun in the Net – editor’s note), the hero of the second, The Man with the Rabbit Ears, is the writer Josef, who looks around and what he sees, he tries to process. It was supposed to be the first part of the series, and it’s the craziest of them all.
–
It has several levels. One is the writer’s own story, as well as a short story that he writes and with which rabbit ears are connected. Leščák wrote it as his own short story and we used it in the film.
–
You wrote the title role for Miroslav Krobot. Did he know from the beginning?
He had known this for a long time, because he was supposed to play it in the originally intended series. But it came out on the third try, because the series didn’t shoot and filming was postponed once.
–
He also had good ideas, we tried to incorporate them all into the film. They formed a very organic couple with Oldřich Kaiser, both of whom are writers and friends who meet, think about life and literature.
–
In addition to actresses Zuzana Krónerová, Tánia Pauhofová and Alexandra Borbély, you also cast directors Dušan Trančík or Ivan Ostrochovský. The director is also Miroslav Krobot and the director was Jiří Menzel, who played in Interpreter. What attracts you to fill your colleagues?
I guess I need someone to help me if I fail.
–
That’s not it!
Well. Directors are often good actors and they are not watched. They may not have the same technique as trained actors, but they play with great inner zeal.
–
How are Slovak cinematography and everyone who works in it currently?
Bad as everywhere. Although filming may take place, some filming must be interrupted due to the illness of the actors or crew. And most recently it was the recent premieres, as they were played only a short time before the cinemas closed.
–
There is now a great deal of discussion about how to help people working in the creative industries. The Ministry of Culture has created a link where it tries to obtain information, but it is terribly complicated, because it is estimated that in Slovakia there are two hundred thousand people working in this sector, which is nine percent of the population. The ministry doesn’t know well enough how to catch them. There is good will, but implementation is terribly slow.
–
You teach directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. How does it look like there?
Practical exercises can be up to six people, it is taught in person, theoretical subjects online. But direct contact is most important in teaching. The fact that students can talk together, share the experiential world, is very much lacking. In addition, everything is complicated by closed tracks. Just let it be over.
—
