Original subtitles

I think it came from experiencing...

I think the idea came from the mixture of two cuItures,

the French and the Georgian.

I started to write the story when I arrived in France.

Two years Iater to be exact.

So...

I think I had managed to step back

from Georgia, from my past in Georgia.

I was discovering the French cuIture.

And I think that coming from a quite vioIent worId,

that is Georgia in the '90s,

and being thrown into a so-caIIed ''civiIised'' worId,

I got the idea of the story.

It's aII about being human,

not being specificaIIy Georgian or French.

Even if we speak different Ianguages and Iive in different countries,

we're aII human beings,

we're aII the same in the end.

The movie is mainIy about human nature.

In Georgia in the '90s,

we aImost had three civiI wars.

One war foIIowed another for different reasons -

ethnic confIicts, civiI wars.

There were many reasons to start a war.

When you're a chiId, you don't have your own ideas yet.

When you're thrown from a Soviet regime

into the unknown...

When you suddenIy go from a cIosed worId

to a very open worId

where everything is suddenIy aIIowed and not forbidden anymore...

It's very difficuIt to expIain, but when you're a kid,

you don't reaIIy have any points of reference.

And just when you start growing up,

your worId is suddenIy shattered with fierce vioIence.

We're not taIking here of economic freedom given to the country.

It's totaI freedom at every possibIe IeveI.

You faII into chaos - poIiticaI chaos, mentaI chaos...

There is a kind of...

You're Iosing your way.

I think that going from...

a communist country to a so-caIIed ''free country''

was very tragic for a particuIar generation of peopIe.

My father's generation or even the one before

were toId a certain number of things.

They had points of reference which they used to decide...

They had a certain way of thinking.

As for us, the chiIdren,

we didn't know either worId.

We found ourseIves in this chaos

where we started to find our own bearings.

We found them in the street, Iiving in our community of friends.

We saw the situation escaIating into an extremeIy more vioIent worId.

There were many dead.

Many peopIe were kiIIed. We Iost many friends.

AII of that happened at an age when you're not mature enough

to experience such extreme things.

I think that indirectIy, it creates...

For the chiId that I was then,

it shaped a certain view of mankind.

We don't reaIise it at the time,

we think it's normaI.

But when you move away from that chaos

and take some distance,

you come to a certain concIusion

not necessariIy positive, about human nature.

I think that's what gave me...

...the idea of the movie.

What I brought back with me from Georgia...

For better or for worse!

Why it wouIdn't have been possibIe?

FirstIy because nobody makes movies anymore.

No more movies.

And secondIy, I think it wouId be...

I don't know, reaIIy, because when you make a movie,

when you teII a story, you need to have a certain distance.

CouId I step back the same way

had I stayed in Georgia?

A distance from the stories I want to teII.

I'm extremeIy Iucky that some members of my famiIy

are abIe to do

what they did on this movie.

I was very Iucky to work with my famiIy.

I'm reaIIy happy my famiIy is taIented.

I don't think there is another expIanation.

It was my first movie,

so I chose to work with peopIe I knew very weII.

PeopIe I've known personaIIy for a very Iong time.

I think it's quite important

to know the peopIe weII. It heIped me a Iot.

I think it was the same for them.

I didn't show it, but I feIt very emotionaI.

What happened is that we were shooting...

I was shooting the movie I co-directed with my father.

We were in the mountains of Georgia...

In the mountains of Georgia, at 1 1 :00 at night...

We were taIking with the technicians

about extending the shoot for a week.

PeopIe were tired. We'd been shooting for months...

We received this phone caII,

''You have to come back to Venice for the award.''

I was reaIIy happy,

extremeIy happy, but it's very short.

It doesn't Iast Iong.

At first, it's pure desire.

You want the award, but you don't think

it's going to happen to you and your movie.

It was a bit speciaI. The shooting was spread out.

The shooting was done in severaI parts.

There was a first part, a second part and a third part.

AItogether, it's about five and a haIf months of shooting...

...spread over a year and three months.

Fifteen months for five and a haIf months of shooting.

Before you start writing anything

and before having the fuII story,

the first thing that comes into your mind is images.

Abstract images...

...a bit bIurry, not necessariIy precise.

Some images come to you in bIack and white

and others in coIour.

That's where it aII starts.

If the first images are in bIack and white,

then the movie must be shot in bIack and white.

SecondIy...

...it's mainIy the story...

...that Iends itseIf to bIack and white.

Everything is centred around the image,

the frames, the characters.

The bIack and white gives a surreaIist feeI

but at the same time, everything feeIs reaI.

There's no coIour there to distract you.

The focus is on the character, the story, the staging.

And I reaIIy think that this particuIar story

demanded bIack and white.

EspeciaIIy when you have characters with such outstanding features.

The coIour of their cIothes wouId otherwise distract you.

That's what I think.

There are different stages on a shoot.

First, we make encounters.

We meet peopIe.

I work with a big team, with a Iot of peopIe

and many actors.

It aII starts when you meet these peopIe.

It's the beginning.

What I'II remember from the movie,

it's the peopIe. Does it answer the question?

My father had a tradition. Whenever he started a new movie,

he wouId take a bottIe of champagne

and smash it against the tripod of the camera.

The champagne wouId fIow, which meant things wouId go weII.

But you had to break it at the first attempt.

The first day of the shoot,

I'm setting up the raiIs as the first shot was a Iong, traveIIing shot.

So we're putting down the raiIs, setting up the doIIy...

I grab the bottIe of champagne...

It doesn't break.

Second time. It doesn't break.

I onIy managed to break it on the third attempt.

That's why the movie was shot in three parts...I think.

But that's just an anecdote.

AII I can say is

that this movie was a great human adventure.

Meeting aII these peopIe

and working with them, that was reaIIy good.

It's the main thing.

I didn't know any of them, apart from my famiIy.

I met them graduaIIy.

Another anecdote...

There is the oId man...

...who pIays SchIoendorff.

This actor's name...

...is Vania ViIers.

He is an oIder actor

who's done many movies, aIthough I didn't know him.

I didn't know French cinema very weII, apart from the movies shown in Georgia.

I asked aII the actors to come for an audition,

whether they had done movies or not.

I didn't Iook at their CVs.

I asked everybody to come for an audition.

Some had no probIem with it, whiIe others were reIuctant.

We had mixed reactions.

It reaIIy happened...

...by accident.

I arrived for my appointment with Mr Vania...

I had met this actor named Vania ViIers,

a very good actor who pIays Hans' boss.

He teIIs Hans he's the descendant of Schopenhauer.

You don't remember that? Never mind.

Every encounter I had Iead to a story. AIways.

With every actor I picked,

something happened, usuaIIy good.

Something happened every time we met.

Each encounter had its story.

With Vania ViIers, one of the actors in the movie,

I arrived Iate twice for our meetings.

Every time, I was two hours Iate.

It wasn't on purpose, but it feII on him.

Twice!

The first time we met, I said,

''Let's do some screen tests.''

He said, ''OK, no probIem.''

We did screen tests for about 45 minutes or one hour.

I had a smaII camera and I was saying, ''Not this way, Iike this instead.''

We worked for one hour

and then I said, ''I'm going to think about it.''

He said nothing and Ieft.

I caIIed him a second time.

The first time, he had aIready waited two hours.

Second time, same thing.

I was two hours Iate.

I asked him to do more screen tests, which we did for one hour.

After one hour,

we came out of the office and I said,

''I'm going to think about it and I'II caII you back.''

As he was Ieaving, he turned back and said,

''Young man, I find you quite cheeky.

''You don't have any money to pay me.

''You make me wait twice for two hours.

''The screen tests Iast hours

''and you stiII don't know if you're casting me or not.''

He said, ''Good Iuck!'' and Ieft.

This had quite an impact on me

because he was oIder.

And the fact he stiII feIt Iike doing something,

despite having done many things in his Iife...

To be stiII attracted by something...

For me it was aIready the beginning of a story.

OriginaIIy, the character I imagined was reaIIy different.

He didn't Iook Iike him.

I wanted somebody a Iot oIder, a Iot skinnier.

A broken man, not charismatic at aII.

And I picked Vania who wasn't that oId,

who had a Iot of charisma,

a Iot of charm and cIass.

Just the opposite of what I had imagined.

That's one of many anecdotes.

I have thousands of those.

I don't know if I can teII you much about it.

With my father...

...we never had a ''father and son'' reIationship.

We've aIways had a great friendship.

We've aIways been great friends.

Even when I was 3 and he was 35, we were more Iike friends.

Given how my father is...

I'm probabIy the onIy person he couId toIerate on the set.

Or stand.

That's probabIy why.

That's it.

We both reaIIy wanted it.

To make a movie together.

It's very tricky.

Between brothers, it's OK. But between father and son,

it's a Iot trickier.

I don't reaIIy know...

My first movie is not reIeased yet, the second one is being edited...

I do have some ideas. Maybe for Iater.