Q : Please briefly introduce yourself and your project.
A: I am a theatre and film director and a pedagogue as well. For 20 years I’ve been deeply involved in the field of anthropological theatre, therefore, as I perceive it, making a documentary is a natural continuation of it. Goodnight Stories is my debut film. It is from one side an alibi to stay very close to the old people from my society. For me they are aristocrats of the society. From another side, it is my research on the sense of the old age. I really wonder if it is a privilege to reach oldness, and in this film I start from a personal position – as someone who had a difficult discovery concerning my health issue in the beginning of making this film. All that has brought more motivation, personal strength and conviction to this project.
Q : What was the biggest challenge in making this film?
A: I am still in the beginning of the production phase, and I have a feeling the biggest challenges are just to come! But one of those I experienced is death of the character I really was attached to and wanted to make him my main character.
Q : Can you compare your experience at CIRCLE with other similar platforms that you have been part of?
A: Since this is my debut film, and first longer training program I am part of, I am not able to make any comparisons. But what I like about it is a strong bond among participants, feeling of protection and support we give to each other, thanks to the guidance of our tutor Biljana Tutorov, and big help of the other associates and experts in this process. Like in a family, I feel not to be alone. For directors who find themselves for the first time in film industry, which can be very frustrating, this is such a help and push to go on.
Q: What were the most important benefits from being part of CIRCLE project?
A: Besides the things I just have mentioned, I would say that we had great tutors, that helped me shake and requestion my decisions considering different parts of the film process (approach, dramaturgy, direction, production), their availability within a time, that I really appreciate a lot, and many many relevant contacts from the documentary film industry, that give me a kind of compass, passing through different phases of the film process. Also the feeling in me exists that to be inside of documentary world is to be part of one enormous community of lovers of the great themes of our lives, lovers of life and art.
Q: What advice do you have for other (female) directors?
A: Trust your ideas and your intuition and don’t try to make things as others would do it.
Q: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
A: Films by Naomi Kawase. Let’s say “Embracing”, where she searches for her father. Why? Because it is a very personal film language, drawn from the inside, full of unexpected organic images, free from form and rules. Like life itself is.
