Werner Schumann - Film Director
(Interview by Agustina Salvador)
Can you introduce yourself?
I am a German-Brazilian citizen. I am a film director and primarily a director of actors.
I was born from a multicultural family in the south of Brazil (German and Italian families) what made me to see the world from a broader perspective.
I live in London, United Kingdom, the most cosmopolitan city in the world.
I was born from a multicultural family in the south of Brazil (German and Italian families) what made me to see the world from a broader perspective.
I live in London, United Kingdom, the most cosmopolitan city in the world.
What are the particular characteristics of your filmography?
First and foremost I am a storyteller. I have a great passion to work with actors and set up images. I just have three feature films and they are completely different from each other. I am not afraid to try something different as long as I can tell a story. Thank God I don't have any particular style otherwise I would have to be a slave of myself. I make movies, that's all.
How was your approach to Cinema?
I grew up watching movies at Cinemateca de Curitiba (south of Brazil). There I could see the great classics and learn with them. I loved to see the films of Antonioni, Robert Bresson, Bunuel, David Lean, Pasolini, Carlos Saura, Kubrick, Jaques Tati, Bergman, Leon Hirzmann, Glauber Rocha and all the Brazilian Cinema Novo.
At the age of 18 I directed my first short film in Super 8 format. I also studied Photography, scriptwriting and Editing.
At the age of 18 I directed my first short film in Super 8 format. I also studied Photography, scriptwriting and Editing.
What does Cinema mean to you?
Cinema means passion; Cinema means challenge and mostly a particular way to see the world through the story you are willing to tell. Making movies will always be a collaborative work between Producers, Directors, scriptwriters, actors, Directors of Photography and even distributors. I personally like to work closely with the producers. I see myself as one piece of the intricate gear of making a film. Certainly during the shooting I am the "orchestra conductor" and responsible for the final artistic result.
How was your approach to the film's theme?
Choosing a subject for a film has to be so attractive to you like a lascivious object.
When I was invited to see a chorus rehearsal I was immediately enthralled by its harmony and its flawlessness. Then I started to wonder how many of those chorus singers are having problems or are unhappy with their lives? How many of them are singing to survive the loneliness or pain?
The key was: the chorus was perfect but not their lives. Life doesn't give you time to rehearse.
I also wanted to make a film about the city where I grew up (Curitiba, south of Brazil) and I thought that it was the right subject to depict the way that I see this Brazilian city that is quite different from that image of "tropical country" or the "land of samba" with slums and violence.
That's how the concept of O Coro came from. I started to work the first draft with the scriptwriter Erico Beduschi. Since the beginning we knew it was going to be a uncompromising experimental film. We also knew it was going to be hard to get the film financed. Some years later the film was eventually made. This is the miracle of will and hard work.
When I was invited to see a chorus rehearsal I was immediately enthralled by its harmony and its flawlessness. Then I started to wonder how many of those chorus singers are having problems or are unhappy with their lives? How many of them are singing to survive the loneliness or pain?
The key was: the chorus was perfect but not their lives. Life doesn't give you time to rehearse.
I also wanted to make a film about the city where I grew up (Curitiba, south of Brazil) and I thought that it was the right subject to depict the way that I see this Brazilian city that is quite different from that image of "tropical country" or the "land of samba" with slums and violence.
That's how the concept of O Coro came from. I started to work the first draft with the scriptwriter Erico Beduschi. Since the beginning we knew it was going to be a uncompromising experimental film. We also knew it was going to be hard to get the film financed. Some years later the film was eventually made. This is the miracle of will and hard work.
What were the challenges of directing the film?
When you have to work with 300 hundred people on stage certainly it is not an easy task but the real challenge was to depict the mood of the characters more with images and less with dialogues. There are some emotions the characters feel that they can't express by words and I wanted to make a strong contrast with the music and the loneliness of silence.
I also wanted to pay a tribute to the "masters of silence" like Bresson, Antonioni and Begman. There is also some influence of Luis Buñuel, a filmmaker that I admire a lot.
I also wanted to pay a tribute to the "masters of silence" like Bresson, Antonioni and Begman. There is also some influence of Luis Buñuel, a filmmaker that I admire a lot.
Why did you choose Black & White to tell this story? What would have been the variables (dramatic, tone, etc) if you had shot it in colour?
İt is interesting that since İ had the idea to this film I saw it in my mind as a "black & white film". İ think because most of the scenes are interiors or night exteriors. İ made a research with Felipe Meneghel, our Director of Photography, and black and white was really beautiful specially in the night scenes.
On the other hand I never thought it would be so difficult to shoot a film in black & white specially for the art director and his costume team because we had to shoot first in color and make the B&W in the post-production. We had to make the light and everything else for B&W as final result only. Thanks God our Video Assist was not in color. We had to consult the technicians of the laboratories in Switzerland and New York to gives us the right directions to make a proper post-production workflow.
On the other hand I never thought it would be so difficult to shoot a film in black & white specially for the art director and his costume team because we had to shoot first in color and make the B&W in the post-production. We had to make the light and everything else for B&W as final result only. Thanks God our Video Assist was not in color. We had to consult the technicians of the laboratories in Switzerland and New York to gives us the right directions to make a proper post-production workflow.
The choir plays an integrative role of "broken" people. How was the process of outling characters so diverse but, ultimately, so similar in their existential crisis?
We started from the principle that nobody is really ok or happy with their life or if you are ok maybe you will have someone that you love that is not really ok. This is the case of the character of the Conductor that has a dying mother and also has to strive to set up his concert with lack of money and sponsors. At the end what we want to say is: hey, don't worry at least we have art. Maybe that's the role of art in our life: to make life a little bit better.
Tell us about your future projects
I am in development of two international projects in co-production with Germany, United Kingdom and some other European countries. One of them is going to be a sort of gothic-horror thriller whose project was awarded by the Tareula Seminar in Spain. We already launched the project in the co-production market at San Sebastian Film Festival and now at American Film Market in Los Angeles.
Interview by Agustina Salvador - October 2010
