PRESS CONFERENCE:GUGARA – FARMER’S WISDOM from the 10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival

On Sunday, March 9 at noon, in the Olympion’s Green Room, a press conference was given by the directors of the documentaries Gugara, Andrej Dybczak and Jacek Naglowski, and Farmer’s Wisdom, Olaf Koelewijn, in the context of the 10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

Gugara, presented in the Human Rights section, describes the strange world of a small Siberian community in decline, which is forced to abandon its traditional way of life. The directors A. Dybczak and J. Naglowski expressed their happiness at participating in this year’s Documentary Festival, and noted that their documentary is being screened as an international premiere in Thessaloniki. The reason they made the documentary, whose leading characters are a family of reindeer herders, was, according to A. Dybczak, that “these people are in danger of losing their culture, a culture that has begun to assimilate folkloric elements from the Russians.” J. Naglowski added, “the community is losing its own cultural characteristics and is being slowly assimilated into Russian culture, which is what we wanted to record”.

They then referred to their experience from their participation in last year’s Pitching Forum. “We had already shot the documentary and were at a stage just before editing. At last year’s Pitching Forum we were given the chance to find the financing we were missing to complete the production of Gugara», J. Naglowski explained.

Regarding whether it was easy or difficult to gain the trust of the community they were filming, the directors underlined that the hardest part of the process was not convincing them to stand in front of the cameras, but to not let them down. “Technically, it was easy. Andrej is an anthropologist and he had already contacted them earlier. For us it was more difficult, because we were filming them during a difficult period in their lives. We didn’t want them in any way to feel that we are insulting them in some way”, Jacek Naglowski said.

“We began with very good intentions, which changed over time. The locals welcomed us warmly, but over time they felt that they themselves were losing something. They understood that this film would also show the dark side of their story”, clarified Andrej Dybczak.

When asked if they felt that they were leaving a piece of themselves behind after completing the documentary, A. Dybczak answered: “Of course we felt that way. But film has its own rules. You have to tell a story. This is what we tried to do, to describe this small piece of a reality. And this is of course what connects cinema with anthropology”.

For his part, Olaf Koelewijn, director of the documentary Farmer’s wisdom, which is included in the “Habitat” section of the Festival, spoke about his central character: “She is a lady from Holland, who has much wisdom to offer. The reason I decided to make this film is that the last few years agricultural production in Holland is being aimed at countries such as Canada and Poland, creating many problems for farmers.”

When asked if he had any difficulty approaching his heroine, he answered: “My leading lady was not afraid of the camera at all. In fact, she also took on the role of director. She telephoned me in the middle of the night to tell me which scenes to use and which to throw out”. In answer to whether he also felt that he left something behind after the completion of his film, he joked, “I saw my farmer lady last week, she has now become a part of my life”.