The Peloponnisos International Doc Film Festival's purpose has always been to introduce the audience of Peloponnese some very special films from all over the world. This year according to the difficult circumstances it was decided that there will be a hybrid version of the festival with an ONLINE release in February and a live premiere in May. In this situation we asked volunteers and festival staff to interview the directors of the ONLINE program to bring them closer with the audience even if they couldn't have met in the theaters. Behind the scenes information, personal stories and more in depth approach to the films are available through these interviews. The interviews of the films included in the "Claiming Freedom" tribute have been conducted by the students of Theater Studies of University of Peloponnese, as one part of our collaboration with the University.
Helena Třeštíková, the director of Forman vs Forman, talks about her approach to the material and her artistic vision while making this documentary about such a notable filmmaker. Check the interview bellow:
Interview:
Question 1: Why did you do this film? How does it reflect on a personal level?
I was excited to get an offer to make a film about Milos Forman. It came from French ARTE and Czech Television. Forman was the hero of my youth. I decided to become a director after watching his first films in the 60's. Even after he left Czechoslovakia, I followed up on him as he was actually a film constant of my life. I met him in person several times and we got along very well. Milos Forman has always been a great inspiration for me. For example - in never resigning - he overcame various obstacles and always enforced his concept of a film. And he understood people from all social classes very well. Him becoming famous didn't affect him in any negative way. He had always stayed himself.
Question 2: What were the difficulties of making this film?
When we started making the film, Milos Forman was already very ill and did not want to be recorded on camera anymore. So it was clear that we only had to work with archival materials. Yet there was so much of it. We had about 100 different items in the editing room. Shaping so much material into some solid form was quite difficult. That is also the reason why the editor Jakub Hejna became the co-director of the film. We had several versions before we came up with the final one. The work was beautiful and dealing with Milos Forman's ideas intensely was such a great inspiration.
Question 3: What was your approach as a director to a biography about another filmmaker?
We didn't want to make the usual TV film with just a lot of talking heads, where his friends and admirers talk about the director. We had decided that it should be Milos Forman himself to tell his own story. Not only about his work, but also about the various vicissitudes of his life. The film’s main theme was his need for freedom.
We would like to thank Helena Třeštíková for her wonderful words, don't forget to check out the film Forman vs Forman that will be available February 9th at 00:00 (GR time) on this link .