Kicking off CPH:DOX’s popular “Movie:makers in Dialogue” business section on Monday, the administrators of “Balomania” and “KIX,” operating in the primary Dox and Next:Wave segments respectively, came together to discuss the challenges and the ethics involved in following protagonists to the margins of society over a few years and the influence they hope to generate.
Filmed over more than a decade, Sissel Morell Dargis’s “Balomania” is the fascinating and wild story of secret gangs in Brazil’s favelas who make and chase gigantic hot air balloons.
Dargis experienced what she calls “balloon faces” as a 19-year-old graffiti artist on the streets of Brazil. Fascinated by her works, which go against the law and could lead the “ballooners” to prison for the risk they pose to public safety, she needed to gain their trust so she could observe them on their underground journeys to places where they build and launch. the balloons.
“When I realized the risks,” she explained, citing a night when a balloon caught fire and she fell, hurting herself and breaking the camera, “I always tried to say, ‘Guys, I’m on your side, but we can’t deny that it’s harmful’, which is a common angle in the balloon world. It was delicate to navigate.”
Her choice, she said, was to be clear about the subjective nature of her film – “It’s not journalism, thank God!” – by showing her personal experience and the potential danger, even when the balloonists would have been more popular she had not filmed that scene at all. The ultimate goal is to provide a completely new perspective on the work of balloonists.
“In Brazil there is no content that shows the art of ballooning as a work of art. They are only described as criminals who are dangerous to society. I hope that by making a film that shows the good in this, I can open up a more constructive dialogue on the subject,” she said.
For Bálint Révész and Dávid Mikulán, the creators of “KIX,” which chronicles Sanyi’s 12-year journey from a turbulent street child in Budapest to a disillusioned young adult, the film is as much an ode to childhood as it is a social study. . of the society in which they grew up.
Growing up in a dysfunctional family in a tiny condominium, Sanyi spent most of her time on the streets. It was there that Mikulán, who at the time was studying at a good art school, met him. He was soon invited back to the apartment and filmed Sanyi, her friends and her family over the years. He chronicled the boy’s antics, but also created opportunities for Sanyi and his friends to express themselves with paint, chalk, or by making short films together.
Asked about his role as a working model and asked whether pointing a camera at Sanyi inspired bad habits, Mikulán responded that he and his team had long discussions about the ethics of the film. “It’s a professional issue,” he responded, adding that he believed growing up in poverty and being among the wrong crowd was responsible for the problems Sanyi faced. (Spoiler alert: As a teenager, Sanyi and her friends accidentally set fire to a dorm room, killing a man.)
“Even his mother said that we had a great influence on him, but in the future we all lost him. In a way, Sanyi is someone effective who did a very dangerous thing, but it was unintentional,” said Mikulán, who is still involved with Sanyi while awaiting sentencing.
Both Dargis and Mikulán shot their own films, starting with small, low-budget handheld cameras as young filmmakers. Although she often needed the help of her protagonists, who refused to let her take anyone else to key places – “the sound engineer soon had to kill me”, she joked – freedom and autonomy provided by the small machine was what allowed her to capture the images she needed.
“The moments I like are ephemeral, and maybe I’ve learned to accept that it’s the kind of cinema I like most – it’s not the right aesthetic, with the right sound and the right frame, but that becomes the aesthetic of the film and you you should personalize it,” she said, adding with a smile, “Although I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that again.”
As far as Mikulán is concerned, while he appreciated being able to spend money on higher quality tools when Révész came on board and they got financing, “essentially the most interesting things come when you don’t have money and you have to figure out options.”
Concluding the conversation, the filmmakers opened up about the impact they hope their films can have.
Révész explained that they were working on using “KIX” as a case study, along with other filmmakers, for an influencer campaign to develop a training program together with leading training experts from non-film backgrounds, in order to improve data transfer and sharing.
On the issue of reaching a wider audience, Dargis, who graduated from the Danish National Film School with a degree in Games and Animation and developed her own award-winning game using “Balomania” material, said she was eager to see more documents translated into video games with the aim of to reach a much larger and younger audience.
Movie:Makers in Dialogues runs as part of CPH:DOX business events until March 21st. The competition takes place in and around Copenhagen until March 24th.
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