Every year at the Femme Filmmakers Festival we are dazzled by the array of talent that shines through the endless techniques of animated short films. This year was no different of course. One such example of brilliance came in the form of Anita Bruvere‘s extraordinary Home. We were fortunate enough to speak to the Latvian filmmaker about her work as an animator and what inspires her. Read the interview below and do please check out Anita’s Vimeo page.
What movie makes you cry no matter how many times you watch it?
Grave of the Fireflies.
Who is another female filmmaker who inspires you? What work of theirs resonated with you?
Agnes Varda! Her films were a huge discovery for me at the age of 18 when I just started getting into filmmaking, and she stayed one of my favourite filmmakers ever since. I love her sense of humor, optimism and always-surprising visual decisions. There is no film of hers that I’ve seen but didn’t like, yet Cleo from 5 to 7 and Daguerreotypes are my favourites.
Who is a woman in history that we should know more about?
Claude Cahun – she was an amazing artist and activist.
Tell us about the various modes of animation used in Home. Its pretty breath-taking in places.
‘Home’ is a stop motion film the model of the house was built to 1:10 scale, and animated in chronological order. I wanted human characters to appear as ghostly figures that come into the house only for a little while, maybe leaving their mark in its history, before disappearing into nothingness. So for animating people I opted for a cut out replacements technique – characters are drawn on acetate to achieve the translucency effect.
How was Home conceived as an idea? And how did you develop it so extensively to that finished product we see on the screen?
Me and my writer, collaborator and friend Angelina Olkhovskaya came across London’s museum of immigration and diversity by complete coincidence. Both of us were instantly fascinated by the building and its story, and by it being a hidden London gem – the museum is very tricky to get into as they rarely host open days and not many people know about it.
Development was a fun part, we both were just nerding out learning about silk production, watching archival footage. Way more challenging was distilling the masses of information down to fit into a 7 min film.
How do you attribute those powerful themes to film? And how do you construct your story into moving parts?
I think when working with complex themes it’s important to really distill it down to something that will become the essence of the film. With this particular story I was interested in how people of different times and generations, coming from different cultures and backgrounds, are connected through the places they occupy and experiences they share.
‘Home’ is an animated documentary which uses tactile stop motion technique to explore the shared experiences of community, immigration, and diversity, based on the true story of one building. From the very beginning I knew the main character of the film would be the house and transformations happening to that house at different points of its existence would be the driving force of the story.
Financing can be an initial barrier to filmmaking. What advice do you have for new filmmakers trying to finance a project?
Main advice is not to get discouraged by rejections. Use extra time to put into development, and be prepared to be a ‘one woman orchestra’ learning how to do everything along the way. Very stressful but a great learning curve.
What is your go-to comfort movie?
Spirited Away.
What changes have you enjoyed the most during lockdown?
I can’t say I’ve enjoyed lockdown. Not being able to visit my family, worrying about friends who were and still are in a risk group, having work projects postponed. Lockdown in general was a stressful time. I have, like many people, discovered baking with sourdough, though!
If you could be making films in any decade, which one and why?
I’m endlessly fascinated by the pre-digital era animators. Particularly stop motion animators, maybe because that’s the area I myself specialise in. Achieving all the effects on camera, not being able to see what you are doing, always keeping track of your frames and the timing – to me it seems a completely different level of craft!
I don’t think I would like to part with my DSLR and Dragonframe, but just thinking about filmmaking at the times before digital technologies made our life easier is fascinating.
