Festivals
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JM: It's weird because there was nothing really known about her from my end. So my approach really wasn't a certain angle, it was knowing I had so many questions, just like when people conduct an interview they have so many questions. But for me I had no angle to start from. CL: I suppose also you thought "I don't want to interrogate these people, I've got my story." You want that footage there. JM: Yeah! The lead gave us so many subjects to interview but I didn't want to go too much in that direction. CL: When did you actually start filming? JM: It was in late 2009 and early 2010. The first thing that we really filmed was the Chicago exhibition. CL: When did you find out she had died? JM: I actually found out through chance on Google while researching and I saw the obituary. That was actually just a couple of days before we started filming. CL: What sort of questions have you been asked already at press conferences and audience Q&A's? JM: There were a lot of similar questions like: Have I seen all the negatives? Is everything proper? CL: I assume you have not had a chance to see absolutely everything, all the negatives? JM: Well, there are about 100,000 negatives but I have just about seen all the contact sheets and you can't really grasp 100,000 negatives even if you look at them all. It's difficult to find that special one. CL: I guess some are very similar as well, many from the same day and everything else? JM: There are another 600-700 films of color negatives that are still waiting to be processed. So it's still an ongoing thing to be worked on. CL: Going back to the beginning here, was the hypothesis of the documentary to uncover this person who was very talented and that the public should know about this as much as possible, or was it a personal fascination? JM: It was a personal fascination. I was obsessed with the story, finding out more about her and she is such a mystery that it compelled me to really become obsessed with figuring this out. Her photos were the main driver because the photos were so strong. You see a photo that is really so powerful and then you see other photos which make you say "Why is she taking photos of this bank statement here? Who is this person on the bank statement? What does that mean?" You look up the person on the bank statement, look a little deeper and you see there is a location and you wonder what the location is significant to, and this and that. CL: Do you see any possible influences when you look at her work? JM: There are a lot of photographers who I can see as a possible influence in her work but I don't think there is one main one. I really do think she was just genuine and honest through her lens and not trying to come up with somebody else's style. CL: And as we saw from film, she kept a huge stack of newspapers so was obviously very aware of the world around her. How surprised, pleasantly of course, were you by the way that the exhibitions of her work took off in attendance and popularity? JM: I would never have imagined this would have been as big as it is, of course, when I started and did not have any idea. There's been a lot of work maintaining all the contacts through this popularity. The film people organized it all for us so we've been very fortunate that like the story is so popular that we are always getting approached from somebody to write our story which is very nice because we have a film that has a lot of people interested in the story before it is even out. You can't ask for anything better than that. |
CL: What festivals has the film played so far apart from Berlin? JM: It has played at many festivals. It premiered at Toronto (TIFF) in September 2013, then DOC NYC (New York City's Documentary Festival), Palm Springs, Calgary and Vancouver. It will go to Miami next. CL: So far, this is the first festival trip you've made outside of North America to promote it? JM: Yes! CL: And how is the film looking in terms of distribution at this stage? JM: Hanway Films has it, as does Soda Pictures (both UK distribution companies). In the US, IFC Films is handling distribution, and it has also been bought for distribution in Poland and Scandinavian countries and a whole bunch of other places. CL: So it's looking good for a cinematic release globally? JM: In the US it's with IFC and it will distribute in Australia too. In Berlin it will play again theatrically later in 2014. CL: When it comes out on DVD you can promise lots of extras? JM: There are so many stories that we have footage of also, like we discovered there was a fire down the street from where Vivian was living and they remember her going along with her camera to film it, and now all of a sudden I discover that I have a movie of it.
Steven Yates studied Film and English at Kent University before taking an M.A. at Westminster University in London. Working as a freelance film writer since 1998, he has written in publications worldwide including books for Wallflower Press and in magazines and websites including Film International, theartsdesk.com, Celluloid, afterimage and El Hype. Currently based in Berlin, he is a member of FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics) and has sat on their jury at numerous film festivals since 2002. He is also one of the main English language supervisors for the FIPRESCI website (www.fipresci.org) Finding Vivian Maier – Appendix I Director: John Maloof, Charlie Siskel World Sales: Production: |
