5 Questions #8 : Maite Alberdi

The Director of Eternal Memory & The Mole Agent on listening, observing, finishing, and communicating well.

William Faulkner’s line from Light In August “Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” somehow hit me like a brick when I encountered it age 15. That friction gave purpose to the pursuit of art for me when I was looking for reasons to justify it. The reflection of that line is one of things I still look for constantly in works, so it was one of the many reasons I was delighted to encounter Maite Alberdi’s deeply loving and heartbreaking doc ETERNAL MEMORY, and a fitting sibling to her prior film, THE MOLE AGENT, which I had also dug. In each film, she finds a subject that speaks volumes about subjects that extend far beyond the boundaries of the individual personhood, lending full credence to the fact that the intimate is epic, and the most epic is the most intimate — hers is humanist cinema at its most heartfelt.

I haven’t shared with you, my Hope-ers, how I do these “5 Questions”, but I provide the filmmakers with 10 questions for them to select from. I find it very interesting which ones they choose as it also speaks of what is in their hearts and minds, and it made me happy that Maite chose some questions others had passed on.

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Can you explain how any particular lessons you’ve learned from family members or friends apply to the way you approach your work?

My mom and my grandmother always says that they have to put the chair in front of the house, and seat outside only “to look people goes on”. And they enjoy that, the exercise of only looking at people, and imagine a life only looking and hearing (only) a fragment. My mom always wanted to have holidays in beaches full of people, only to see and listen. I think that I have been making a career based on that— observing people to understand their life and from that the world, from a chair in a corner. Only the observation with time, gives you the opportunity to love people and to understand them. Love is based in share time looking for someone, that is what I do in my films.  The problem is that we do not have so much time to observe in life. 

What are some practical things we might be able to do to improve things in the industry?

For me it is always a challenge how to deal with maternity. It is tricky to be a mom and travel to screenings, and to be able to be in the shooting with all the time required. For me a real way to improve is for all the shootings to assume a daily care for kids, or spaces that kids can be near their moms. When a festival invites you, to assume that they have to invite you with your kid and support. You are not always going to take that benefit, but at least (you should) have the opportunity to chose. These worlds — maternity and cinema — can not exist completely separate, as mothers we need to be with our kids the first years, and we also want to continue being part of the Industry. It is an open challenge. 

What are some of the things you do to try to communicate well? What does “good communication” mean to you?

A good communication for me always mean to be clear and honest with feelings and emotions. To try to explain what a topic or a situation means in terms of emotions. The only way to be tolerant means to understand why the other person feel as they feel, even if we do not think in the same way.  A good communication means to me to take the time to listen not only the information, (but) also what is behind (it). 

How do you finish making a movie well? What does that mean? What are the typical & most unique struggles that you face at that final stage?

I feel that a film is finished when I have time to try all the possible roads, when I know that the result that I have in front of me had a very long journey behind, in which I made all the questions to myself and to the editor. 

The process is finish for me usually after a year of editing and in the last stage, I need to share the film. Listen opinions, view reactions to complete my feelings with the feedback of others. I enjoy the process of sharing because I always find ideas that I miss or problems that I was not conscious. And the magic in documentaries is that almost everything can be resolve in the editing room. We re- write the film there and is magic. 

Is there a film — recent or not — that you feel has been overlooked, but you admire or get a kick out of, be it for one reason or another? Why do you think it deserves our love or respect? Why do you think it might have slipped through the cracks a bit?

“To be and to have” by Nicholas Phillibert. It was the first time that I saw a film of a microworld, a rural school in France where the kids of different ages went to the same class. Almost everything happen there and it was only description of day by day situations, times go by, and do you think that nothing changes, but small tramsformations are big. 

It was a profound understanding of observational documentary. Be patient, wait, let time pass without interrupt, and the action will appear in front of the camera. As Phillibert says, “to program the chance”.

The challenge today in the Industry is to defend the idea of have time for wait. A lot of time, that makes all the difference.