April
Interview with director Dea Kulumbegashvili
Film is in select theaters this Friday, April 25 and will open in Los Angeles on May 2nd
Describe the film for us in your own words.
It’s about the female experience in the world. Despite it also thematically touching the subject of abortion, I hope it’s not just about that but about being a woman.
What drew you to this story?
When I was back in my home country of Georgia and I was making my previous film (BEGINNING), I started to meet all these women in the region where I grew up, and they would come up to me and talk about their daily lives. We became friends. I started to feel the terrible importance of the subject of abortion, and in general the subject of personal freedom to these women. They lived lives chosen for them by society and mostly by their parents. Most of them got married because their parents arranged those marriages. They have seven or eight children, and no one ever asked them what they want or if they wanted to become mothers.
What do you want people to think about?
I would love people to think that, despite the film being shot in Georgia and in a very remote place, we need to be cautious and aware what that feels like, for us, a privilege or something that we have already achieved and set in stone—it’s not really so. And women in other places outside of the US or Western Europe still don’t have basic rights that we have. It’s not something that is just guaranteed. We need to be aware that we still need to fight and defend what we already have.
What was the biggest challenge in making this?
The biggest challenge was to make a film in secret because nobody could know what the film was about. By nobody, I mean the authorities in Georgia. Otherwise, we would not be able to make this film. While we were making APRIL, I was committed to it being what it’s about. But at the same time, I wanted to be able to protect the people who were helping me, guarantee their anonymity, and create conditions where they were able to let us into their lives, but make it so any responsibility would be put only on me and not on anybody else.
What was the development process? How did you get green lit?
Because we were making a film in secret, we could not apply to any public or state funds in Georgia. It would have been impossible to make the film if anybody had read the script. It was a huge question because we could not apply to the European funds, as we didn’t want the word to spread and get back to Georgia. So basically, the film is fully privately funded. I don’t know how the producers did it, but they did a great job. And putting together a team was a huge challenge because I wanted the team to be aware that we couldn’t attract too much attention. We had to be very delicate and very aware of the lives of the people who were helping us. And that, somehow, was a very precious experience for all of us. Not everything that happens in front of the camera is specifically made for you as a director or a film team. Sometimes you need to adapt, and you need to make sure you create circumstances for things to happen in front of the camera, and you just step back. I wanted the team to be discreet and to be understanding of challenges of the lives of people who were helping us. So that was the biggest challenge—to somehow make a film without anybody knowing about it, but also while having the most incredibly talented and best team possible in the country.
What inspired you to become a storyteller?
My childhood. I was growing up in Georgia during the civil war, in the nineties. Because we never had electricity, I was never exposed to cinema at all. I would watch glimpses of films. For example, we would have electricity for forty minutes, and I would watch part of Rambo on TV. It was such a magic moment; we would be glued to the screen as children. And the next morning we would be standing in line for bread. That was another thing—there was no food, so in the morning at 6 AM, all the children were taken to queue for bread because every person could take one bread only, so our parents would take us, obviously to have more people. But we would stand there for hours, sometimes five hours. All the children would play around, and we would tell each other stories. I would tell people that I watched part of Rambo, but I would also continue to add something on my own, inventing. Everyone wanted to know how the film ended, and I would invent it. And I guess that was one of the first instances when I started to become a storyteller.
What’s the best and worst advice you've received?
The best advice I received was in film school was by one of my professors at Columbia University, who told me, “Nobody cares about a script.” Because sometimes he was annoyed by the excessive obsession for students to write a perfect script. He told me, “Stop doing that.” Just write a script. If you’re writing for yourself, write something that is the script for your film. Write your film. That’s kind of the best advice because I’m not a good writer. But what I write is the best for my own films. I’m not chasing perfection.
The worst advice, I don’t know, there’s a lot. I remember when I first made a short film, it was in competition in Cannes. And everybody was telling me—people who are supposed to be very experienced—they said, “Don’t make a second short film, go straight into the feature, because if your second short film doesn’t get into Cannes, nobody’s going to give you money for the feature, because they’ll know it was just an accident that your film was in Cannes.” I was like, of course it was an accident! It was luck! Yes! But I’m a director and it’s my job to make films—short films or feature films. And I wanted to make a short film, and I made it. I don’t make films simply to get here, or to get there, even though it was good for me that my film got to Cannes. It was a huge boost. I just went and made another short film.
What advice do you have for other female creatives?
I don’t usually like giving advice, but one thing I think about as a female director is that this industry is a male-dominated industry up until now. And we are now suddenly allowed to become part of it and are given permission to make films, and we are being told what kinds of films we need to make, that female films need to be this or that way. They should not be anything. The only thing it should be is your own film. It’s okay to fail, it’s okay to try and do better. I guess it’s a process, and it doesn’t exist without heartbreak or disappointment in yourself as a director. What really matters is to remember why we’re making films and that we are inspired to go forward.
Name your favorite woman directed film and why.
I love Kira Muratova’s work. She’s just an incredible inspiration for me because the films she made, for me, feel like, oh my god! These are just films about regular people. They are not just characters in the films. They’re not well written, and you don’t feel mastery of creating the character, but these are people you know. That’s what makes a master writer or master director: to see magic in everyday existence and tragedy. She never made films that have huge action, but you see tremendous pain, beauty, grandiosity, regular pain and existence of people in her films.
Feel free to share anything else you would like people to know about this film.
I just want people to watch it. Because I do believe in people who love cinema. I’d rather be told how people experienced my film, rather than say anything to the people who might watch it.