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GUÉDIGUIAN AND ASCARIDE: MAKE WAY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND A MORE SERIOUS CINEMA
06/09/2011
Partners in work as in life, Robert Guédiguian and Ariane Ascaride took part in the meeting this morning of the 27 young Europeans with the finalists of the LUX Prize and the official delegation of the European Parliament, in their respective roles of director and main actress of the film Les neiges du kilimandjaro.
They both agree in supporting the need for cinema to deal with themes that are in line with social changes and the issues of our times: “It is no longer possible - states Ascaride – to be limited within the borders of individual countries; we have to embrace a more global persective. If we want to talk about the world, we should simply start by dealing with questions that concern our own country, which are those that best reflect our point of view in an honest way. Consequently it is essential that we open up to and face up to others, without fear, enriching our own perspective without ever letting ourselves be dragged along by those who want us to believe that there is only one way of thinking”.
Guédiguian too, illustrating the genesis of a film, states: “We often start from intimate, almost secret, thoughts, which only concern ourselves; at the moment in which the theme we want to deal with becomes clear, we must ask ourselves whether it also reflects the doubts of other people.”
On this subject, concerned by French cinema of recent times, the director says: “In France there aren’t many socially or politically engaged films. Instead an arthouse cinema persists which is ever more closed in itself, which has broken its historical bond with the audience. The authors which shaped me, Italian and French, made arthouse films but they had a large audience; in fact, I believe that the quality of a film coincides with the quantity of spectators”. “Making cinema – Ascaride maintains – means opening up to others, telling stories, emotions, problems and sharing those”.
They both therefore support the importance of a popular cinema which starts from socially relevant issues in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. Asked about what the role might be for the European Parliament in making this kind of cinema possible, Guédiguian believes there is a primary need to work with young people and for young people, to whom Ascaride addresses an important appeal: “In order to change things at this time of serious crisis, young people have to resist and really believe in themselves. It is right that they have a few doubts and that they feel the need to share these; they have to be given the freedom to try out their own paths, even when adults do not understand or fully support some of their actions”.
Room should be made for young people, therefore, and for a cinema that is able to extend its horizons towards a front of common needs, reappropriating itself with its original popular vocation.
Francesco Bonerba
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