Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Heike-Melba Fendel, Pepe Danquart

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Heike-Melba Fendel, Pepe Danquart

Heike-Melba Fendel: „Jeffrey what is your film SOUL POWER about?”

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte: „It's about a music festival that took place in Zaire, 1974, with James Brown and B.B. King, The Spinners and a large number of American R'n'B-acts along with other Zairian and South African acts. It was desigend to be festival in conjunction with the Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman fight. This film is completely comprised of unused footage that was shot at the festival in 1974.”

Fendel: „I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with WHEN WE WERE KINGS that won an Academy Award and in which you were the editor…”

Levy-Hinte: „It's sort of the first cousin of SOUL POWER. There was 100 hours of material and sound files. For WHEN WE WERE KINGS I was trying to do both: The festival and the fight which weren't really connected to each other. The film had sort of two centres so for KINGS we decided to concentrate on the fight which left me with the opportunity come back at the material for SOUL POWER. It was with the passing of James Brown that I thought it is insane that nothing was happening with this footage. So I started to put it together in a sort of humble way. Also nobody wanted to put money into it because it seemed like such an absurd idea to take the outtakes out of a sucessful documentary and use it for a completely different film that has no narration, no interviews. So I had to do it completely on my own and basically stole a bit from my other movies that I've got stored in the backroom of my office.”

Fendel: „Speaking of footage and ‚taming’ the footage I read that you referred to the editing process as Mount Zaire as a metaphore for the way up to Mount Everest and you figured that if people make it up to the Mount Everest, you'd make it to finish editing this documentary. Pepe, could you briefly comment on how you manage to deal with the footage?”

Pepe Danquart: „For example for HÖLLENTOUR I've had six teams and cameras on the spot, because if you shot the contestants you could only do that for 30 seconds, because they were of course constantly moving. With a lot footage you have got to have a very clear structure in mind on where you want to go and then select things accordingly. Mostly you'd be able to make three or four movies out of your material. So I don't think it’s unusual that you kind of re-used the material from WHEN WE WERE KINGS for SOUL POWER! Every editor knows that editing means killing your own babies and strike off very good material that could easily be used for a whole other movie.”

Levy-Hinte: „Still they are very different movies. KINGS had a very forward narrative. Like a drum beat towards the fight of Ali and Foreman. Whereas here (in SOUL POWER) it was more about the experience of the festival like actually being there, hanging out at the concert.”

Danquart: „You have shown in the movie that it's also about people going to back to their roots. James Brown, Miriam Makeba. Back then this was an extraordinary thing to do. Still I wonder why you left out the torture, the starvation or the other problems that were going on in Zaire at the time?”

Levy-Hinte: „This morning I read a review that commented on exactly that. My answer to that is: I didn't have any intention of avoiding it! For me it was an expression of the people who went there and the fact seems to be that they were not aware of the goings-on in Zaire in the history. For one side. And if you were aware of it, it shows the ignorance people have to things sometimes. I wanted it to be about the people of Zaire rather than the political element. Unquestionably this documentary is extremely selective.”

Fendel: „How do you both organise your material? Do you work towards a certain narration and then select the material accordingly or does the material ‚push’ you somewhere or is is just dialectic?”

Danquart: „In terms of documentaries of which I feel is the ‚king class’ of filmmaking you have to have a narration in mind and not shoot in an uncontrolled condition. If something unexpected happens you will always have to deal with it. A documtary usually goes to noman's land. So the structure of a documentary always is just the structure. I'm a very naïve person, for instance I've never been on a bicycle race before I did HÖLLENTOUR so I put a lot of time in it. A naïve approach to a documentary helps the viewer.”

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte

Jeffrey Levy-Hinte

Levy-Hinte: „With SOUL POWER it was a different experience as I drew from already existing footage. I imagined myself in 1974 literally. Watching the footage I dreamed myself into it, what interested me. That of course took a long time. Hence the ‚Mount Zaire’ image. I used small audiences a lot because of the very long process I lost my ‚fresh eyes’, my naivity. Without that you're completely lost as a filmmaker.” 

Danquart: „When I did a movie in Bosnia my only structure was the two years of shooting ahead of me. And finding my protagonist. I was called ‚Nach Saison’. Very open-structured. I had 120 hours of material in the end. The only thing that helped me was advice from a befriended photographer. I think there are many ways to approach a movie’s structure, but there is always a structure to a movie.” 

Levy-Hinte: „What interests me about documentaries is accepting that you are not in control. In feature films it's the contrary: Everything is about control. Documentaries are way more alive in this sense.”

Fendel: „What influence did making feature films and documentaries on you?”

Danquart: „A feature movies classical structure can of course also be used in a documentary. And as soon as you want to take it into a movie theatre you will have to accept the expectation of the audience. There is one big difference however: When doing a feature film I'm the godfather, I'm creating a personal film. On set I'm the one in charge of the creative process. I'm the decision maker. When I do a documentary I employ a very humble approach. Because what you shoot, only happens this once and you are influencing the situation. The art is to keep the documentary ‚truthful’ then. This is most important. Not you, but the movie is important.”

Levy-Hinte: „My experience in producing features is that I'm having more difficulties in keeping my creative focus, because of the whole apparatus involved in making a feature.”

Fendel: „In American TV and movies there is the phenomenon of the ‚movies based on a true story’. Most productions are very successful and in a way pretend to be a documentary. Do you think that fiction is trying to imitate documentaries by ways of fiction?”

Levy-Hinte: „I think there is something very attractive to the feel of something being ‚real’, whether it's documentary or fiction. Documentaries can be fictious as well. Maybe people are just running out of ideas. Especially in the US I experience people running these same paths. They keep making the same movies over and over again, just changing the names and faces.”

Danquart: „If for example you see THE STORM, a very complex movie. A lot is achieved by using a hand camera here. Sometimes it's about recreating reality for the purpose of a documentary.”

Levy-Hinte: „The devision between the two is by no means hard and fast. Sometimes we look at documentaries and we give them too much credibility – this is what really happened. This is why I like the Michael Moore documentaries a lot. He is massively interfering and constructing, there is a certain honesty to that as well. Being absolutely objective probably is never achievable in an absolute sense if you're honest. At least that’s my personal opinion.”

Pepe Danquart

Pepe Danquart

Fendel: „I've had a professor in creative writing who said: ‚Truth is not an excuse!’ when people tried to justify something by saying, but that's what happened!”

Danquart: „We're beyond times were documentaries had to be boring in order to be good. There were times when entertainment was forbidden in documentaries! Times have changed since then. I think that structure, emotions, plot are essential to filmmaking whether it is a documentary or not. For HÖLLENTOUR we tried hard to get it shown in the big movie theatres and our distributor was basically forcing them to take it on. And it worked because they were also distributing another very popular title. But theatres themselves wouldn't want to screen a documentary. On the first weekend of showing we broke a record! Ever since audience and theatre owners have understood that even documentaries can be a success.”


Fendel: „Has a documentary a greater perspective to be internationally relevant? What makes a documentary attractive internationally? How do you choose your subjects?”

Levy-Hinte: „I try to find a certain universality that's always relevant.”

Danquart: „I agree, it has to be universal and understandable. But even if you choose subjects that have to do with yourself personally and artistically it still has to be understandable to anyone. Nobody would watch a documentary on ‚the very difficult relation betwenn East and West Germany’. But if you tell the story from the perspective of two rivalling ice-hockey teams it works. But it depends on a lot of things for example the likeability of you protagonist for instance.”

Audience to Pepe Danquart: „How much do you think the camera influenced people in your movies and do you at times recreate scenes?”

Danquart: „I never use actors! I try to hide myself and the camera as much as I can and I try to get a relationship with my main characters. But I still think there is influence on my actors. For example in AM LIMIT I think that the final fall of Thomas Huber's was caused because there were cameras. If I wouldn't have been there I'm sure he hadn't attempted to break the record on this particular day. As soon as the camera is on you, things change. So you have to take measures to make them forget the camera.”

Audience: „Do you take time to get to know people before shooting?”

Danquart: „Of course, you will have to talk to them, have beers… You do have to explain them what you're doing.”

Audience: „I'd like to know what you two think the future of documentaries is? What if you don't have a distributor to blackmail people?”

Levy-Hinte: „Hopefully we won't have to sacrifice much of what makes a documentary in order to reach this wider audience. In the US documentaries have been quite successful in these niche places. It's like any other art form that’s under siege, you have to keep moving and never give up.”

Danquart: „I'm very optimistic in spite of all the discussion in the scene. It does change now that it has been realised you can make money from it. Even the budgets have increased. The Budget for HÖLLENTOUR was 1,5 million dollars.”

Levy-Hinte: „For SOUL POWER it was a couple of hundred thousands to do the post-production.”

Danquart: „But showing documentaries on a big screen we will have to keep in mind that story and storytelling remain adequate for the big screen. Also DVD sales help financing projects. Things are getting easier, but I don't want to say that they are easy.”

Auf vierundzwanzig.de können Sie sich das vollständige Gespräch als Audio-Stream anschauen.