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Anarchist of Imagination.
Pipilotti is a kind, beautiful person to all degrees and an open-minded
artist also.
Music, Architecture and Visual Arts melt together in her early and latest
works, notably the 2008 installation at the MOMA (“Pour Your Body Out“, 7354
Cubic Meters !), her collaboration with Jean Nouvel in Wien (“10, 10, 10”)
and PEPPERMINTA.
She’s been in Venice twice, for the 1997 and 2000 Art Biennials, where she’s
been awarded as best new artist (’97).
I meet Pipilotti during the 66th Venice Film Festival, after two sparkling
screenings of the new feature film and a funny, yet seriously effective
show-case which went under the simple name of “party”, but had projections
on a monastery walls and apples spread out all over the place: our “pets”,
actually, just like strawberries are for Pepperminta in the movie.
So similar to PYBO, it displayed some excerpts from the movie though.
She’s eager to speak, generous, smart, and delivers a wonderful german
accent while answering my questions.
GABRIELE FRANCIONI At the very end of yesterday’s screening of
PEPPERMINTA, I surprisingly saw Jean Nouvel right by your side. He looked
shy, like a fresh moviegoer on his first night out or someone who’s just
“seen the light”… Are you two friends, working together or else ?
Pipiloti Rist We’re actually working on a collaboration for a house
in Wien, 25 stories tall and he asked me to do the ceiling of the
restaurant, of the entrance and of one winter garden. In total: 2000 square
metres. I hope it will be built, but maybe the house falls down…ah ah ah ah!
It’ll be ready for 10 – 10 – 10, October 10th 2010. You’ re the first who’s
recognized him so far! My work is printed on fabric. There’s only one
big image in super high high high resolution with many photos set in a
collage, in order to have this resolution in 2000 sq. metres. It is sort of
beyond the idea of “video”.
I’ll be working on site and preparing the photo-montage. You look upwards,
you come in and you’re underground.
Then you look up again and it’s like a step into the dirt. You have these
small animals, snakes, grass and roots and in the middle of it a small site
for humans. Upwards there will be trees going up into the ceiling: different
levels to look up and go away. In certain areas there will be amorphous
videos to have the colours of the video match exactly with the printed
fabric and that will be my work on site…So you’re also an architect?
Yes, I’m a former architect and I’ve never met Nouvel before. I studied
his work, though…
Did you like it ?
Yes, of course, expecially masterpieces like the Institute of Arabian
Culture in Paris and the Opera House in Lyon..
Jean is a really nice guy! He treats people extremely well !
That’s nice…anyway: you’re so open to new fields of art and to
experimenting all the time. Somebody, like Peter Greenaway, is doing the
opposite of what you’re doing now: going from narrative options to
non-narrative. As a matter of fact, I’m now starting not to like the
narrative option anymore, so that my favourite movie in the last five years
is Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE…
I like it too !!! I agree with you, cinema has its clear rules, etc, but I
treat it also as an installation. Normally, I can treat all the walls of a
room with my projections and videos, but I don’t know who and when somebody
is going to come in and out and that limits the possibilities to bring a
narrative and a more complex structure to it. Cinema: everybody looks in the
same direction, to the same “installation” and after 80 minutes people
should say if it was worth the time. “I’ve liked to be in there, altogether,
etc”. You’re stuck in a common-thinking bubble together with other people !
Cinema is less free, Art is freer, of course, but Cinema is also for more
people and is more linked with everyday life. Art not often has this
possibility and doesn’t have such a direct connection with it ! In our daily
life we’re extremely influenced by the films we’ ve seen, we connect them
more to our love stories, our wishes and that was my challenge: can I do a
film that touches people who usually go to theatres and less to museums?
That was my challenge…
I believe you’ve achieved your goal. The audience, during both
screenings, was so concentrating on PEPPERMINTA and very few people were
like getting out. How do you feel now about the movie and the reaction to
it?
I have to wait a little bit. I’m now more interested in the reaction from
the audience, but the one of the festival is so different from the normal
ones. I had reactions that touched me very much, but they’re also so
different from the real thing. Festival is a special moment, not completely
same as how it works in a studio-cinema. I have to wait a bit. To see if
people are really letting the film into their heart…
What about Europe-wide distribution?
THE MATCH FACTORY is my world sale and they’re now trying to find
national distributors. Maybe it will happen or not. We have one in Germany,
DELPHI, one in Austria,
POOOL. They’ re in discussion with someone in Italy,
but there’s nothing signed, yet (the movie will be distributed by Italian
LUCKY RED). The national distributor do the cinemas and the tv. For me it’s
a very new structure, really. Normally, in museums, people come and it’s
another kind of“moment”, there’s another ritual going on. Cinema is a
different ritual and also an overlapping audience but a different one. I
wanted to go into a dramaturgic and formal way. I wanted to develop and in
order to do that I took a “reachy” form and that was the only possibility to
work with a professional crew that helped to hold the whole narrative. It
was a very good experience. In video you shoot just a couple of scenes…in a
feature film it’s much more difficult. I’m very happy that PEPPERMINTA
worked so much to your opinion!
Yes, it has, indeed! I’ve been trained like that, I mean, I sort of come
from fine arts, so to me it’s now like going back to my roots, after years
of just cinema. I’d like some more crossover between cinema and visual art…
Rotterdam has started to make installations during the film festival.
Northern Europe festivals are starting to do that now. Also here are some
installations, like the one outside the Excelsior Hotel, by swiss artist
Magdalena Kunz…really good installation, I think…
You mean that one inside the car? It’s so cool!
Cool, isn’t it? My approach and this crossing boundaries in Art is
coincident with the Sixties, when the video developed with the whole “real
time” fascination. Maybe it could be different now: in every cinema there
could be a room for installations, but it’s history that the borders are
going down, everything mixes and it’s logical that nothing is now no more so
divided from the rest.
Your characters in PEPPERMINTA actually seem to really get out of the
screen, since they’re so enlarged thanks to video devices and your skill.
Theatres are ok, but we could also go “further”: screen the movie also
somewhere else, but I understand you want to try normal theatres now…
Yes, because to me this “small cinema” format, in a way, is a symbol for
life. We always have to deal with what is possible and not possible and we
need conditions to grow over it , to take these rules and challenge it in
order to jump out of them!
So you believe that also not art-trained people, that don’t usually go to
museums, can get the message, like “colours can heal”..?
Yes, or at least that’s what I hope! We don’t have to be afraid of colours.
They are so real and so catchy. We leave them too much to advertising, that
uses them to catch our attention. Why put these emotional colours away?
They’re not superficial, like music, which is also not so rational, but has
such a deep meaning…
I was amazed when I saw the super-red flowers in one of the first
scenes…I was overwhelmed and I thought “this is what I really want to see
now!”…
That field is really as colourful as it is in the movie, actually. I just
try to give back what really is in there, in reality, because we’re used to
the idea that in movies we always take away some colour. We’re used that
films and photos must be less colourful, so when I see PEPPERMINTA, where I
just give back how things are, I’m overwhelmed…
What about the score? It’s so “Sixties’ oriented”, so related to the San
Francisco 1967 scene, sort of say…
There’s a link, absolutely.
Anders Guggisberg and Roland Widmer have the credits for the score. I’ve
been working with Anders in the last 13 years. He’s a plastic artist himself
and only does music aside. To me was so important not to have the typical
soundtrack music in the movie, that amuses you so much. I really needed
something raw, rough and wild and something that sort of delivered another
“message”, another script through the songs. The music was completely made
for the film and is itself a story in the story. I really love the
soundtrack and the idea of working in team. There’s a team behind the film.
I love to work with people that really know what they do…they gave all they
could in the postproduction and there was always a really good mood.
It doesn’t seem that you actually “directed” the actors too much.
Everything seems to have come out so natural, with all of you getting along
so well…
Actually, yes, you’re right. There’s also a dance between the actors and the
camera and that needs a lot of takes: when the camera is good, the actors
may be not, so you have to do it again and again and only keep those takes
that give a good contribution to the movie. Actors have to trust the
camera-men, though it’s (the camera) not more important than the objects in
the movie or the actors themselves.
Interview held by GABRIELE FRANCIONI. Tech help from SIMONA PACE.
“Lancia Caffè” stand, Excelsior Hotel Terrace, Lido di Venezia.
Pepperminta
Directed by Pipilotti Rist
Written by Chris Niemeyer, Pipilotti Rist
Cinematography Pierre Mennel
Editing Gion-Reto Killias
Sound Rainer Flury, Thomas Gassmann, Bernhard Maisch, Roland Widmer
Music Anders Guggisberg
Roland Widmer
Art Direction Su Erdt
Lighting Ernst Brunner
Compositing Davide Legittimo
Costumes Selina Peyer
Casting Lisa Olah, Markus Schleinzer, Corinna Glaus
Cast Ewelina Guzik, Sven Pippig, Sabine Timoteo, Elisabeth Orth, Noëmi
Leonhardt, Oliver Akwe
Original Version German, colour, 35mm, 84 min.
Production Hugofilm Productions GmbH
Coop 99 Filmproduktion
Schweizer Fernsehen
SRG SSR idée suisse
Österreichischer Rundfunk
Producer Christian Davi, Christof Neracher, Antonin Svoboda
Line Producer Plan B Film GmbH
World Rights The Match Factory GmbH
World Sales The Match Factory GmbH
Distribution
Switzerland Frenetic Films
Distribution Germany Delphi Filmverleih
World Premiere September 2009
Awards The 2009 Kinematrix Film Award
Full Credits:
CAST
Ewelina Guzik
Pepperminta
Sven Pippig
Werwen
Sabine Timoteo
Edna
Elisabeth Orth
Leopoldine
Noëmi Leonhardt
Pepperminta als Kind
Oliver Akwe
Kwame
CREW
Musik
Anders Guggisberg
Roland Widmer
Kamera
Pierre Mennel
Szenenbild
Su Erdt
Kostüme
Selina Peyer
Maske
Simone Pflueger
Tonmeister
Thomas Gassmann
Schnitt
Gion-Reto Killias
Visual Effects Supervisor
Davide Legittimo
Drehbuch
Chris Niemeyer
Pipilotti Rist
Casting
Lisa Olàh
Markus Schleinzer
Sounddesign & Tonschnitt
Roland Widmer
Rainer Flury
Tonmeister
Thomas Gassmann
Schnitt
Gion-Reto Killias
Visual Effects Supervisor
Davide Legittimo
Mischung
Bernhard Maisch
Line Producer
HC Vogel
Produktionsleitung Österreich
Bruno Wagner
1.Regieassistenz
Steven Michael Hayes
Aufnahmeleitung
Ines Zurbuchen
Produktionskoordination
Karina Budliger
Psychedelight
Jean-Louis Gafner
Regie
Pipilotti Rist
Produzenten
Christian Davi
Christof Neracher
Antonin Svoboda
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cura di FRANCIONI