Interview with EFA Documentary Nominee Victor Kossakovsky on his film ¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS!





Can you briefly describe what your film VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS is about and how you got interested in the subject?
Victor Kossakovsky: Traveling through the countryside of Argentina, I saw a man who was fishing from a small bridge. Under the sunset-light that simple scene looked to me like the most beautiful and peaceful place on earth. I imagined what would happen if I were to extend this fishing line straight through the centre of the planet? What will I see on the other side? Then I learned that the antipode of this place is one of the most powerful, bustling and noisy cities of the planet – Shanghai.
I found out that, since most of the planet is covered by water, there are only a few inhabited land-to-land antipodal places. For instance, in all of Europe, only Spain has an antipode – New Zealand. The USA only have one state – Hawaii. Its antipode is Botswana, also the only such African country. We were also filming in the most beautiful and cinema-genic pair of all, in my opinion, Lake Baikal – Cape Horn.

When did you know that it would become a documentary?
I was on my first research trip to New Zealand and I accidentally filmed how a huge wale had committed suicide. Then I came to the exact opposite side of the planet - which is in Spain, 50 km north of Madrid - and in the forest I found a huge rock that looks like a whale. It was then that I understood that I am making something unique!


How detailed was the script before shooting?
Of course you cannot predict and write a script for such a story like “whale – rock”. Life is so unpredictable! Therefore I like documentaries! When you are making a documentary, you are working on the script until the last day of editing or sometimes until last day of mixing the sound. In the beginning you just have an idea. Sometimes you have a good idea but then when you actually make the film you may realize that the idea was better than the reality of it. With VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS the opposite happened. The idea was interesting, but what I really found is unbelievable, surprising and much deeper than I imagined before I started working on the film!

In recent years the borders between documentary and fiction have blurred. Where do you see yourself in this development?
I think that for a filmmaker making a documentary or a fiction film are just two different ways to be happy! I am happy when I film life, as unpredictable as life is, and then films are teaching and changing me.
But if we are talking about really great films with extraordinary cinema language then I do not see a huge difference between good documentary and good fiction. I believe if a film is good – just as wine - it will become even better with time. The best fiction films will look like documentaries in years to come and the best documentary films will look like fiction. That’s what happens when you watch Chaplin's films now – and that’s a document of his talent and somehow a document of his time. Or when you see a Vertov film now it is - in the first place - a piece of art and then, secondly, it is a document about something.
After all, we should remember that the first film in history -the train station - was, in today’s language, a documentary! So, the original word "cinema" belongs to the documentary - or it simply didn’t make a difference between documentary and fiction.