On a sunny Saturday afternoon, the day before the Golden Globes, four of the five nominated directors in the foreign-language film category shared stories and talked about their craft at the Egyptian Theater.
The sixth such gathering co-presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the American Cinematheque drew, from left, Giuseppe Tornatore ("Baaria"), Jacques Audiard ("A Prophet"), Michael Haneke ("The White Ribbon") and Sebastian Silva ("The Maid"). (Photo: Getty Images) The fifth nominee, Pedro Almodovar ("Broken Embraces"), was in Paris putting the finishing touches on the stage version of his film "All About My Mother" and was unable to attend.
Mike Goodrich, editor of Screen International and an HFPA member, was the moderator.
The panel was more a series of questions than an international discussion, in part because all of the directors except Silva spoke through translators.
Goodrich started things off by telling Haneke that while watching his film, set in northern Germany on the eve of World War I, "I kept thinking about how those children would become Nazis." Haneke responded that his film is not exclusively about German fascism, but rather is "an example of how people are prepared to take part in totalitarianism." Although he said it's a film for German audiences, it's not pointing a finger at Germany specifically and, he added, it would be foolish for non-Germans to think it doesn't apply to them.
Asked about the role religion plays in the film, Haneke admitted that at 14 he wanted to be a clergyman, and people who don't like his movies say they see that tendency in them.
Tornatore, asked if he'd intended to make a historical film, was adamant: "The first thing I wanted to avoid was making a historical film!" Instead, he said, "Baaria" is about how time transfigures its characters.
Politics also plays a role in the film, he said, explaining that in post-WWII Sicily, where it's set, the villagers saw communism as an absolute solution to their problems and those of the world -- "a savior," he said. "Politics was seen as a positive force for change."
However, the film "is not autobiographical," Tornatore declared. "It's more than autobiographical! Many episodes in the film are born of fantasy woven together with those events that occurred," but the fantasies turned out more autobiographical than the real incidents, he said.
Audiard, whose film is about an Arabic youth in a French prison divided between Corsicans and Muslims, said one thing that drove him on the film was the severe underrepresentation of Arabs in French cinema. He said he found his lead actor, Tahar Rahim (who was in the audience Saturday), during a visit to a friend's set. In the production car on the way home, he was joined by two young actors. "Something struck my eye about Tahar," he said, "and I knew one day I would end up working with him. But to confirm my first impression I had to meet with 30 to 40 actors."
Haneke could top that, however: To cast the children in his film, he auditioned about 7,000 kids over about six months.
