06/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: The Greek director unpicks her long-awaited new feature, a period film that is deeply grounded in the present

(© Fabrizio de Gennaro/Cineuropa)

More than ten years after Attenberg [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Athina Rachel Tsangari
film profile] premiered on the Lido, Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari is back in Venice’s Main Competition with her English-language period film Harvest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Athina Rachel Tsangari
film profile], based on British author Jim Crace’s eponymous novel. Following the premiere, Cineuropa spoke to Tsangari about shooting on location in Scotland and how her process of writing is akin to tilling the land.

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Cineuropa: What was your process for working on the script for Harvest, your first literary adaptation?
Athina Rachel Tsangari: Joslyn [Barnes] had a draft after having optioned the book. We started discussing it at the beginning of the pandemic, going back and forth, and then after a couple of drafts, it was clear that she really wanted me to make it my own. As a director, I can never direct without getting into the script, and to do that, I needed time to approach it. At first, it was in this very silent way, as if I had hidden it somewhere in the dark, to grow, to germinate. And then, it all fell out [of me].

So you inhabit the world of the script? Obviously, as a viewer, it's easy to inhabit a film’s world because it's right there for you to do so. But I'm interested in the way that you build your film worlds because while they may be different from one another, they are always easy to access.
That’s interesting because I’ve already heard so many times, regarding Harvest, “Oh, this is such a different thing for you in relation to Chevalier [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], for example.”

Do you feel that's true?
No.

I also feel like Harvest is very much yours.
Why?

Because of how easy it is to slip into its depths and stay there, for example.
You know, I was very lucky because Rebecca [O’Brien], my producer, and I just got into a car during the pandemic, and we went to western Scotland. We did this intense road trip while just listening to music: I was playing music for her so she could understand where I was going with Harvest, because there was no way for me to ever describe it in words. That was such a beautiful process, and it was a gift to find the location at the right time to shoot, because it had to be harvest time. I took all of this sensory memory from that trip and brought it back with me, in order to write the next draft. Every part of the process was informing the script, as a way to slowly keep ploughing this ground. I love that, and there is no other way for me to do it.

The film’s cinematography by Sean Price Williams seems equally grounded and ethereal in a similar way; his attention to the relationship between humans and nature is striking. How would you describe your work together?
It's not a language that he found with me, but I have to say we're great dancing partners! It was basically us two working on this non-verbal, very intuitive choreography together. It was full of love. We love each other, so I think you see the love there.

What was shooting on location in Scotland like?
Well, Scottish light is chiaroscuro, right? You never know if it's light or dark, if the sun is in or out, or if it's raining or it's dry. There’s the mystery of the in-between, of the threshold, which was important for Sean and me, and for the entire cast. I’m always working on thresholds. It may take a very long time for us to find each other [as collaborators], be it in casting, in front or behind the camera, but once we do, it’s special.

Harvest captures a period of a prolonged end and alludes to the arrival of modernity. How come the film doesn't have any strong nostalgia in it?
The setting is intentionally broad because it could be the end of the 16th century, but it depends on where you are. I didn’t want to be precious about language; I wanted a range of idioms and accents, to go against a certain kind of purity. I think we're going to be crucified by the Scots and the Brits [laughs]. But this lack of purity, the lack of specificity, was a political decision, for sure.

You never struck me as a nostalgic filmmaker.
No, but I’ve never made a period film before this one… You know, it's a nostalgia for the present. I am able to yearn for the present, never the past, nor the future. How to be present? That’s what this film is about. And more importantly, it’s about how we are present, when we are.