We talked to Polish director Artur Wyrzykowski, who presented his debut film, This Is Not Happening [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Artur Wyrzykowski
fiche film], in the Black Nights Film Festival’s First Feature Competition. The movie tells the story of a father who finds himself trying to help his son escape after discovering he’s killed a classmate.

Cineuropa: How did this project come about?
Artur Wyrzykowski: All I really wanted, as a first-time feature film director, was a story that would be cheap from a production standpoint. So I thought to myself, “I’ll have three characters and one apartment, but I need some kind of conflict”. And then, one day, I came across a news story about some parents in the US who the police were hunting following a school shooting because they hadn’t hidden their guns properly in their home, and their kid had ended up finding one and using it to carry out the shooting. I found it interesting that the parents were the ones on the run and being held responsible. And then, while writing the film, I came up with the idea that the third character should be the fiancée, rather than the neighbour character I’d been considering. She's not a mother, but she wants to have a future with this father, Bartek. And he’d be forced to choose between his new future with her or his child from a previous relationship. That way, they’d be competing for Bartek's attention. In the end, it took me almost two years to develop the story. I went to Torino Film Lab with my treatment at the very beginning, and then I went to lots of consultations, and then finally my actors helped to shape a lot of the story you now see on screen.

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So you never considered looking at things from the son’s viewpoint?
No, I didn’t think it would be interesting because there wouldn’t be many people in the audience able to directly relate to that. People don’t normally think about actually killing other people. But they could relate to the question: “What would I do if that were my son or someone I know?” I also believe the father’s arc is also more interesting, because, at first, he thinks he can win with this situation, but then, over the course of the story, he realises it’s too late.

There seems to be a recurring theme in your films, dating back to your earlier shorts…
Yes, it seems like every film I make is on the same subject, because it's something that interests me the most: namely growing up and letting go of old fantasies. So, early in the development process, I realised this was also going to be a story about a father who’s delusional, who’s hoping he can control something he can't and who ultimately has to accept that he’s failed and face the consequences of this.

What kind of challenges did you face as a first-time feature film director and as a writer too?
I was also the film’s producer, so I had a triple role! We had to wait a year for Tomasz Schuchardt because he’s one of the most sought-after Polish actors and he had a lead role in a series, as well as having two other films on the go, so I wasn’t able to finish the agreements needed to secure the finance. It was painful but it turned out to be a good thing because it meant I had another year to prepare myself for the shooting and to pull more money together. That's how we found Wroclaw Feature Film Studio, our co-producer who helped us build the set the way we’d dreamed it. We shot for two days with no lighting or makeup, just actors on set. This was two weeks before the shooting. Before that, we’d had two days of rehearsals without the cameras but with actors on that set and then two days of shooting the previs. I used that as a starting point for the shoot, which lasted 13 days, during which time we shot the entire film, but we had money left over for additional days, so I decided to have three extra shooting days over a month later, which I’m very happy about. In the end, we ended up cutting 100 minutes down to 75. I would say that, overall, I’ve been very lucky.

What kind of reaction would you like the audience to have to Bartek?
I hope that if it doesn’t root for Bartek, the audience will at least understand why he does what he does. Of course, the way in which he's trying to help his son is questionable, but, even though I don't have children myself, I’ve talked to parents, and so many of them have told me that their children would be the most important thing for them too, and they’d take any opportunity to save them. I would like viewers to witness the tragedy unfolding for this man and maybe feel sorry for him, especially at the very end when he ends up being punished by his son for trying to carry out this desperate mission.

Are you working on anything for the near future?
Yes, I’ve got several projects on the go that I’ve been working on since even before I started this one, but I think it all depends on how this film’s received. Tallinn is obviously a good start! I hope it will make it easier for me to get money but, at the same time, I know how hard it is to get funding, so I’m still focused on making something cheap. I have another story that takes place in a single apartment, but with nine characters this time. It's a family comedy with a hint of sci-fi. The main character is a girl who comes back to her family home after being away for several years, bringing her boyfriend to her aunt’s burial. Everyone’s happy that she finally has a partner, but their feelings change when she reveals he's an android, one of the first in Europe to be granted official citizenship by the courts. It will be a cheap sci-fi film; there won’t be any special effects because there won’t be anything different about the android. As I said earlier, I’m yet again going back to a character who needs to let go of her fantasies!