Marie Kreutzer has had a hand in lots of Austrian movie productions. Her first characteristic movie, “The Fatherless”(“Die Vaterlosen”) (2011), has been proven and awarded at quite a few festivals, together with the Berlinale Panorama Special. In addition, the movie was nominated for the Thomas Pluch Screenplay Award and the Austrian Film Award. It was adopted by the characteristic movies “Gruber Is Leaving” (“Gruber Geht”) (2015), “We Used to Be Cool” (“Was Hat Uns Blo So Ruiniert”) (2016), and the TV movie “Die Notlge” (2017), which have been additionally proven and awarded at festivals. In addition to her work as a director, Kreutzer has labored as a lecturer on the Vienna Film Academy and as a screenwriter and dramaturge.
Corsage is screening on the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, which is working from September 8-18.
W&H:Describe the movie for us in your individual phrases.
MK: “Corsage” is a movie about Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who is among the principal vacationer sights in Austria. She has grow to be a fantasy, not solely due to her personal story but additionally due to how the well-known movie Sissi, starring Romy Schneider, performed with that fantasy. “Corsage” is a really completely different tackle Empress Elisabeth, a movie about her darker facet, her rise up in opposition to the position she was imagined to play, which included staying younger and delightful ceaselessly. The story of a girl who has to please as a way to be liked is common and timeless.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
MK: When studying the biographies, letters, diaries, and so forth, of Elisabeth, I sensed that her silent rise up is a recurrent theme in her life. Everything we all know or assume we learn about her pertains to that. She was a smoker when smoking was considered unhealthy conduct for a girl, didn’t contact any meals when compelled to take a seat at official dinners, traveled the world at any time when she might flea Vienna, constructed her personal sports activities gear, and went on in depth hikes or horse rides when being sporty or match was not trendy or essential for anybody. She actually lived in a golden cage and tried to broaden her positions boundaries so far as she might.
I used to be drawn to her advanced character. Every portray of her appears to be like completely different. She performed together with her position, and I’m persevering with that, for her.
W&H: What would you like individuals to consider after they watch the movie?
MK: I by no means make a movie to deliver individuals to a sure conclusion. I don’t take into consideration the viewers and what they may assume in any respect, not as a result of I dont care, however as a result of that will result in assumptions. I can’t management the viewers and I’d not wish to. I really feel very privileged that folks determine to speculate two hours of their life diving into my creativeness. I wish to give them pleasure, emotion, inspiration, I wish to fill them with photos and sound, and I would like them to really feel completely free to go away the theater with no matter resonates with them. That will be very various things, as I do know by now. If I could make them take away a tiny factor for themselves, I can be joyful.
W&H: What was the most important problem in making the movie?
MK: The co-production, as a result of [that process] was new to me. It was my fifth characteristic movie, however the finances was 2.5 occasions as excessive because the finances for the movies earlier than. The scale was new. There have been so many individuals concerned, with lots of them new to me. Dealing with all their ideas, solutions, expectations, was the most important problem for me, personally.
W&H: How did you get your movie funded? Share some insights into how you bought the movie made.
MK: It is a European co-production which was funded by varied public establishments in Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, and France, in addition to general European establishments and TV networks.
Ive not made one movie the place there was sufficient cash. It at all times appears like too little. Budgets are a significant factor of filmmaking — How can we do that for much less? I might discuss this for hours. I at all times say, negotiating is perhaps the most important a part of my work. I really feel like I’m negotiating more often than not — “I really want this, so I is perhaps prepared to surrender that, and many others.
W&H: What impressed you to grow to be a filmmaker?
MK: That second once you sit down in a giant room with individuals you dont know, the lights taking place, solely that massive display and also you experiencing one thing collectively, and by no means figuring out the place it will take you — in your creativeness, your ideas, your feelings. It nonetheless will get me, each time.
W&H: Whats the most effective and worst recommendation you’ve acquired?
MK: The finest was from my professor at movie college, earlier than my first brief movie: “You have to make fast decisions. If you don’t know already, decide anyway, because the crew has to trust that you know where youre going.” I nonetheless take into consideration that. I’m excellent at quick choices now. It is all about observe! What it actually says is that you simply cant wait till you are feeling prepared earlier than you begin. You by no means really feel absolutely ready, the script by no means appears completely completed, and within the edit you would go on ceaselessly. But there isn’t any proper method; its not arithmetic. You should belief your intestine.
The worst recommendation was the other: lots of people telling me that the script for my first characteristic movie was too massive for a primary characteristic movie. Shouldnt you do one thing smaller first? No. You at all times must work on what you are feeling drawn to, not what appears affordable or higher strategically. At least thats what I feel. You want a bit of megalomania on this job, otherwise you wont get anyplace.
W&H: What recommendation do you have got for different girls administrators?
MK: You must take care of the labels they offer you. Some males nonetheless have bother having a feminine boss, and they’ll discover a label to placed on you that may damage you. You wish to be favored and brought critically on the similar time, however truthfully, you cant have that from all of the boys. In the long term, it’s important to discover males to work with who dont have these points, however its troublesome to know upfront. There will at all times be a person to let you know what you can not have or what he thinks he is aware of higher. They are in all places and it doesnt matter in case you are a 25-year-old making your first brief movie or a professional who’s 56.
Only just a few months in the past, in post-production on “Corsage,” I leaned over to my DOP, who has performed about 100 nice films, and mentioned to her, Do you assume hed discuss to us like that if we have been two guys? We laughed as a result of the reply was a really clear “no.” The man was youthful than each of us, so that you dont solely get it from older males.
W&H: Name your favourite woman-directed movie and why.
MK: I feel thats Lost in Translation by Sofia Coppola. To me, it’s her finest movie. There is a German phrase that doesnt exist in English, “sehnsucht,” a combination of longing, melancholy, and the necessity for one thing you can not identify, and all my favourite movies have lots to do with “sehnsucht.” Lost in Translation is a sublime, melancholic, but humorous movie, and performed with an awesome lightness, as if every little thing got here to the administrators thoughts spontaneously. I like that.
W&H: What, if any, obligations do you assume storytellers must confront the tumult on the earth, from the pandemic to the lack of abortion rights and systemic violence?
MK: To me, an artist doesnt have any obligations apart from being individual. But, after all, I respect it when a narrative touches on topics we’re confronted with in actual life. I want it to be performed in a delicate method, and I dont assume you essentially must make a movie a few particular struggle or pandemic to say one thing about our world, about humankind, and the way we dwell collectively on this planet.
W&H: The movie trade has an extended historical past of underrepresenting individuals of shade on-screen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — adverse stereotypes. What actions do you assume must be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world extra inclusive?
MK: I’m for quotas, not as a result of they’re good, however as a result of nothing else works or modifications something. Filmmakers reproduce stereotypes on a regular basis, principally as a result of its the best method, not essentially as a result of it’s what they consider in. The viewers is used to stereotypes and is aware of the best way to learn them, whereas they’re nonetheless bowled over if, for instance, a feminine principal character isn’t an ideal mom or a 58-year-old with gray hair. We should educate and problem our personal perceptions first as a way to train the viewers and to alter these simplified photos all of us have in our heads.
