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At the 48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival in the north of Greece, the moderator for a "DIY" Masterclass with Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes The Stairs) and Ry Russo-Young (Orphans, in competition here) begins precisely with the dread "M" word, which the pair ably dismiss. The clip above starts Dogme 95-ish because of the lighting setup in the John Cassavetes Theater, but the lighting by video cameramen and an intervening volley of flashes yield an unexpected paparazzi effect.

Later in the two-hour program Swanberg shows an eight-minute scene from his unfinished fourth feature, Nights and Weekends, which should be done in early 2008; it's the first time it's been shown to "anyone but my producers." The clip's badinage between a couple (Swanberg, Greta Gerwig) in a long-distance relationship between Chicago and New York would be eye-opening if only for a deepening and widening of the ineffable Gerwig's twerptitude of magnitude. It promises to be a major advance for the prolific 26-year old director. Gerwig's character has a stifled fit in a downpour in front of the most-photographed attraction in Chicago's half-billion dollar Millennium Park, Anish Kapoor's huge fat silver polished reflective sculpture, "Sky Gate," better-known as "The Bean." (The city claims copyright on every step or breath in the park's confines, so it's sweet to see guerilla footage of the wrongly-corraled public space.) Rain mingles with tears as Gerwig battles Swanberg with the lovely, selfish, tantrum-tastic line, "I don't respond to sarcastic fun!" (Oh, to already recall the highlights of 2008...)

Swanberg brought the beat-up DV camera he used to shoot his first three features and his three-season web series Young American Bodies, along with his mike and boom pole: here's all you need, folks. (He'd just come from the festival in Stockholm, so this show-and-tell has taken more than the average amount of effort.) "You take the things you don't like and don't do them," he tells the almost-filled 11am masterclass, comprised largely of students. "I don't like writing scripts, so I don't. I don't like working with actors, so I don't. I work with my friends." What does that make you, someone asks. "Lazy and selfish," Swanberg says, grinning. "I do the least amount of work and get the most from it. I'm just interested in people. I'm not interested in camera movement and lighting and the things we customarily consider 'cinema.' I'm interested in getting close to people. It's what I think about all day long, relationships. I'm trying to make nature films [but] about people. These films are a way for me to connect to people. It allows me to get the closest but it also puts me in the danger zone emotionally. I'm trusting them and they're trusting me in a really real way. If I found another art form that let me get close to people, I think I would do that."

Swanberg's productions offer the "a film by" credit to almost everyone involved, which belies the "selfish" claim. "I'm more interested the group's ideas. I like surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me and more talented than me, then I steal from them." But what do you call yourself, someone else asks, is directing your profession? "It's not quite my profession yet. Almost, maybe. Over the last year I've been able to make most of my money from filmmaking but also I still will do web design work. And also some stuff that's not my own filmmaking, like behind-the-scenes documentaries about other films. I'm more interested in making the films than making money... which is why I don't have any money! There is something about not having the comfort of money that produces a different attitude toward the filmmaking. I like that. People want to be there, they don't have to be there."

The questioning is persistent. Irony doesn't stick to this audience. But why do you call yourself lazy? "I'm constantly battling against my laziness. I still have this personality that if I had any excuse to make the films, I wouldn't. Every morning when I wake up, I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to. I get enough people involved so that I feel like I have to do it, because I've involved someone else. I buy people tickets to come to Chicago [and start a production schedule]. Otherwise I would just sit there all day and watch YouTube videos." Russo-Young has her stories, too, but it's Swanberg who ends the session, shooing the crowd, "So. Go make something. Now. Tomorrow." Again, the grin.

# posted by Ray Pride @ 11/23/2007 10:14:00 AM

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# posted by  williams @ 12/13/2007 9:26 AM  

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