Host: The guiding principle of the Emigra festival is to showcase films made by Poles—those who are Polish or feel a connection to their Polish identity—or cinema about Poland made abroad. These are the kinds of films that enter our competition each year. For audiences in the East, for example, Ben's film is quite exotic, as we are about to see. It’s important to remember that we explore the theme of emigration all over the world. And now, I’d like to invite Ben up here for a moment. It’s not easy to make a film, and it's even harder to explain it. So let's start there.
Our jury consists of seven film professionals from around the world who still feel a connection to Poland. When we receive a film, the first thing we do is check if it meets our criteria. In the case of "Disconnected," an English-language film by Ricardo Gonzalez and Ben Talar, our first step was to find out if Ben Talar is Polish. So now, Ben Talar, please explain yourself. How did you end up in Berlin? I’m delighted that there are such interesting Poles in Berlin.
Ben Talar: Good evening. I hope you enjoyed the screening. The image quality after the conversion might not have been perfect, but I hope you were able to see and hear everything. I came to Berlin about two years ago and immediately started trying to connect with people who also make films. A friend told me she knew a guy from Venezuela who had come to Berlin from Spain, so he was a migrant as well. Since I had made a film in Krakow about migrants from Latin America about eight years ago, my friend wanted to connect us. Hence, "connected." We had a casual meeting over coffee and talked about films, Berlin, culture, and so on. A short time later, he sent me an email with an idea for a film. He didn't know anyone here but had a camera, so he suggested we could make it together. The idea was simple: "I'll film you, and you'll film me." We would figure out the rest as we went. I also liked how he laid out the concept on a single piece of paper and that it was something we could realistically shoot within the few days he had left on his vacation, as his return ticket was already booked. My biggest problem was finding the other two characters for the film. We tried various methods, but in the end, the actors were never on set together, which meant we had to connect their stories in post-production. After Dionisos, the tourist, had already left, we were contacted by Despina, a Greek actress who has since returned to Thessaloniki. She had previously performed at the opera here in Berlin and had fascinating acting experiences. So I think, in a way, she saved the film.
Host: And where are you from?
Ben Talar: I'm from Krakow, which is where I began my film career. Later, I moved to the "film city" of Warsaw, where many people from the industry are based, and I shot my next films there. However, when I was moving to Berlin, I assumed that my Polish-language films might not be popular here due to the language barrier. That’s why we planned for "Disconnected" to be more universal—that is, without dialogue—and to present niche, and perhaps a bit controversial, themes. That can be a problem, as not every festival is willing to tackle such subjects. The film hadn't been shown in Berlin before, but it had screenings in Venezuela, Greece, and France. A year ago, in May, it won an award at the online Sundance Channel festival, mostly thanks to votes from the audience in Latin America.
Host: I believe that art is about searching. This film is intriguing. What do you, as an artist, look for in cinema?
Ben Talar: In film, I look for challenges. Something interesting that allows me to reach the next level, to do new things, to learn something new from a craft perspective. When it comes to stories, I'm open to different themes and genres. In this case, I was curious about making a hybrid film, where I could combine archival materials from the public domain with a fictional narrative. I wanted to simultaneously show the history of a city that was very fresh and new to me at the time, and also create a parallel with the characters, who represent different personalities. Their paths cross, just like the paths of different nations, and these stories intertwine. Someone can be good one moment and bad the next. Perhaps I'm over-interpreting the film's content, but we were interested in a certain cyclical nature: depending on the political and social conditions, the same person can be perceived differently, and after moving to another country, they can play a completely different role.
Host: Listening to you, I'm even more convinced that this film is a perfect fit for our festival. But perhaps the audience has some questions?
Audience Member: I'd like to ask about the film's format. Is it a popular solution, or did it arise from the available technical possibilities?
Ben Talar: Are you referring to the panoramic format?
Audience Member: Yes, and the different images on the screen.
Ben Talar: That was something of a side effect. We wanted to combine archival and fictional materials while also saving on screen time by showing historical and narrative threads simultaneously. We decided to intensify the experience by mimicking the way people browse the internet—with multiple windows open at once, in multitasking mode. We wanted to show computer screens, archival photographs, and the characters all at the same time. To maintain an aesthetic balance and find the right proportions, the best solution was to add black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. That way, the compressed materials looked reasonably good. If we had used a standard 4:3 or 16:9 format, parts of the frame would have looked wrong, and some information would have been lost. So, it was also a stylistic choice in its own right.
Host: And do you plan to stay in Berlin, or is this a particular professional and personal stage for you?
Ben Talar: At the moment, it seems so.
Host: We'll see how long this moment lasts.
Ben Talar: But from what I've noticed, many people come here for a few years and then move on, just like the characters in the film. I lived in the Netherlands and Azerbaijan before, but Berlin seemed like a city where you find people from all over the world. You don't have to leave to meet people from Brazil, Venezuela, Ukraine, or China. It’s like a hotel for the world.
Audience Member: I have a question about the film. First, I'm curious who composed the music?
Ben Talar: The music was composed by Bogusław Salnikov, who is from Rzeszów and has been living in the Netherlands for five years. He mainly composes for rock projects but has scored three of my films. Our collaboration, in this case, was virtual.
Audience Member: And the collages seen in the film? Are they your work?
Ben Talar: The collages came from the apartment Ricardo was renting. They were made by a Greek artist who was originally supposed to play the female lead, but she was out of Berlin while we were filming. Since her art gave the apartment the feel of a gallery, we wanted to feature her work in the film as a way of thanking her for letting us shoot there.
Host: How soon after arriving in Berlin did you make this film?
Ben Talar: I met Ricardo during my first month here, and we started filming after just four or five weeks.
Host: You didn't have this idea before? Was it Berlin that inspired you?
Ben Talar: The idea came from Ricardo. After our coffee meeting, he was wrestling with the concept for a few days and finally decided that the two of us could probably get it done before his vacation ended. So we worked very quickly, a bit guerrilla-style, pretending to be tourists so we could set up the camera on a tripod without being chased away by the authorities.
Host: But you touched upon many themes that are often only familiar to people who have lived here for decades. Did you have a consultant for the film who helped you with the selection of the archival material?
Ben Talar: Regarding the archival materials on Berlin's history, the idea to use them came up when Ricardo was working on a film for the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. He was editing archival footage from his presidency for a propaganda piece. He wanted to repeat that technique, but this time with complete artistic freedom, here in Berlin. As for me, I studied political science and worked as a journalist, and the history of Germany—especially Berlin, divided by the Wall—had always fascinated me. I wanted to understand the identity of this mixed community. We initially wanted to cover a round one hundred years, but there were too many topics. So we took a journey through World War I and II, the complex relations between Israel and Palestine, and the role of America. We also wanted to explore where this cultural and political conflict might be headed. That's why President Obama appears as a counterpoint. At the time of filming, the city was full of flyers about asylum for Edward Snowden, who had just exposed the NSA spying scandal involving Angela Merkel. We wanted to highlight that specific moment in time, which is why we digitally inserted those flyers into a few other shots where they weren't originally on set.
Host: Thank you very much. A round of applause for Ben, please.
Ben Talar: Thank you.
Host: We're looking forward to the next film.
