Interview: Silver Lion Winner Konchalovsky presents horror of holocaust story

"A few years ago, I heard about a Russian countess who was hiding some Jewish children and then she was beheaded in Berlin," said Russian director Andrey Konchalovsky awarded silver lion ex-equo for best director at the Venice Film Festival 2016.

"Then I thought it was interesting to have a talking head because it becomes almost like a novel, then there is nothing more interesting then the human face if the person is not acting," Konchalovsky told Xinhua in an interview here on his film Paradise in competition at the film festival.

"Then if the person is lying it is also interesting," he added.

The Russian maestro won in the lagoon city the same prize just two years ago with "The Postman's White Nights", he was then screenwriter golden lion winner Ivan's Childhood in 1962. The film is mixing the journey of three different characters during the nazi-occupation talking about their human opposite experiences and motivation to cope with the horror of the conflict.

Questioned about the film process the Russian maestro explained that in general it takes years and the ideas can come from facts and from other directions creating slowly an amalgam of thoughts when all of a sudden you see the whole film in three seconds in your head.

He continued "After that, you spend six months to decide about what you have seen and a year to make the film holding in mind that precious three seconds, then he story is not important while the story teller is crucial."

Konchalovky explained that the characters were not acting but they were sharing some "imaginative" biography, what they say is not learned or studied, it is a fixation of an existence and not of way to say a monologue on camera.

"All of them got between five and 10 books to read about Auschwitz, the war, immigration and police then they came to the 'examination' and I started make questions. During the process I didn't take control on what they said but only a when I was cutting what they said," the director underlined.

Asked about why he shoot in black and white, the director stressed, "I think that 300 very thin Jewish people in a pyjama shot in color it looks like the opera of Giuseppe Verdi called 'Nabucco', it is terrible, it's the banalization of holocaust and of concentration camps."

"This film is about the nature of evil, then evil is around us, sometimes we love people doing terrible things and then we just suffer," the director said.

Konchalovky then expressed his opinion about the current conformism in cinema, he said " When I was a young filmmaker, I thought my shots were really good then after putting everything together I was not convinced. Now I'm more experienced to shoot a perfect film but it becomes very boring to me also because this sort of 'Hollywood bible' on how to shoot a film; this is the languages that everyone choose like the chewing gum."

"The result now is that in American movies the shot are very shorts because U.S. film making is action, they are short because every shot means anything except action," the director said.

About film tastes nowadays, Konchalovsky thinks art is for children in a good sense, a little boy just simply likes or dislikes a movie then there are children able to read and others only chew pop corns.

Films are not science but only pieces of emotions and it is difficult to evoke emotions, "I make a film I like but for me the challenge is that also you like it," he said.

The Russian maestro thinks then we didn't learn anything from the tragic history from the past.

"Bombing Libya, Iraq and Serbia for the sake of democracy and human rights it is very appalling," said the director.

Disclosing about his future plans, "I'm working on a movie about Michelangelo in Italy and I will take actors from the street," the director said. Endit