Miroslav Janek Masterclass at M7
No doubt, the biggest applause of the festival went for Miroslav Janek on the fifth day of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade. His film ”Normal Autistic Film”, made with a warm heart by the Czech veteran, cameraman and director, and for many years also editor, a job he now leaves to his wife Tonicka, demonstrates how strong relations he is able to build with children. Before with ”Unseen” (1996) and ”Kha-chee-pae” (2005) and now with this work on five clever and creative children with aspergers syndrom.
I believe that the biggest part of documentary filmmaking is NOT shooting, Janek said in the masterclass the day after the screening of the film. He referred to how he dealt with the kids. ”I went to visit them and maybe I shot one hour with them during a day. The rest
of the time we were together”. Janek was shooting over a period of two years with one year of prep including talks with people/experts in aspergers syndrom. All together he spent 7-10 days with each of the five kids, with whom he is still in contact.
You get the impression that Janek very much – as a true documentarian – works according to intuition. ”I am the happiest guy if I come home with 15-20 minutes and I know there is a scene or some shots that I can use”. ”I just let it up to life”.
”With this film I stayed 5 weeks in the editing room because I liked the material so much. But then I gave it all to the editor, Tonicka, who is my wife, together with a book where everything shot has been noted and characterised. It is Tonicka, who finds the film. And then 2 ½ month passes and what happens… one day she can bring a scene and ask ”is this what you want?””.
Janek talked about making trailers. First he was sceptical but when he had done it with Tonicka a couple of times, for this film and for ”Olga”, the great film about Havel’s first wife, he found out that the process itself clarifies and leads you to the film.
Openings… so important he said and showed the one for ”Unseen”, which is excellent as well as the one for ”Kha-chee-pae”.
… and there were talks about the five kids: Lukas, Denis, Hamid, Marjam, Majda – and moderator Zoran Popovic wanted to know the favourite of the workshoppers. Seems like all of them were loved. Of course!
