Storydoc Session in Corfu/ 3
Stan Neumann inspired on the second morning at the Storydoc session in Corfu. The French editor and director, born in Czekoslovakia, had been given the task to urge the filmmakers to think about form and not only content. Form, he said, is ”the face of the film”, the way the content appears to the viewer. Make it skrink, have big things become small, you are creating an imaginary object, said Neumann, who was a master with his formulations and who showed pedagogically what he meant with examples from own work, first of all from the debut as a director, (after decades as an editor), ”Paris, Roman d’un ville” (1989). Form is always about taking some things away, explore reality and find your own place in it. With his masterpiece, ”A House in Prague”, he found out that there was no formal key to the film, he had to find other solutions. The point of making films… to make people remember a little longer than a tv programme.
It is easy to understand why Thierry Garrel, former head of arte france documentary unit, always mentioned Neumann as a very important documentary director. And a very good tutor, one could add. In Corfu he shared his competence in a strong team with Greek director Eva Stefani, a master in short, personally formed documentaries. It was said by both of them that their tutoring had been one long creative battle in words.
