All in the family

After screening their debut October in Un Certain Regard last year, they make their comeback to Cannes this year with their new project El Mudo selected at the Atelier section of the Festival. There, they are hoping to secure enough funding for it to be a film as sensitive and successful as October. “Filmmakers always work in pairs: either as a director and a producer or as a director and a scriptwriter. You need someone to exchange ideas with”, leisurely continues Diego on their creative process. “Organized and disorganized periods are alternating when we are evolving a concept. But that is just natural. In a disorganized state of mind, you still work: your mind is just wandering to get fuelled for the organized periods. In the case of El Mudo, it was Daniel who came up with the idea to construct a context around the anecdote, and then he wrote the first draft of the script. Then, I added my ideas, and he wrote the second one. We never have fights, we can operate together very smoothly”, adds Daniel.

Having more than one talented person in a family is not like a white raven. And family members who share the same artistic infatuation do not come as a surprise either. The movie industry proves well that siblings might work together creatively and productively share their talent and obsession. From the Coen brothers through the Bruni and Rohrwacher sisters to the Wachowsky, Vega and Dardenne brothers, the movie industry is teeming with creative pairs of siblings.

Creation can be the culmination of self-realization. If it is shared with a close partner – like a family member – the culmination can even reach uncharted intellectual and spiritual heights. This is clearly shown in the success of high-achieving brothers and sisters in the movie industry, both inside and outside the Hollywood studio system.

Though treading their own successful paths separately, both Bruni sisters made it to Cannes’ red carpet. In 2007, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi won the Un Certain Regard Prix Spécial du Jury with her directorial outing Actresses. This year, her younger sister, Carla Bruni appeared in the festival curtain raiser Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen.

One half of another pair of creative sisters is going to make her voice heard at the Festival. Sister of actress Alba, who was a Berlinale Shooting Star two years ago, Alice Rohrwacher, who first made her name through the award-winning documentary Un piccolo spettacolo, will bring her feature debut Corpo Celeste at the Directors’ Fortnight.

Probably the most acclaimed creative siblings to enter this year’s Festival are the Belgian brothers Dardenne, whose impressive track record of awards in Cannes includes two Palmes d’Or, and several more thanks to modern classics like The Promise, Rosetta, The Child, and The Silence of Lorna.

What is so stunning about Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s moral fables is how insightfully they portray their characters only through actions without divagating in banal chitchats about petit feelings and thoughts. In their films, brutally disturbing acts and deeds are presented through the most understated and natural style, with an undercurrent of boiling intensity. These two self-effacing directors, without any obvious narcissism – which is so rare amongst artists – possess the only real and honest naivety: it is one that does not come from the ignorance of a child or from the pretence of infantile grown-ups, but from the conscious choice and decision of true-hearted adults. The Dardennes believe in moral justice, and while their heroes often fail within the current system of values in our society, they morally triumph.

A lot of talking through and ideas bouncing off from one to the other is maybe a key element in all joint creative processes, especially in filmmaking - although there might be some main culprits, responsible for the basic ideas. “If a producer fell in love with Daniel’s idea, and Daniel wanted to make his movie alone, I would let him go. There will be no feeling of betrayal though” says Diego Vega. So, creating together is definitely not about envious attachment, meant to hinder one’s own individual chances. Go, brothers and sisters, go!

by Eva Kincsei