Aramisova Director of Cagey Tigers

Aramisova is young

He orders an orange juice and we begin. How old is he? You cannot tell from his looks. Born in 1973, the student/director is a little too old to be only in the third year of his studies at Prague’s FAMU (Czech Republic), where he works under the supervision of Jasmina Blazevic and Vera Chytilova. Yet even though he is one of the older students, his mind is very young, and not only when it comes to making films. On the other hand it seems that his maturity may be responsible for the festival success he has had. Before becoming a director, Aramisova founded and supervised a magazine about art. The magazine has no words, only pictures. When I ask why, he replies: “I think it’s boring for people to read some artistic article and it is only for a little group of people.” That is what he is trying to avoid in his movies as well.

Aramisova is Slovak

Our interview is interrupted by another interview Aramisova has arranged. It’s a little surprising. He has another orange juice. Besides his Slovak origin and his studies in the Czech Republic, Aramisova is an international person. The actors in his movie Cagey Tigers speak partly in Slovak and partly in English. One of the actresses who stars in the role of Elvis is American. “I have a friend from America (Lynne Siefert) and she wanted to be an actress. So I called her, and she came to Prague to shoot. The English language in the movie is unintentional, but she doesn’t speak Slovak, so there was no other way to do it. Otherwise it would be in Slovak. But I love the effect”, he explains. Another actor, who plays the role of Ganz (Marsel Onisko), is Ukrainian. And the last one Alena (Alena Ninajova) is Slovak. None of the people starring in the movie are professional actors. They are all Aramisova’s friends. This has an even bigger effect on the personal view of the director.

Aramisova is Cagey Tigers

He runs out of juice. Cagey Tigers was graded with a “C” at FAMU. It doesn’t necessarily mean it is not good. But it can still get better. Relationships in everyday reality are what the young director is interested in. He also explored them in his first and second movies, and plans to do so in the future. As he says: “I am not interested in fantasy movies. I just look at the ordinary”. Realism is very important for him, not only in the script but in the visuals as well. The film was shot with a 16mm hand-held camera. “You always have to adjust to the situation that is there. It is very frequent that I change the shot because of something I could not imagine. I am not stubborn about this. I am just trying to make it work”, he affirms. Aramisova told me about his film that: “Cagey Tigers is about a friendship between two girls. But there is an anomaly. The girls share their ideas, have the same cultural background and this brings them together. But once they start to like the same person a conflict starts.”

Aramisova is not Aramisova

There is something mysterious about him. Aramisova is not his real name. But everyone calls him this. It was quite hard to find any information about him on the web before he got nominated for Cannes. “I think it is great that the author is hiding behind his work”, he claims. Despite this, it is not hard to get to know Aramisova - he is one of the people everybody wants to talk to.

After finishing the interview we spend a few more hours together enjoying a talk. After that we have a shot of ‘borovicka’ (a strong Slovak drink) and go for the same night train from Bratislava towards the East of Slovakia.

by L’uboš Bišto