Ellen Kuras

“Images are so powerful. And all films are propaganda”, says Kuras in a husky voice in one of Amsterdam’s many lobbies, while explaining what drew her into filmmaking. She is certainly opinionated and knows the line of work she’s in. “All films are propaganda because the filmmakers want to make you believe in their story”.

With her unique style in bringing images to life, if she is making propaganda then it’s done very subtly. This is also the case with her directorial debut The Betrayal- Nerakhoon, which she’s promoting at IDFA. The film, a personal story of a Laotian family torn asunder, is a metaphor on a grander scale for Kuras – especially in the current context of the war in Iraq, which she says warily “might not be the best thing for Iraqi people”.

Kuras might be a rookie in directing, but her experience as a cinematographer is awe-inspiring. The Indie Queen of cinematography (two time winner of the Sundance Best Cinematography award) continues to mix documentary filmmaking with working on fiction features and has worked on a few studio films. She juggles a lot; this year, in order to finish The Betrayal, which she started filming 23 years ago when she was still an aspiring filmmaker, she had to hire a producer to sort out her busy schedule. In the end, it was worth it: The Betrayal opened in New York this weekend and is currently screened at IDFA.

“I wanted to find a place where the narrative film, poetry and documentary merge”, says Kuras. Her multi-layered piece shows betrayals of various dimensions; the betrayal of one country by another - such as the USA forsaking Laos, the personal betrayal when mother of the protagonist and co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath leaves her daughters, escaping from Laos, and when the father - who was thought to be dead, finds the family again in the US.

Kuras has shot herself a lot of the “memory footage” –as she calls it, which makes the film poetic. There are sequences of images which have been described as “phantasmagoric”. Kuras is known for her lyrical film language; her style can easily be detected in Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind, or in Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls, for which she was awarded at Sundance.

When I ask her about her involvement in music documentaries she responds with an honest laugh, and says “I love music!” This might seem an obvious statement, but one must remember the kind of music Kuras is talking about. “Bob Dylan requested me to shoot his interview. That’s huge. Huge!” she tells me with excitement about her experience with Martin Scorcese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. Musicians as well as directors have come to respect her work, and maybe that’s exactly why she has the freedom to do only projects she absolutely believes in.

Amongst those who believe in her and the supreme quality of her camera work, she recalls how supportive Neil Young was during the filming of Neil Young: Heart of Gold. He told her that if he took care of the sound and she took care of the images, everything would be more than fine. Not a lot of people can say that.

“Music and film is analogous, we go in a different place with it”, says Kuras, who has blended these two things perfectly in her own film The Betrayal. The film is complete only when seen on the big screen, when you can get the full effect of the music and the dreamy sequences of the protagonist swimming across the river.

Ellen Kuras hopes that her film will take people into a not-so-long-ago history that we, and especially the Americans, have brushed aside. For her it is really important to deliver a message; she feels obliged to comment on current events in the world that have made humanity diverge from its roots. A lover of poetry, Kuras has left many metaphors in this film. All we must do now is find them.

Lura Limani