Matyas Prikler director of Thanks, Fine (Slovakia) - Cinéfondation

Was the movie shot outside of Slovakia? It was shot in Slovakia, but it is spoken both in Hungarian and Slovak. I’m half Slovakian and half Hungarian myself. It is normal for me, to be bilingual, to speak Hungarian at home and Slovak on the street. This is one reason, and the other is that when I chose the actors some of them were also Hungarians in Slovakia, so I think it’s normal for them to act in Hungarian. And it’s a mixed family here, in the film. The son and the daughter are Hungarian, but the son’s wife is Slovak and the children are Slovak so the languages are mixing.

So is this also a story of the relationships in this family based on ethnicity or did it just happen to be like this? I think that we are not “pushing” on this in the film.

Could you please describe your style as a director, what you consider particular in your way of making films. I don’t know yet. It is still a question for me too. But in this movie, we tried to be as authentic as possible. The film has some documentary moments… And as we wrote the script, we were just saying, with my friend, that we didn’t write a film, we just looked at what happened around us.

So your initial choice was to go for something realistic. Yes, we wanted to make a film about what is happening around us and we wanted it to have a documentary style. Actually we call it a “partisan film”. Because you have little money, you have a simple camera, simple means for the sound, and only 5-6 people in a crew…This is what we call it.

Is this current style that you want to keep as a director or are you planning to experience different things before deciding? I think it is always good to want to go from a point A to a point B. What I can tell you for now is that we are currently preparing my first feature film and style-wise it is going to be close to this short film. But it is also a question of production; we have to stay as cheap as possible.

Could you tell us some details about your upcoming feature? I don’t really like it when people talk about the projects they are preparing. For example I don’t want to know what other directors are working on; I prefer to discover it myself in the cinema. What I can tell you is that the feature is going to be made up of four stories, a sort of mosaic structure. But I had to finish school first and since I didn’t have a lot of money I only began with one part of the feature, which is this short film. In the beginning we were thinking not to show it, we just wanted to use it for the graduation exam and then continue it in the feature. But then I realized that this 40-minute piece worked as a film and since the school is the producer they can also send it to the festival. So the film started to live its own life.

Naturally every participant expects a prize. But do you also think that the whole experience of participating in the Cannes Festival and the media exposure it brings may help you in the future? I don’t know… I hope so! I think just being here is already a prize. It’s the first time that we are here and we don’t really know what to expect.

Did you see the other short films in the Cinéfondation competition? What do you think about the selection, as a whole? I don’t think the films can be compared because they are very different. Firstly, I think this is why they were selected, because each one has its own style. Secondly, I think they all are very honest, I didn’t find any of them fake just for the sake of the art. Third, I think it is very important that the directors are normal people. I have a friend, also a film director, who says that some people want to make films and other people want to be film directors. Those I refer to as normal people are the ones that want to make films.

What was your intention with Thanks, Fine? Are you just stating something, observing or are you trying to raise questions? It’s a difficult question… Mainly, when we were writing and preparing the film, our intention was to talk about the things happening around us. This is why the story could more or less be applied to different societies, different countries - not only Slovakia.

Why did you choose this title for the film? I find it ironic. Everybody asks “how are you” and they are often answered with “thanks, fine”, still you might never know what is behind this common phrase. Actually the only thing about the film that I am absolutely sure is right is the title (laughs).

The film goes at quite a slow pace: you use long shots and very little editing. Why did you choose this style and what kind of feeling did you want to trigger in the audience? I’m a slow person myself, so it felt natural for the movie to also be slow (laughs). In this movie the camera is some kind of observer, but not a voyeur. In terms of tempo it’s hard to justify, every movie has its own. I just found this kind of rhythm suitable for my film. Different team members had different opinions about the film’s length: the editor said it would be 25 minutes long, the screenwriter said 65, I said 35… But then the material decided by itself, dictating the right length.

By Mirona Nicola