How did this project come about?

I went to the Jardin de Plantes for a normal visit. I watched the orang-utans for an hour and a half and listened to what the other visitors were saying. Then the idea sparked spontaneously. I knew straight away that I was not going to make a film about orang-utans in general, but that I would just focus on Nénette. I don’t know exactly why, but it might have been the fact that she was the only one out of the four orang-utans sharing the cage that was born in the wild. And I could feel that; she was more distant than the others and she preferred to stay away from the glass, as if she was keeping something to herself.

How many hours did you spend filming Nénette?

Sometimes we were shooting in the morning, sometimes in the evening, some others from day until night - even after the closing hours. Overall the filming lasted for ten days.

Where there any unusual moments you experienced yourself in your encounter with the animal, which were not visible or tangible on camera?

My objective was not to look for something that was invisible to the visitors. That is why I shot the film from their perspective. I didn’t try to film from the other side for example, or from inside the cage - they wouldn’t allow me anyway, as those animals can get quite wild. Therefore, there was no secret to be revealed. I wanted the viewers to be face to face with the subject. And the film is ultimately about voyeurism. It serves as a metaphor for the nature of cinema; as people project their own perceptions on Nénette, they do the same when watching a film.

Pongo Pygmaeus, orang-utan, age forty.

Nénette is a captured animal in the zoo, but she is also been ‘captured’ by my camera. (You know in French the words capture and record are words of the same origin). I have to admit that, we - documentary filmmakers - are stealing life. We are thieves. So if you are going to steal something, then you’d better do it with elegance.

What struck me in the way you shot Nénette, was the fact that you focused exclusively on the animal, making the visitors’ present only through the background score of the film. This created an antithesis with Nénette’s expressions, against the various reactions and comments from the public. As you said, Nénette eventually becomes a mirror of humanity when "people project their own perceptions on to her". What is your perception of Nenette, or should I say your reflection onto her?

Yes, I do think the film is more about us rather than Nénette. I do not consider Nénette an animal documentary, but rather a film about people. When all the visitors are talking to Nénette or talking about her, they are talking to themselves. It’s interesting how people come to the zoo, and head to the ‘Ape House’ to have a laugh. After ten minutes though, you will notice that they turn silent. As the animals return their gazes, they recognise something of themselves. And the consciousness of this makes them uneasy. In the end, the question that arises is ‘who is starting at whom?’

The strongest moment in the film for me was when one of the commentators said how cute we find animals when we have power over them, though we are terrified by the mere idea of being around them if they were to be freed. Isn’t this a voyeuristic pleasure zoos create, when they allow us to dominate over animals, especially when we are clearly lacking a genuine interest in discovering them through their natural environments?

Yes, that’s true.

Well, I suppose that we are not familiar with the wild, as we weren’t born in the forests…

I was!

Are we a civilised version of those animals?

Are we? I am not entirely convinced!

What about zoological parks? Has your perception of those institutions changed since the making of the film?

There is a paradox. Wild animals are becoming extinct. They say that in twenty or fifty years the orang-utans won’t exist anymore, because we are destroying the primary forest in Borneo (where they normally live). In the end, they are better protected in the zoo – however sad this environment can be - rather than in the wild.

The film for me also addresses the weariness routine can cause. We see Nénette entrapped in a repetitive daily regime, but we humans also have periods of idleness, striving to break out. Have you ever been trapped in repetition? Are you someone who enjoys or fears routine?

I believe that even if we are free, living in democratic societies, we are still trapped with things: our past, our social relationships…We do not live in the wild, and in order to live together we need to suppress our primitive instincts. Personally, my life has no routine, as it entails the making of films. I direct the films I want to direct, so there is never a routine. As for Nénette, she is not depressed. Or at least that’s what her care-taker says. If she was depressed she would refuse to eat and do all other sort of things. It’s striking that when the zoo was closed down for renovation, the animals became depressed; there were no visitors around them.

In your films you ask questions about life and about the human condition. Do you feel you’ve gained more knowledge about the issues you’ve studied once the film is done?

I think the more I progress and the more things I learn, the more questions arise. In the end, there is no answer. Sometimes I make a film because I want to understand the reasons why I initially wanted to make it. And after I finish a film, new question appear. Then I need to make a new one to answer them!

So what will the next project be as an answer to Nénette?

My next project is set in a radio house, in Paris. It is a circular building where all national radios are gathered. It is also a place that resists images. We live in the dictatorship of the image and we are constantly kept under surveillance. See Google Earth for example; there are places in the planet where we haven’t been, but we can now zoom into them. The radio escapes this. I love it because it nurtures your imagination. I want this next project to be a film without filming.

Paradox?

I love paradoxes. And I love the invisible. Cinema deals with the invisible. It is the opposite of television, which is the realm of transparency. But cinema plays with the things you do not see, using light and shadows, so we ourselves have to invent what we see.

Eftihia Stefanidi