Pietro Marcello Director of Il Silenzio di Pelešjan

Where did the desire to make a film about Pelešjan come from?

In terms of editing, Pelešjan had always been a point of reference for me. Clearly not the only one, but amongst the most important filmmakers, the ones I love the most. He didn’t make so many films, but the ones he did make expressed all the strength and energy that turns around the movement of cinema.

In what way for you does he represent a singular element in the history of Soviet cinema?

He is Armenian, but he settled in Russia, and his training [at the VGIK film school in Moscow] was Soviet, Russian… The auteurs that he studied were Russian, such as Dziga Vertov. One can say that in the cinema of Pelešjan there is a kind of fusion between two theories of cinema: the one of Eisenstein and the other of Vertov… He always worked with meagre materials, recycled footage. Everything is created in the editing.

Others have wanted to film Pelešjan and failed in the past. How did you experience this unique encounter, and what was the rhythm of working during the shoot?

For me this was a study film, it wasn’t tiring. I always had a fascination with Russian cinema, and this process allowed me to go deeper into certain themes. It was a very pleasant experience, enjoyable and stimulating… a kind of recreation. Even if at some points Artavazd was not the easiest man, it was a beautiful thing. In the end I spent two or three weeks with Pelešjan, no more than that. We weren’t filming every day, and most days when we did shoot it was 3, 5, 10 minutes maximum. He was the one who decided – he doesn’t suggest, what he says goes.

In what way was the aesthetic style of your film an homage to Pelešjan, especially in terms of the editing?

For me, and for the editor Sara Fgaier, it was a fun process: there was no pretension to put a certain style on it. The film became a kind of hybrid. It’s a film made to accompany Pelešjan’s work. What interested me, maybe even in a naïve way, was to recount a small piece of the history of cinema. As a director he taught me a lot of things. There was no aspiration to make a film in the classical meaning of the word. The desire was to show the silence which for him was a choice – there’s probably no other film which portrays a director who doesn’t speak. The gamble was exactly this, and I liked it. There is a voice-over which explains a little. It was necessary, even if for me it could have been great to not have it – because not everybody knows about Pelešjan. I believe that he has an incredible energy, and the reason he didn’t make more films could have been because of his vision of the world, or his character, or the fact that it hadn’t been easy for him, growing up during an era in which it was difficult to make cinema.

We made something in a very playful form, very joyous. I did it for the love of his cinema. Yesterday [during the press conference] it was emotional for me to see him standing up amongst the people, because he was heard.

By Jude Lister