Roberts Rubins Director of "How Are You Doing, Rudolf Ming?"

Could you tell, in short, what the film is about, for those who haven’t seen it yet? It’s a multi-layered film, it talks about various things, but my initial idea was to create a sort of a therapy film for families. There are many kids with unusual hobbies. In Latvia, such kids are often told: “That’s wrong, don’t do this, don’t do that”. Parents do not always understand and support their kids. I wanted them to see this film and to encourage the kids more.

Is it easy to work with kids? Tell us a little bit about the shooting. I have worked with kids before – I made TV documentaries, one of them was about deaf children. When you work with kids, you need to treat them as equals and not play the role of the “serious old man” or a teacher, otherwise you shouldn’t expect good results. You need to let them explain you something, teach you something – in other words, let them be a little smarter than yourself. It’s also good to watch their communication with one another, notice the slang they use and try to act in a similar way. Kids need to feel they’re talking to a friend.

The main character of your documentary is used to being the director, not the actor – how quickly did he get used to being on the other side of the camera? We were preparing for the whole year before the actual shooting started – we got to know Rodolf, spent time together. We took some still pictures. The first time we brought a camera, we didn’t turn it on – we just let Rudolf tell us about his activities without shooting anything. We were lucky, because after two days of shooting he wouldn’t notice he was being filmed anymore.

How was the film received in Latvia? Before the premiere I was very nervous, I had no idea how people would react. But they reacted very well. You know, Rudolf speaks in a certain dialect and his choice of words is also extremely interesting – most Latvians don’t use them in everyday language. This aspect can only be noticed by the Latvian-speaking audience. The film was shown in Canada, South Korea, England, and everywhere the reactions from the public were different. But the most interesting reaction we got from school kids who came to see the film in Toronto. They laughed at different places than other audiences, and at the place where Rudolf finishes screening his film in the church, all the kids started clapping as if they’d seen a real movie – that’s how much they were into it. I never saw such reaction anywhere else. You could see how well the kids understood the main character.

By Albina Griniūtė