Virunga (2014) Q&A with director Orlando von Einsiedel
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
22 October (updated 24 October, and link added to @virungamovie's Facebook Q&A)
* Inevitably, contains 'spoilers' (if you can have them with a documentary...) *
Virunga (2014) Q&A with director Orlando von Einsiedel
An account of when Virunga (2014) came to The Arts Picturehouse (@CamPicturehouse) for a Q&A with its director Orlando von Einsiedel, hosted by your very own Agent Apsley (@THEAGENTAPSLEY), on Sunday 12 October 2014
Looking forward, now that I have the right Vimeo link, @jojonata @BarbSaferWales, to hosting the @virungamovie Q&A at @CamPicturehouse !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 6, 2014
Prologue
To get a better idea of the appearance of the film (than, otherwise, on a simple 15.6” laptop screen), the Marketing Manager of The Arts Picturehouse (APH / @CamPicturehouse) cudgelled his 50” Internet-connected t.v. into displaying it (via that private Vimeo link) so that The Agent and he could watch in preparation.
Then, for various reasons (not worth going into), the copy of Virunga (2014) that needed to be screened had to come by the agency of Orlando von Einsiedel, its director, when he arrived on Sunday afternoon… Yet, thanks to the skill and dedication of APH’s wizard / chief projectionist, Joe Delaney, this impediment in no way stopped the film looking stunning in Screen 3 (at Festival Central) in a very short time !
@THEAGENTAPSLEY of course! @virungamovie @gorillacd blows any H'wood thriller out of the water, rangers, filmmakers Emmanuel are my heroes!
— Claudia Fucigna(@yoclaudini) October 9, 2014
As will be seen, there had been some build-up on Splatter, which may have helped account for a very pleasing turn-out at APH, not least for a Sunday matinee.
Introductory matter
After a convoluted greeting, involving how the audience had forsaken the outside to come inside to see more of the outside, we started with a mention of other recent films to consider, also either set in or relating to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and three of which had screened at Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest / #CamFF) :
* Blood in the Mobile (2010)
* War Witch (2012) (it won the audience award in 2012 for best feature film)
* Black Africa, White Marble (2012) (which was the winner of the audience award in 2013 for best documentary)
* Sixteen (2013) (seen at Bath Film Festival* (since when, pleasingly, more than 100 page-views))
There was, just as importantly, an exhortation – since, as was stressed, we were watching a film in a cinema – to look at it for its cinematic qualities, and to ask questions on those first (before turning to substance or content). In other words, aspects such as feel, look, editing / cutting, camerawork, music ahead of what Virunga is about…
If for no better reason than that many a documentary’s Q&A can be prone to rush away with discussing whether what the film ‘presents to us’ is right or wrong**, rather than considering how it conveys its messages – as a product in the often highly constructed medium of film. (One recent example (at APH) was that for Return to Homs (2013), which skatingly considered this question in the host’s initial enquiries, but scarcely went near it again [whereas The Agent, for one, thought it a highly relevant one].)
Getting back to that Tweet about Hollywood now, the way in which the film builds on – and has the appearance of – a film drama had partly been where the injunction to look at the elements of its construction started. As a friend, who had been at the screening, later said :
I thought it was helpful getting people to think about ‘form’ before watching, as the content was so emotive.
[£10 to him for saying that !]
In fact, that motive had not been consciously identified as a reason for approaching the Q&A in this way, but – as it is usually part of film-making to set out ‘to say something’ – it had certainly been inherent : a matter of not getting carried away with the What before considering the How – and the Why.
Opening business
Over the closing titles, the song ‘We Will Not Go’ (music and lyrics by J. Ralph) is reprised, which is excellently performed by Salif Keita, Youssou Ndour and Fally Ipupa (along with, according to IMDb, J. Ralph ?) :
The opening question – directed to the audience, not to Orlando (but with his agreement, as the song had only recently been recorded) – was whether they had liked it, and they indicated that they had. (As to the other films, when this was next checked, only a couple of people had seen them in each case.)
Orlando was then keenly welcomed back to the front, and began by outlining how he had come to make the film (his first of feature length), essentially summed up in this quotation (taken from IMDb, and whose latter part was quoted later in the Q&A) :
The thrust of the project was to try to tell the story of the rebirth of the eastern Congo because there'd been a period of stability for a few years, and I came across the story of the park's brave rangers. And I thought their story was a sort of metaphor for the wider rebirth of the region. Within a few weeks this new civil war started, and I found out about the oil discovery. So I ended up making a very different film.
As Orlando came on to tell us, he had been aware of those films from Congo (which had come to Cambridge at Film Festival time), and had wanted to be able to say something different about the country and its situation. Yet, as he went on to say, just as the process of making / editing a film changes what it is or could be (please see next paragraph), so had events since they had arrived on the ground in 2012.
Form
As to style, Orlando was asked first about ‘the history of suppression and exploitation’ (a description with which he had agreed), which is succinctly summarized in footage and facts that are presented near the start of Virunga***. We learnt that the summary had not always been part of the film, but that it had been found essential, because, without it, people later proved not to be following what was going on.
The tick-over of that summary, with its teleprinter-style captions / titles, seems to set the pace and feel for the film, so Orlando was asked whether that aspect of how it looked had always been part of the conception of how it would appear, or only arrived at in editing. (Before the Q&A, it had been established that it was quite consciously a form of presentation that one might see, say, in the Bourne films.)
If you don't watch documentaries, @virungamovie has all the pace, punch and intrigue of a spy film - except about the real @gorillacd's fate
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 9, 2014
Orlando explained that there had been a desire to maintain interest, so that people would be engaged to watch, and that a drama editor [Masahiro Hirakubo] had especially been brought in to work on this aspect (although Orlando did not specify at what stage, or at exactly whose behest).
He agreed with the proposition that what we feel is rooted in what we see through four people – the two rangers of Virunga National Park (André [Bauma] and Rodrigue [Mugaruka]), its chief warden (Emmanuel de Merode), and the foreign journalist (Mélanie [Gouby]), who had already been on the ground for eighteen months – and that the crew had taken time to acclimatize to the developing situation, both with the British-registered oil company SOCO and the rebels of M23.
The Agent’s comment was that the interviews and other footage with the four principals seemed to have been shot in a plain, unforced way. Orlando also remarked on the remarkable work and person of André, acting as parent to the orphaned gorillas cared for at the centre at Rumangabo, and how André’s character had endeared him to those who met him through the film at screenings [such as at Tribeca Film Festival, as pictured at IMDb].
A woman in the audience commented that she liked the music (scored by Patrick Jonsson) – asked if she could characterize it, she said that it suited the film. Then, no one (least of all Orlando) understood The Agent’s remark that there was a smudged quality to some of the music, which thereby failed to convey this [unvoiced] message : there is a sound used in the mix that makes the texture seem to be stretched / distorted**** (almost as if the natural world, and what it means, is being erased)…
Orlando, though, spared everyone's awkwardness by proceeding to talk briefly about other qualities in Jonsson's score, for example the fact that he had used a large variety of musical instruments, some of them indigenous to this part of Africa.
Content
Regarding the statements by SOCO included at the end, and the film’s closing slides about SOCO’s continuing activities, Orlando said that the public declaration made about SOCO’s intentions had been put in context by a leaked e-mail (to which he referred), which suggested that making the declaration had been out of expediency. (However, he did not quote from the e-mail directly, or have its text to hand.)
One questioner wanted to know why some of Mélanie’s covert filming had been re-created, to which Orlando replied that buttonhole cameras are very hard to direct and that it is not uncommon to end up with footage of tablecloth, which they had decided was best substituted, in this case, in the interest of not detracting from the accompanying audio. As he had already indicated before the Q&A started, he stated that they had provided equipment to Rodrigue and Mélanie to further the procurement of evidence that both Emmanuel and his team and she already desired to obtain.
Another questioner asked whether Emmanuel de Merode is, as claimed in the film by opponents of the interests of the park (and so of Emmanuel), a member of the Belgian royal family, to which Orlando answered that he is (in some minor way), but that he had been brought in because he was external to the existing situation in Congo.
Perhaps in the same way, The Agent suggested (in relation to Tony Benn : Will and Testament (2014)), Benn’s hereditary peerage had been used against him politically to question his qualification for speaking for the working classes. (In the film’s covert recording, we had seen a bribe given to Rodrigue, heard cynicism about whether the staff of the park could really care for the animals (rather than just holding out for a better offer before withdrawing protection of Virunga), and a racist attribution of a kind of blood-lust to the Congolese people.)
A number of people who attended clearly knew of the situation (or even Virunga National Park itself in one case), and some of them, and others, commented on it or the power of Virunga. The Agent referenced Anthony Baxter’s film A Dangerous Game (2014) (his follow-up to You’ve been Trumped (2011)), where Donald Trump is permitted to have a golf-course built on the Aberdeenshire coast (in the constituency of Alex Salmond MP), despite the fact that the dunes where it is situated constitute part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) :
Orlando expressed hope that the fact that Virunga is a World Heritage Site, and that the desired mining and drilling activities are unlawful under Congolese law, can be brought to bear, along with gathering attention through the film (please see below).
Closing matter
At the very close, Orlando gave several means by which people could support Virunga National Park (@gorillacd), including spreading news of their reaction to the film on social media, giving financially to the park (through the web-site), not divesting from portfolios with interests in oil companies, but putting pressure on SOCO through them, and by signing up for updates through the web-site at www.virungamovie.com.
Since the film is being distributed via Netflix from 7 November, one can only assume that it does not have links with the oil or mining business that it would compromise. It is to be noted that Leonardo DiCaprio is also on board with the film, listed as one of its (executive ?) producers.
Many who had not asked questions came to speak to Orlando in the short time before his taxi back to Cambridge station.
To any whose questions (and Orlando’s responses) have not been recollected here, many apologies – hosting a Q&A makes one have eyes to the time, where the next question will come from, and everything about the moment, and can militate against taking in too much, beyond in outline, of what is actually being said. But Tweet @THEAGENTAPSLEY, and that can be remedied by editing in the material !
Orlando has also been interviewed by scene creek
STOP PRESS : Now see the Facebook Q&A here
NB no responsibility of any kind is taken for the views expressed in, or content of, the wholly external web-page to which this is a link
End-notes
* A film that was made with the resources and other support of the film-school in Bath, and which concerns a former child-soldier (played by Roger Nsengiyumva), adopted and living in the UK (with Rachael Stirling’s character).
** Or, which are separate (if often connected) questions, whether the film-maker has rightly or wrongly represented ‘the facts’ and / or rightly or wrongly employed these very tools of the medium, e.g. colouring one’s impression of footage that was shot without audio by the use of music and / or sound-design…
*** Some aspects of the historical summary are disputed by a user on IMDb in a review there headed Beautiful and brave film spoilt by historical inaccuracies. Orlando had answered, when asked, that it had not been easy to decide, in terms of facts and footage, what to include.
**** An effect, in fact, used by composer Ant Neely in the score to Sloane U'Ren's and his Festival film Dimensions (2011).
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
