A. <\/em>Mostly because of logistical reasons. The film takes place in 1915, in southeastern Turkey, very close to today\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Syria, actually. And I needed a lot of old trains, historical trains, like the ones from the Baghdad Railway that Germans were building through the Turkish Empire in those days. You find those trains and those landscapes in Jordan.<\/p>\nQ. But you also filmed parts of \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The Cut\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d in Germany, Cuba, Canada, Malta. <\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s a road movie. The plot is about a father looking for his lost children. The Armenian genocide wasn\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t only about violence, it was also about forced migration, the spreading around the world of these people, from Anatolia to Port Said, Egypt; to Havana; to Canada; to California; to Hong Kong.<\/p>\nQ. To what extent was this story based on the life of a real person?<\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>I did a lot of research while I was writing this and I discovered diaries of Armenians who went to Havana in their early 20s. Oral histories and literature about the death camps and the death marches. I collected a lot of very rich portraits of witnesses and tried to sew them together.<\/p>\nQ. You\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7ve described the film as a kind of western. <\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>Yes. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The Cut\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d is not just a film about the material, it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s about my personal journey through cinema, and the directors who I admire and who influence my work. Elia Kazan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093America America\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d is a very important influence. So is the work of Sergio Leone, how he used framing. It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s also an homage somehow to Scorsese. I wrote this film with Mardik Martin, Martin Scorsese\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s very early scriptwriter who wrote \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Mean Streets\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d and the first draft of \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Raging Bull.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Because he was Armenian, I discovered him on this project, and he helped me write it. And we spoke a lot about obsessional characters in Scorsese films.<\/p>\nThe film deals also a lot with my admiration for Bertolucci, and Italian westerns and how Eastwood adapted Italian westerns. And the way we try to catch the light, always having it behind us, is very inspired by the work of Terrence Malick. So this film is very much in the Atlantic ocean, somewhere near the Azores \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d for a European film it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s too American, for an American film it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s too European.<\/p>\n
Q. Why do the Turkish characters in your film speak Turkish while the Armenians speak English? <\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>The main reason is that if I wanted to control the film, I had to control the dialogue. And I don\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t speak Armenian at all. There are a lot of examples in the history of cinema. Bertolucci shot \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The Last Emperor\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d with the Chinese speaking English. I used the concept that Polanski used in \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The Pianist,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d where he made all the Polish characters speak English and the Germans speak German, making English a language of identification. It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s a clear concept, but it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s surprising for some people because they\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7re used to my films in German and Turkish. But this film is more about the whole world. It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s not set in a minimalistic frame.<\/p>\nQ. How was working with Tahar Rahim? <\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093A Prophet\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d made a huge impact on me, it was great film \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d a masterpiece. And 90 percent of the quality of the film came from Tahar Rahim. When we met, there were a lot of things that we shared. We had relevant backgrounds \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d he had grown up in France with an Arab background, and I had grown up in Germany with a Turkish background.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Q. Are you excited or nervous about the debut of your film at Venice? <\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>I\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7m nervous and excited. I spent too much time on it \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009d usually you spend two years with a film, but on this film I spent seven years, the last four years I was working every day. Yes, I\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7m nervous.<\/p>\nQ. \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093The Cut\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d was initially headed to the Cannes Film Festival but you pulled the movie at the last minute, citing \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093personal reasons.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d What happened? <\/em><\/p>\nA. <\/em>We showed the film to Cannes and Venice at the same time. The reaction of Venice was very enthusiastic and Cannes was a bit much more careful, like they always are. So I was nervous, and I followed my instincts. But I couldn\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t talk about my decision in the press because Venice asked me to wait until they made their own announcement. The people in Cannes never rejected the film but I had the feeling that it wasn\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t what they expected from me. Because it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s historical, because it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s in English, it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s not minimalistic, I\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7m not sure. But I cannot fulfill other people\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s expectations. I have to fulfill my own.<\/p>\n