Tilda Swinton is one of the few actresses valued by both popular movie fans and audiences looking for authenticity. Her roles are infinitely different: experimenting with her appearance, age, voice and even gender, this actress can become completely unrecognizable.
She is the White Witch in "The Chronicles of Narnia", and the intellectual vampire in Jim Jarmusch's film, and the actress who created the main female and male roles in the adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel "Orlando". And this is only a small part of her characteristic unusual roles. The eccentric actress is also famous for her unique views, special lifestyle, fashion, art, and charity projects.
The upcoming Vilnius International Documentary Film Festival (VDFF) this year promises to reveal the versatility of her abilities in another field - documentary cinema. The special program "Dates with Tilda" will present 5 documentaries.
"It's interesting that Tilda Swinton is not limited to one role in the documentary either. She is not only one of the heroes of the film, she is also an author of ideas, a director, a thinker, an intellectual. The versatility of this personality is astounding. The main idea of the program is to reveal the "chameleon" of Tilda Swinton, to show her faces that have not been seen before," says Vilma Levickaitė, director of the Skalvijas film center, which organizes the festival.
The idea of the program was proposed by Aleksas Gilaitis, the creator of the early film festival "First Wave". While visiting various festivals, he says that he noticed several documentaries in which the behind-the-scenes voice of T. Swinton is heard. It turned out that the timbre of this actress's voice and its authenticity are highly valued by the creators of the documentary.
Tilda and Berlin
The program will be opened by Cynthia Beatt's diptych "Mining in the Frame" (Cycling The Frame, 1988) and "The Invisible Frame" (The Invisible Frame, 2009). Place and time were very important in its creation. In the first, created more than 3 years ago, Swinton embarks on a 160-mile journey along the West Berlin Wall. In the second, after 2 right, he gets on his bike again, repeats the previous route, only the wall is gone.
In both films, the journey begins at Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate, continues through the city, its suburbs, along lakes and fields. T. Swinton keeps stopping to chat with the people she meets along the way, her reactions and inner monologues are enriched by quoted writers and poets - Robertas Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats, Anna Akhmatova. The poetic diptych of the road becomes an evocative personal vision of one of the most important people of the XNUMXth century. the memory of a historical event, a reflection of freedom.
"It's a metaphor about walls in the broadest sense: considering what walls are like and why they are built. T. Swinton also destroys them - you would never think that a star of this level has time to stop, lie down on the grass, chat with ordinary people", says V. Levickaitė.
Tthrough Ilda's eyes: portrait of J. Berger
Another film in the program that received a lot of attention at film festivals is the documentary essay "Seasons of Kensi: Four Portraits of John Berger" (The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of J. Berger, 2016), dedicated to the legendary British art critic and writer who died this year. In its creation, Tilda Swinton collaborated with film directors Christopher Roth and Bartek Dziadosz, film producer Colin MacCabe. "Radical humanist," his close friend T. Swinton briefly calls Mr. Berger. For decades, Mr. Berger's progressive ideas have spread through his novels, plays, poetry, TV shows and films. He is best known for his experimental novel G (which won the Booker Prize in 1972) and his book of art criticism Ways of Seeing (Ways of Seeing), revealing how people perceive and value art. It ranks among the 20 most influential academic books of all time.
T. Swinton says that she has been studying "Ways of Seeing" since her school days: "The way Mr. Berger introduced my generation to the context(s) of art is priceless. His influence on us was enormous."
Swinton and Mr Berger's friendship began when it was revealed that they were born on the same day - November 5. Only they are separated by more than 30 years. However, the age difference did not hinder the friendship, which T. Swinton called the friendship of soul mates. They not only collaborated in creating artistic projects, but also spent their free time together, communicating as families.
"Sometimes I think we've met in a past life and promised each other we'd meet in this one," Berger says in the T. Swinton film.
Berger was close to 90 years old when Swinton offered to create a portrait of him at his own home in the French Alps. Originally shot as a short film during a winter stay. Later came three others covering all seasons. Different aspects of Berger's life are associated with his ideas, creative leitmotifs. The short personal portraits can be viewed separately, but together they create an intimate multi-layered portrait of the personality, exalting Mr. Berger's ideas and creativity.
Tilda's stories
In the next two films of the program, T. Swinton reveals herself as a subtle storyteller who knows how to stay focused. She voiced and produced the film "Letters from Baghdad" (Letters from Baghdad, 2016) is the story of Gertrude Bell (1868 – 1926).
The multi-talented British traveler was an archaeologist, diplomat, linguist, writer, also known as the female "Lawrence of Arabia". Because G. Bell had a special role in the formation of politics in the Middle East. She was especially saved by her knowledge of Arab culture and history, her knowledge of languages, and her ability to earn the respect and trust of the commanders of the former Ottoman Empire.
The story is developed in the words of Ms. Bell herself and her contemporaries, using fragments of surviving letters, excerpts from private diaries, state documents, inserting never-before-seen video material from 25 archives in various countries around the world.
"After recording more than 700 hours of footage, we felt like we had discovered a truly lost world," said one of the film's directors, Sabine Krayenbühl.
"To be is to be connected" - a sentence from the documentary story "Conductors of Dreams" (Dreams Rewired, 2015) sounds like a modern paraphrase of Hamlet's famous phrase.
The filmmakers look at how technology has changed since the 1890s and remind us that our obsession with technology is nothing new. First we lost our minds to telephones, then to early cinema, then to the magic of wireless radio and finally to television.
"Dream Conductors" combines excerpts from 200 films and chronicles. These are complemented by Swinton's insightful comments on our eternal love-hate relationship with technology.
"Our times are times of absolute unification. The distance is zero. The world has a new rhythm", T. Swinton announces in a monotone voice.
The festival will take place in Vilnius on September 21-October 1. Klaipėda and in Ukmerge - October 6-8.
More information about the festival on the website: www.vdff.lt
