Sheffield DocFest 2020: Everyday Greyness | Interview of Clara Kleininger
We interviewed Clara Kleininger, director of the short documentary Everyday Greyness, in official selection at Sheffield Doc/Fest.
As part of our Sheffield Doc/Fest coverage, we would like to flag Everyday Greyness, a powerful, poetic short documentary on Magda, a 26-year-old Polish woman teaching photography in a closed rehabilitation center she just spent a year in.
We were lucky to interview Clara Kleininger who directed and produced the film. We had an insightful conversation about the process of making this film, her relationship with Magda, the main character, and the reasons why she is so passionate about making documentaries.
How did you come to this story? Were you at first interested in doing a film about a rehabilitation center or did you first meet with Magda, the main character?
Clara Kleininger: Actually, I first met Magda and I was not interested in this topic at first. I met her at a cultural event in Poland, not long after I moved there. We had a coffee and soon became friends. I understood that Magda had something in mind: she had just left a rehabilitation center where she had spent a year, and she wanted to do a film about this center that she did not feel ready to leave at the time. As she was still unsure about how she could start another life, she wanted to find a way to be able to regularly go back to the center. Knowing I had already completed another documentary, she actually proposed me to go to the center together and find a way to set up a collaboration.
What were your motivations to embark on this project with Magda?
Clara Kleininger: I had never been in contact with this kind of community before but I had kind of a fascination for it. As a character says in the film: “We have an open life, we have a social life” and I was curious to discover this community from the inside. Then, I started to learn more about addictions and the therapy process. But at first, what drew me in was this community living.
To what extent did spending time shooting at the rehabilitation center challenge your initial views about it?
Clara Kleininger: I think that at the beginning I didn’t imagine what a big chunk of life it is to spend one year in such center. I didn’t understand how hard it is to be cut off from the world. It proves to be kind of a particular utopia where you have no access to internet and barely no contact with the outside world. Finally, I understood how hard it is, then, to come back to real life. Moreover, it was a process for me because when we started shooting, I wasn’t speaking Polish very well, so the fact that Magda already knew some of the people who were there as patients helped me develop relationships with them. Then, as my Polish got better, my understanding with them got better. In time, with the editing process, I ended up understanding them much better. Overall, I learnt a lot about what it means to be addicted and the process of healing. It opened this whole world to me.
In the film, you seem to be using an aquarium as a metaphor for their isolation from the real world? Will those little fishes be able to survive in the wide ocean when they get out of the rehabilitation center?
Clara Kleininger: Yes, that was the intention! As I was listening to the interviews again, a phrase kept coming up: “This life is like play and pretend”. They are indeed isolated in this aquarium and then going out is an altogether new challenge. At first, when you come to such center, you come there voluntarily which means you must be in a really low place to decide to cut your previous life and go to the aquarium. Then, as you stop your addiction, it’s very challenging to be closed in the aquarium where you never live on your own. And finally, going out of this aquarium is a whole different challenge. Indeed, I also found out it’s really hard not to go back to being addicted. Most of the people just come back again and again in those centers. It’s rare that they end up leaving the center and finding their footing in their new life. But Magda did! She never went back to being addicted. Despite obvious ups and downs, she is doing really good now, 6 years after she left the center.
The film opens on Magda teaching in a photography workshop in the rehabilitation center. Can you tell us about the importance of this workshop for the film?
Clara Kleininger: When we planned to make the film, we planned to set up photography workshops, as a way for Magda to come back regularly to the center she had left only a month before. Since Magda is a graduate of Arts and since I do analog photography as a hobby as well, we had the know how for organizing such workshops. Then, from the very beginning, we intended to use the photos people would make to reveal something about their life at the center and about their life inside. We wanted them to portray what was important for them in their process of healing. As a result, originally, the intention was that the process of learning photography, developing the photos and then finishing with the exhibition would be going along in a kind of same pace with the process of their healing.
What were Magda’s intentions for the film? And did the making of the film help her make the jump to her new life?
Clara Kleininger: I think Magda wanted to work on this film as part of her desire to keep rooted in the center because she had already moved out. She actually enjoyed this role where she was not in the center anymore but she could be a regular visitor. It was also a way for her to process what it meant to her to be there and where she is now. She also had this idea that other people should appear in the film and talk about their own process in order to explore what it meant to them as well. In the end, I think that making the film helped her, even though she got less involved in the editing process which I mostly handled on my own.
You said Magda left the rehabilitation center 6 years ago. Does it mean it took you 5 years to edit the film?
Clara Kleininger: I had just moved to Poland when we started out the project. We only got a small grant from the city, mainly to set up the photography workshop. Then, I used my own equipment as well as the help of a collective, called The Big Tree Collective, which I had formed with my colleagues after finishing studying Visual Anthropology in Manchester. Therefore, I could use the equipment we gathered as part of the collective, which is also how the collective ended up as a producer of the film. However, I was new in Poland and I didn’t know how to find funding there at the time. So, because there were no funding, it took ages to finish the film. I finished it on my own and I ended up showing it to Magda 5 years after we shot it, even though we had been keeping reviewing materials and discussing them together. She was really thrilled! It outgrew her expectations somehow. In some way, something in this film caught her feelings in a way that will stay like this. But now that the film is finished, I’m facing the next challenge, which is to find distribution!
One a personal note, what motivates you to carry out such film projects? What makes you want to make documentaries?
Clara Kleininger: Basically, it just gives me pleasure to discover. We see the world more in-depth and we really go into somebody’s world in a process like this, and this is what I enjoy. I love documentaries because I enjoy the things that happen that are sometimes better than you would be able to write them. Besides, I studied Anthropology and Visual Anthropology, and I think we have a lot of responsibility to the people we film. When you point the camera to somebody, you take on a lot of responsibility. You have to know why you do it and why you want to tell this story. And that’s something I’m very interested in when working on documentaries. Finally, what keeps me going is also that community of friends and filmmakers that I have around me, thanks in part to the collective, which allows me to show rough cuts to people I trust, get some feedback and feel encouraged when people see something in the film even if quite a while past since we shot it.
It was a pleasure chatting with Clara! She is currently looking for distributors for Everyday Greyness. Have a look at the trailer below!
We encourage you to discover Everyday Greyness at Sheffield Doc/Fest! For more information on Sheffield Doc/Fest and the world of film festivals, make sure to connect with Film Fest Report on Instagram!
