How it is and the stories behind “Inside me I am dancing”, the Argentinian film that triumphed at the Berlinale

from berlin – Winning the first film award at a festival like the Berlinale is no small thing. This is a relevant award in one of the most important events in the film calendar. and Argentinian film Inside me I dance He did it, beating another 18 films distributed in the different sections of the festival that took part in this competition endowed with a prize of 50,000 euros. The Unexpected Prize was the culmination – and the start of a new journey – of a project in which its directors, Leandro Koch there Paloma SchachmannThey had already been working for more than seven years.

Shortly before picking up the award, the filmmakers spoke of a process that took a lot of time, a lot of travel, a lot of twists and turns and a film that says several things. Basically, it’s the journey of a filmmaker and a clarinetist who go to Eastern Europe to seek the roots of klezmer music (the film is subtitled here The Klezmer Project)the turns taken by his investigation, his personal and romantic relationship, Koch’s family history and, with it, a good part of the Jewish diaspora in this region of Europe where there is practically nothing left of this difficult past.

“The process was kind of like the story told in the movie,” Koch says. Paula is a klezmer clarinettist and wanted to make a documentary of it. Klezmer didn’t really interest me, but I wanted to make a film with her or get involved in a project with her. And we started shooting a klezmer documentary. In other words, filming bands playing this music at Jewish festivals and concerts. Suddenly the opportunity to travel arose because Paula had a festival in Krakow. He said to me “come and from there we will go to Eastern Europe and we will see what is left there”. We did it and there it was like a giant door opening onto a world that we couldn’t imagine behind klezmer and which had to do with culture burn it and with his disappearance. There the question became more interesting and new narrative layers started to emerge which we included.

You may be interested: Berlinale: a French documentary wins the Golden Bear and an Argentinian film is awarded

This investigative trip took place in 2016, a lot of material was filmed but little remained in the film. The project continued with a script and with the idea of ​​making a new trip which was delayed due to lack of money and the pandemic and which could not be completed until 2021. “We have realized that everything was becoming more urgent because people He was dying, they say. The last people who remember a past where there was Judaism in these places remain, and they are all over 80 years old. In fact, some characters died between the two trips.”

The grandmother who tells a story in burn it in the film, she is Leandro’s real grandmother. And, in the middle, she says, her grandfather died “and she started a decline, she got worse.” The images and its narration are earlier and that is why they are very moving for the filmmakers. “She emigrated with her family to Argentina before World War II,” Koch explains. But, still, it was a pretty terrible story. And he always said it. And he also talked about not letting them off the boat and things like that.

Paloma is a klezmer music clarinetist and her relationship with the project comes from there. “I’ve been playing for over twenty years,” he says. And I specialized in this type of music, I started to deepen the subject. I came to study here in Berlin and came and left Buenos Aires with material that I shared. And my idea to do a documentary on the subject was to leave a visual record of the bands. It had nothing to do with making a movie and telling this whole story, but doing something much more traditional, like a video library of klezmer bands.”

Through conversations with ethnomusicologists such as Bob Cohenwhich appears in the film, and CDs of traditional bands, the filmmakers found small towns in Ukraine, Romania and Moldova where variants of this type of music so characteristic of the Jewish diaspora are still played.

“What happened to us during this trip – says Schachmann – is that we discovered these places and these characters that made us want to make a real film. Suddenly we were in villages, filming the interior of these houses and these old gypsies who knew the Jewish melodies. This is where the idea appeared that klezmer music circulates with other variants and traditions that intersect. The borders have shifted so much that the cultures have completely And the musicians who work in the parties are a very clear representation of this cultural mix, since their repertoire includes music from all the cultures that have lived there. As it happens in Argentina, in a Jewish wedding, you also play a cumbia and Sephardic music. You adopt the repertoire of the people who are there and these musicians too”.

You may be interested: Paul B. Preciado, winner in Berlin: “What would happen if Godard was trans?”

Inside, I’m dancing is a portrait of these cities and these musicians, a road movie in which the directors travel, separate and reunite with an involved love story, a documentary that includes production and budget issues, and a tribute to Jewish family and the cultural heritage of parts of Europe from the East in which the community virtually disappeared after the Second World War.

“It was hard work to put all these pieces together,” says Koch. The film is a kind of collage. More and more narrative layers appeared and that forced us to change a lot of things. Fortunately, this resource appeared, it was the story in burn it functioning as a counterpoint to our history, telling a story that takes place in another time but which always finds a synchrony with ours. And in addition it was like a concrete act of the film to bring the sound of the burn it on the surface”.

— What was it like visiting these cities, these places, being with all these people?

— Schachmann: It was a very strong challenge to direct the characters because there is no common language and we work all the time with interpreters who do not speak English very well either. We arrived at the shoot with a very well-written script and, having met all the characters, we already knew what we wanted everyone to do. But it was not easy because they are not actors and are not used to being filmed. We filmed one of them preparing breakfast, going to the garden to get milk, and she didn’t understand a thing. And with the musicians, something similar happened. I think they thought we were crazy.

— koch: And also a lot of bureaucratic problems at the borders. We were in the Ukraine barely two months before the war and the delivery of equipment was always a problem. But at the same time, the people there are almost like Latinos. It is easy for them to open the doors of the house to you and they are very warm. It would be more difficult to try to make a documentary in a village here in Germany”.

Continue reading