CURIOUS GEORGE: THE JENNIFER M KROOT INTERVIEW

Despite her films being warmly accessible works, Jennifer M Kroot favours the outsider's view of her America. In 2009's It Came From Kuchar, she offered a deeply affecting profile of the life and art of underground filmmaking giants, twins George and Mike Kuchar. Her latest, To Be Takei, is an off-kilter look inside the vast world and eccentric mind of Star Trek's iconic Mr Sulu, George Takei, a figure who has risen above TV bit-player status to help shape his adopted nation, despite decades of racial intolerance and homosexual persecution. With its Australian premiere at Perth's Revelation International Film Festival only a few weeks away, a forthright Kroot spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about the film that Variety lauded as "a unique blend of camp and conviction"...

Firstly, the most important question – are you a Trekkie? When did you first become aware of the unique human being that is Mr Takei?

Of course I'm a Trekkie! I have enjoyed the original Star Trek series for as long as I can remember. I watched the show in reruns after school and I've loved it ever since. Initially it was the glamorous outfits and campy lighting and sets that I enjoyed, and then later I understood how incredibly progressive the show was. It never actually occurred to me what George Takei's sexual orientation would be or that he would have been imprisoned in American internment camps, so when I found those things out much later I became fascinated with him. While To Be Takei is about much more than Star Trek, I do think it's important that as a filmmaker I have the inside understanding of what it means to be a Star Trek fan.

This man’s journey represents a kind of new American social paradigm. He has emerged from a country divided by race and social tension to become a leading advocate of tolerance and change. How did you settle on the balance between exploring ‘Takei the Man’ and ‘Takei the Icon’?

Because George is such a beloved pop culture icon and because George's personality allows him to laugh at himself, he has been able to reach a wide audience with his advocacy work, regardless if it's for racial or LGBT civil rights. He's the perfect spokesperson! The US is indeed divided, but almost everyone loves George Takei for these reasons. I'm certain that George is able to charm many conservatives with his message of tolerance and change. I think that George's fans, especially on Facebook, think that they actually know him like a friend, because of his graceful and funny style. So people think that they know Takei the icon as Takei the man. Does that make sense? (laughs) This film is a very personal look at George, his history, his relationship, his regrets, his dreams. But that is balanced with George Takei the icon and, at the age of 77, the reignited, reinvented rock star. I wanted to show how he isn't just a pop culture icon but also a civil rights rock star. 

Neither seems uncomfortable with attention, but were George and his spouse Brad (pictured, top) immediately open to the intrusion of a doco crew? Did they have any kind of final say on where your camera could go or influence on the final cut of the film?

George was more comfortable with cameras than his husband Brad. I think George actually forgot we were filming sometimes. Brad is more like most people, and usually did realize that the cameras were on, becoming self conscious at times.  They were not involved in the editorial process at all. It was very nerve-racking when they saw the finished film at Sundance, but they loved it and continue to be active in the promotion of the film.

Despite the very different personalities of your subjects, I recognised similarities between George Takei and The Kuchars (pictured, below; with the director). These are society outsiders, struggling against the accepted norm to express unique creativity in the face of preconceptions and prejudices. What does your study of these men say about you as a documentarian?

And both gay men named George with wonderful voices! (laughs) It is an interesting question. Both Georges channeled their outsider-ness into their art. George Kuchar is the underground version and George Takei the above ground/galactic version. Neither have a pretentious bone in their bodies, despite being widely acclaimed. They are both willing to laugh at themselves, which is a big part of why these Georges were and are so beloved.

It's funny, I don't meet a lot of people who enjoy both underground film and science fiction. I'm not sure why the two categories don't usually overlap.  For me, the campy qualities of Star Trek remind me of the camp style of the Kuchar brothers' early films, especially Sins of the Fleshapoids.  There's a misconception that camp or theatricality can't be deep or meaningful, but of course camp can be profound, (just as) realism can be banal. I think Star Trek and the Kuchar's films are both great examples of meaningful camp.

I love that both Georges are older people who are driven to do artwork or advocacy of some sort because of obsessions they've had since they were children. George Kuchar has passed away, but I thought of him when I was filming. I am definitely attracted to people who are able to channel personal obstacles into something positive. It's hard to do. I tend to think of myself as a negative person. I worry a lot. I get caught up in the endless horrors of organic existence, so I enjoy being around people who inspire me. It's especially hopeful when they are older people doing amazing things. 

Is it the film you envisioned it would be? Perhaps more importantly, is it a version of himself that George Takei envisioned when he agreed to take part?

It's more of a romantic comedy than I expected, but other than that it is the film I envisioned.  I didn't know George and Brad prior to filming, so I didn't envision their unique relationship dynamics. That was an exciting discovery. I knew that the film would be dense and complex with many themes, just like George. I knew that I wanted to play with time, and try to create a nonlinear structure, so that we could flip easily from the present to various points in the past, like memories. I was able to interview everyone that I hoped from the original Star Trek cast to Howard Stern to the late Senator Daniel Inouye. I'm not sure if George envisioned what the finished film would look like. He saw my previous film, It Came From Kuchar, and he liked it and apparently trusted me.

To Be Takei will screen Sunday 6th and Saturday 12th of July at Revelation Perth International Film Festival. Full program information and tickets can be found at the official website.

FIELD OF DREAMS: THE JOSH TANNER INTERVIEW

The first thing that strikes you about Josh Tanner is that he certainly looks like the current crop of young directors ruling the film world. Resembling a genetic level mash-up of JJ Abrams, Joss Wheedon and Wes Anderson, the Brisbane-based 26-year-old is also displaying the artistry and genre savvy of his doppelgangers; his fourth short film, The Landing, has spent the last 8 months sweeping award after award on the global festival circuit (most recently, the Best International Live Action Short at the prestigious Fantaspoa event). Ahead of his films sessions at Revelation 2014, Tanner spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about its origins, the filmmakers that inspire him and the complex production elements required to realise his unique vision... 

The Landing looks to be crafted by a filmmaker who imagined in detail each frame before stepping behind the camera. What were the narrative's origin?

As clichéd as it sounds, the concept of the film came out of a dream. I was in the middle of a barren field, painfully digging though dirt with my bare hands, eventually unearthing what appeared to be a buried spacecraft. A concept emerged involving the suppression of a UFO landing, not by the usual “government types”, but by the normal people that bear witness to it. This intriguing kernel unravelled into a story that my co-writer and producer Jade van der Lei and I got really excited about. The idea of delving into the cold-war 1950/60s era, which was a golden age of Science Fiction, was also an awfully exciting prospect. (Tanner, on set; pictured, right)

The pov the film shares with the boy can easily by classified as 'Spielbergian', but there are many other reference points. Who are the filmmakers and what are the films that inspire you and influenced The Landing?

There is an awful lot of Terrance Malick influence in there. Days of Heaven was a huge inspiration on visual style and location. Also Tree Of Life, (which provided) a structural and thematic point of view when it came to relationships with our parents and our connection to the past. There was definitely part of me that wondered what a Terrance Malick Sci-Fi film would look like, and hopefully we’ve achieved 1% of what that hypothetical film might be. I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET as well as Kubrick’s 2001 weren’t also major influences on the film.

It is a film that shifts seamlessly between styles and genres; it is a memory piece, a political work, a domestic drama, a sci-fi vision. What themes and arcs most clearly define your directorial intent?

It sounds like a pun, but alienation really is the central theme of the film, and permeates the films relationships and broader concepts. It’s the alienation between a boy (Tom Usher; pictured, top) and his father (Henry Nixon; pictured, left), their ideologies, their innocence and maturity, and their past and present. The crash-landing of this visitor brings them both a dark but alluring adventure, and the potential fulfilment of their own personal obsessions, which ultimately stand only to distract them from their alienation from each other. But it is though this very encounter, that the characters are forced to come face to face with these obsessions, and make life-altering decisions for better, or worse.

Securing the likes of leading man David Roberts (The Square; Getting' Square) and behind-the-scenes contributors such as production designer Chris Cox (Acolytes; At World's End) and composer Guy Gross must have been significant moments. How did the pre-production progress?

We were so fortunate to work with an army of incredibly talented and creative artists. We were faced with the challenge of trying to make an Australian short film masquerade as a Hollywood feature in terms of aesthetic. Setting the film in rural America in the early 60’s was something concrete and necessary on a story level, so it was about relying on our dedicated team to figure out how we’d do that. The thing that crystallised everything was the discovery of 'the Barn' location (pictured, right), which is actually an abandoned set, originally built in Tamworth for Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. This kind of Midwest American architecture does not exist in this country, so it became a real inspiration to our team to strive to make everything as authentic to the period and geography of the story as that barn was.

With all those elements in place, how did the shoot itself come together?

The shoot was a Frankenstein process, building sets, travelling out to barren farmland, and wheat fields and stitching it all together with the help of an expert team of visual effects artists. (They) deserve a great deal of recognition because while the films production design, cinematography (Tanner with DOP Jason Hargreaves, on set; pictured, left), score and sound design are all obvious in their merits, the visual effects are those of an almost thankless kind. Meaning they’re effects that you’re not supposed to believe are effects. The greatest lesson I learned as a director has been to remain faithful to the scale of your vision, and stick to your guns without being unreasonable. There were many times when funding bodies, or industry associates recommended that we change the films setting to Australia. Despite feeling the odds were heavily stacked against us, we were always resilient enough to look at the script and remind ourselves that it was worth the struggle to forge ahead in the way we believed was right for the story. 

And now The Landing is securing festival slots and winning awards around the world. How are you responding to the acclaim and the film's momentum?

The success of The Landing on the festival circuit has opened some fantastic career doorways for Jade and I. We are currently developing the longform expansion of the short film and a supernatural-thriller feature. But while we have definitely enjoyed this exposure to industry avenues, it is finding a receptive audience to enjoy your work that is the real prize of filmmaking. We honesty will never get bored of experiencing the audiences reactions to the twists and turns of the story. When you write something with the hope that an audience will feel a certain emotion, to see it happen on the other end is what it’s all about for us - that sharing of ideas and emotion.

THE LANDING screens at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival as part of the Slipstream Quartet sidebar. Further information and tickets can be found here.

REVELATION 2014 PERTH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PREVIEW

Bold new ventures from the likes of Robin Wright, Nicholas Cage and Tom Hardy mingle seamlessly with the latest in socio-political commentary and underground edginess at Revelation 2014, as the west coast film festival kicks off its 17th year with a staggering 116 film screening schedule.

Scattered throughout the 10-day event are works that suggest cinema’s A-list stars are growing increasingly frustrated with Hollywood’s reliance upon comic properties and effects-heavy tentpoles. Several works featured at Revelations indicate a return to the indie film heyday, when a wave of offbeat works emerged in the wake of Tarantino’s game-changer, Pulp Fiction, many bankrolled by name players.

Launching the event on July 3 at Perth’s arthouse cinema mecca, the Luna, will be Jonathon Glazer’s hypnotic earth-bound sci-fi drama, Under the Skin. Starring Scarlett Johansson (pictured, right) in a mesmerising turn as a predatory alien scouring the Scottish countryside for men to consume, the film is a challenging sensory and intellectual vision from the director many are positioning as the rightful heir to Kubrick’s legacy.

Other marquee names that are sure to pique interest include Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto, featuring Emma Roberts, Val Kilmer and James Franco (upon whose 2010 short stories the coming-of-age drama is based); David Gordon Green’s Joe, with Nicholas Cage garnering serious awards buzz in the title role; Cold in July, which saw director Jim Mickle honoured with a Cannes Director’s Fortnight slot and stars Sam Shephard, Don Johnson and ‘Dexter’ star Michael C Hall; Steven Knight’s psycho-drama Locke, starring Tom Hardy; and, Ari Folman’s follow-up to Waltz with Bashir, the trippy meta-heavy The Congress (pictured, top), starring Robin Wright.

Perhaps no bigger personality will grace Revelation screens than the original Mr Sulu himself, George Takei, the subject of Jennifer M Kroot’s endearing and incisive bio, To Be Takei. Though certainly the highest-profile factual film in the 2014 schedule, the 19 other docos slated will just assuredly engage and, occasionally, enrage audiences, amongst them John Maloof and Charlie Siskel’s Finding Vivian Maier; Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam’s study into internet addiction, Web Junkie; Toby Amies intimate character study, The Man Whose Mind Exploded; Pan Nalin’s religious epic, Faith Connections; and, Daniel T Skaggs’ tag-along railroad expose, Freeload.

The very best in international cinema is represented by David Wnendt’s body-image German blockbuster Wetlands, based upon Charlotte Roche’s corporeal-obsessed coming-of-age tale. The film’s graphic, often humourous depiction of a young woman (the adorable and fearless Carla Juri) and how she embraces the sights, smells and tastes of her blossoming womanhood guarantees to both shock and entertain the festival crowd. Other countries earning a prized Revelation showing include Canada (Matthew Kowalchuk’s pitch-black ‘anti-buddy’ comedy, Lawrence and Holloman; pictured, right), New Zealand (Anthony Powell’s breathtaking documentary, Antarctica: A Year on Ice), Finland (the bleak naturalism of Prijo Honcasalo’s Concrete Night), Kosovo (Lendita Zeqiraj’s short Ballkoni) and Iraq (Nesma’s Birds, a fascinating glimpse of the country from the female perspective from directors Najwan Ali and Medoo Ali). The haunting, sparse uneasiness of Lucia Puenzo’s Wakaldo (The German Doctor) highlights the benefits of the co-production, bringing together creative elements from the industries of Argentina, France, Norway and Spain.

Returning after a hugely successful run at the 2013 festival is a sidebar dedicated to the cinema of Iran, one of the global community’s most impassioned filmmaking territories. Six features will screen, including Rouholla Hejazi’s The Wedlock, Payman Maadi’s Snow on Pines and Bahman Ghobadi’s APSA winning Rhino Season. A retrospective special event will be a rare screening of Bahram Beyza’s iconic 1972 work Downpour, having been digitally restored with the support of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation.

Revelation's reputation as a supporter of home-grown film culture continues in 2014 with the program strand Get Your Shorts On! (showcasing Western Australia’s finest short film productions), three of the four films in the genre showcase Slipstream Quartet (including Joshua Tanner’s The Landing, direct from the Fantaspoa Film Festival where it scored the Best International Live Action Short award; pictured, right) and two features - the world premiere of Samantha Rebillet’s The Last Goodbye and Jason Sweeney’s bracing arthouse odyssey, The Dead Speak Back.

In addition to the screenings, academic and film culture conferences will allow guest speakers and industry professionals to both network and share their experiences with the savvy Perth film buff. Primary amongst these events is RevCon, a screen sector conference that fosters passionate creative exchange on all matters of the film production cycle and that has grown into a series of must-attend sessions over the course of the festival.

Revelation Perth International Film Festival runs from July 3 to 13 at venues in and around Perth. For full details, include the complete program and ticket sales, visit the official website.

THE WARRIOR WAY: THE TEMUERA MORRISON INTERVIEW

It has been 20 years since Lee Tamahori’s adaptation of Alan Duff’s novel Once Were Warriors left international audiences stunned. At the centre of the brutal, heartbreaking drama was Jake ‘The Muss’ Heke, brought to frightening, vivid life by one of New Zealand’s greatest acting exports, the charming Temuera Morrison. Ahead of an anniversary screening of the film at the recent Gold Coast Film Festival, a lean and chatty ‘Tem’ sat with SCREEN-SPACE to reflect upon his early career days, the Warrior shoot and working in the madness that is Hollywood…

Acting was always you’re passion, but I gather you entered the scene as a techie on The Piano…

I was working on the crew of Jane Campion’s film and had met Sam Neill and Holly Hunter and the great Harvey Keitel. I mentioned to someone that I wanted to give this acting thing ago, that was my burning desire; watching Sam, Holly and Harvey, all of whom had their own particular styles and techniques, was just incredible. I got a small role in The Piano, but actually left the film because I got a role on Shortland Street, which was, of course, very different from The Piano gig (laughs). But all of a sudden, I was a working actor. 

Can you recall those early days, when Riwia Brown’s script was doing the rounds and buzz was building for Once Were Warriors?

A lot of the industry was off working on Rapa Nui, which I was overlooked for, and word had started to get around about the Warriors script. After the first round of auditions, I got a little role in the film as a policeman, then I got the Uncle Bully role. About a month out from shooting, my agent got a call and he told me they wanted me to read for Jake. When I got that news, a light went off in my head. The first thing I thought was, ‘Here’s my chance’. I’d grown up in Rotorua, where the book is set, and I’d read it. So between my scenes as a doctor on Shortland Street, I got the make-up team to put some tattoos on my arms, found some rough shirts and went into the audition. And I just fired into one of the scenes, just thought to myself, ‘Right, I’m going to give this a nudge.’ (pictured, right; Morrison as Jake)

How did you begin the process of bringing Jake to life?

My agent was a lovely guy, Robert Bruce, (pictured, left; Morrison and Bruce preparing for the role of Jake) who has passed away now. He was a bit of a scrapper, a fighter; he was wrestler, as a younger man. So he relished the news that they wanted to cast me. When the director rang Robert, he said, ‘We are going to go with Tem, but you have to get him ready.’ So he would get me revved up, got me into physical shape. We’d start training at 6am, do lots of boxing and fighting.
And a lot of the kids hadn’t acted before, so I was able to work with them and work through getting the dynamics of the family right. Especially Grace (actress Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell), who I had to get revved up for all her scenes. They weren’t always nice times for me, for us, because it was a bit raw. You have to put those moments aside, convince yourself you are doing it for the character, for the film.
Also, we based a lot of the film on A Streetcar Named Desire, so I watched that a lot. The domestic situation was similar, Brando’s wild animal performance; Lee told me to watch that a lot. Years later, the reviewer in The Chicago Times, called me ‘The Maori Stanley Kowalski’. And I was like, ‘Yes, this guy’s got it!’ (Ed. - Reviewer Roger Ebert called Morrison's performance "as elemental, charismatic and brutal as a young Marlon Brando")

Were you prepared for what Rena Owen brought to the role of Beth?

No one could have played Beth other than Rena. All the other actors, me included, had to lift our game to match this woman. She was just so powerful, her well was so deep, her energy source and emotion that she could draw upon. She could be a little bit, you know…she had an edge about her, that kept you on edge as well. 

You were carrying a major film in your first starring role. The physical nature of the role aside, was it a tough shoot?

Rena had concerns about me, just as the producers had their concerns about me, which I could feel. They were waiting for me to drop the ball.  It was a painful lesson, learning to believe in myself. I wasn’t getting the support I wanted going into this film. They were nervous and I could feel that nervousness. They weren’t giving me the things I needed as an actor so I just went for it myself, doing the work as best as I knew how. I heard that stuff was happening behind the scenes, stuff like ‘What was I doing in that role?’ Rena had a few words to say, I know. So I just took it all on board and used it in the role. When the cameras started rolling, I just said to myself, ‘All right, let’s go.’

Were you in any way prepared for the impact the film would have globally?

We didn’t realise what we had made. We never anticipated anything.  We had a cast and crew screening early on and it was a very solemn, very quiet experience. We all went back to one of the cafes that was nearby and everyone was silent. I knew then that if this film was affecting us like this, all the people who were there making it, then I knew it was going to affect a whole lot of people. We played a packed theatre at Sundance and I knew it was packed because just after the film started, a bloke came in and sat in the aisle right next to me, stayed there for the whole film. When the lights came up it was Robert Redford.   

The Hollywood scene beckoned and you got some pretty high-profile gigs…

I took Barb Wire because it was Casablanca! I don’t know how I didn’t win an Oscar. Pamela Anderson (pictured, right; with her co-star) was Ingrid Bergman and I was Humphrey Bogart. That’s how I was playing it (laughs). Then Speed 2 and Six Days Seven Nights. I had an agent who’d bring me out to Hollywood, which I knew straight away was too crazy for me. I couldn’t relate to it. But I’d love going for there for two weeks, then I’d love going home again.

Perhaps craziest of all was your part in the madness that was John Frankenheimer’s The Island of Dr Moreau…

We get there for one of Brando’s first scenes, just as David Thewlis’ character arrives on the island. Brando starts going, ‘Look at all my children, look at what the French nuclear bombs have created’. He starts blaming our look on French testing, which has nothing to do with the script. He just started making up his own lines. The director starts mumbling, ‘Uh, cut, cut please’ and he starts talking to Marlon, who politely says, ‘Ok, John, let me try another take.’ Then he’d make up something else out of the blue!
And poor Richard Stanley, he got sacked from his own film. After two weeks, he had no dailies to show New Line; he should have just shot the rain and sent that to them, told them ‘We can’t shoot much else.’ Poor guy had been working on this script for seven, eight years, had got Brando involved, but that’s the nature of the business I guess.
I actually got in a lot of trouble because my agent had double-booked me and the shoot went on and on. We were meant to be done in three months and it went on for months, all the time I was putting on this make-up then sitting around on-set and doing nothing. So I just left. I bought a ticket and just flew home. And I got home and there was a lawyer in my driveway with a lawsuit! I had to fly back in a hurry. Those were the days. (pictured, left; Morrison in full make-up on the film's set). 

Did you actively seek out the role of Jango Fett in The Phantom Menace?

Well, I didn’t know too much about all that Star Wars stuff. I just saw it as a great opportunity to work in Sydney, because it was all shot at Fox Studios. I spoke to George Lucas’ casting agent, just a little chat with the video camera on me, very cordial. I’d never had an audition like it. Then I got the phone call, ‘We’d love you to play Jango Fett.’ I remember jumping out of my chair and yelling, then I said ‘Who’s Jango Fett?’ (laughs) I got the videos to see who this Boba Fett fellow was, and here’s hardly in them, though he had already become iconic by then. So I was, ‘Alright, I’m in.’ I remember they had the most amazing caterer, a New Zealander. We had great lunches on that film. (pictured, right; Morrison in full costume with George Lucas)

The Hollywood roles continue to come your way, most recently in Green Lantern…

I swore I’d never do another make-up character, but there you go! That was shot in New Orleans, very nice place, and it was a big make-up job. It can get very claustrophobic and very hot and sticky in that stuff. I got that because I’d worked with the director Martin Campbell on Vertical Limit and had that connection. He just called me up and said, ‘You’d make a great Abin Sur’. I could see (the production) was having their own set of problems, too. The shooting schedule and then the conversion to 3D, a whole set of deadlines to meet. I think the budget just went way out of control. And I was hoping to do another one because they were going to focus on my character!

Finally, how do you feel the New Zealand industry is travelling at present?

Our industry has been quite flat. There is a great void between work on Shortland Street and work on The Hobbit. Vast time and space, the Cosmos, that’s the New Zealand film industry. I was at the Maoriland Film Festival in Otaki last week (pictured, right; Morrison with attending US director, Blackhorse Lowe) and I spoke to a fine young filmmaker and he said that he would have to go and work now for five years to pay off his little film! That is how tough it is for these passionate, talented young filmmakers. But that’s just how Peter Jackson started and now he’s a mogul! I was with Himiona Grace just last week, whose a great guy and just got out there on the road and made his film, The Pa Boys, which is wonderful. That’s what it takes.

REQUIEM FOR A VILLAGE: THE KIMBERLEY JOSEPH INTERVIEW

Australian soap-opera fans fondly remember Kimberly Joseph, the radiant young actress who won the nation’s heart in the popular series Home and Away and All Saints. But her starlet days are a distant memory for the LA-based Australian-Canadian; despite acting in such hits as Cold Feet and Lost, for most of the last decade she has shared production duties with Adam Schomer on her passion project, The Polygon. This heartbreaking documentary captures the hardships and humanity of a Kazakh village called Sarzahl, located a mere 18 kilometres from what was once the largest nuclear test site on Russian soil. Having recently attended its World Premiere at the 2014 Gold Coast Film Festival, the debutant director spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about her many visits to the region, the villagers she has grown close to (pictured, below; Joseph, far right) and the fate of an irradiated landscape that a cash-rich government refuses to tend to….

The fateful nature of your involvement with the Semipalatinsk region in Kazakhstan began with a chance meeting on a plane with Scottish MP Struan Stevenson (pictured, below). What do you recall of that first meeting, over ten years ago?

He spoke with such passion about the conditions these people lived in and I was moved so much, I said let me know if there is anything I can do to help. A few months later I was on the ground in Kazakhstan. There are so many humanitarian issues, so many people suffering in the world, I’ve been asked why focus in on this and my answer is that it came about very organically, that I was pointed in this direction by chance. Having met the villagers first hand, I knew I had to do more for them. That began with a photographic exhibition in Scotland in 2004 then New York City in 2007 to raise money.* The villagers (are) convinced that he was instrumental in raising the awareness needed to help them.

You travelled back and forth to the region over the course of the production, but can you recall your first impression of the landscape and the people?

They were initially nervous about telling their stories but they really needed to. They hadn’t had the opportunity to do that. These people are very well-read, very proud people. They are living in villages that have not been improved since the Soviets left; roads have not been maintained, access to clean water is scarce. There is very little trade in the area, just a couple of shops that sell potatoes and rice; they exist on the small income they make off their livestock. It is truly remote.

How did the ruling Kazakhstan government treat your presence?

When we travelled through the region, a local government official accompanied us. And the villagers were livid that this man had never been out to see them, which I found very upsetting. The people had lost children and grandchildren; generations had been affected by the test site and they had gotten no attention from this man or his government. The country uses the closure of The Polygon as a drawcard, proud of their relinquishing of the nuclear arsenal. It should be noted that it was the previous Soviet regime that detonated the weapon, not the independent Kazakh state. But while (the new leaders) admit that these villagers have been affected and acknowledge high cancer rates and other effects with some very carefully worded press releases, they are doing very little about it.  This government has so much wealth and sits on such a richness of natural resources, there is just no excuse for them not to be paying attention to the people of Sarzahl.

In the years since Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost period of reform led to the closure of the site, has any criminal action against the masterminds behind The Polygon tests been considered? 

So much of what went on was shrouded in that Cold War ‘top secret’ status, that establishing fault in hindsight is impossible. There are accounts of the deceased being flown out of the region and buried elsewhere so that the cause of death could not be traced or linked (to the testing). A lot of the records and reports were taken elsewhere and destroyed. Medical officers and workers involved in the project were just not allowed to talk about it for fear of imprisonment. And the people in the villages, who would watch the explosions from their homes, had no idea that the radioactivity would settle on them. Everything points to these villagers being used as human guinea pigs. They moved them initially, but then they didn’t.

Following this World Premiere, your film will eventually make its way back to the people of the Sarzahl and the politicians that rule over them. How do you feel about this ten-year project nearing completion? What would be the best possible outcome for you?

I’ll be a little nervous to see how the government responds to it, but I know that the villages will be very happy. And that was always my intention, to give them an outlet to tell their stories and to impress upon the government the inherent human value of these beautiful people and their villages. They are the keepers of the Kazakh culture and without them, the Kazakhstan of old will disappear. I am hopeful that in the future these people, who want to be so much more connected to their country and its government, will get what they need. My only hope is that I do the people and the story of their plight justice. I hope that the film can raise awareness of the suffering of the people around The Polygon and inspire their government to help them in meaningful ways.

*The photos can be seen in Struan Stevenson’s 2006 book, Crying Forever: A Nuclear Diary.