Radio Tania

Fiction, Fantasy and the Power of Film

This past year, I have had the honor of interviewing some extraordinary filmmakers, all of whom navigate this fine line between fact and fiction. Maybe all filmmakers do that (now that I think about it!) but it seemed to come up over and over again. Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, NY moved me to tears (honestly). And Steve Buscemi's Interview really got under my skin. John Waters' Pink Flamingos simply shocked me. Today, I had a lovely conversation with Laurent Cantet who made The Class, a film that looks at the racially diverse, inner city classroom in Paris and the clashes that arise amongst students and with the teacher. Speaking with Cantet reminded me of the work of Frederick Wiseman, who made a cinema verité documentary called High School in the 70s. I also interviewed Frederick Wiseman early on when I still worked at WBAI. He had just made a film in Paris, so maybe everything comes together full circle.

 

 

 

 

my country my country?

Laura Poitras, a Peabody award winning filmmaker, who credits her vision to that of Frederick Wiseman and the brilliant Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, travelled to Baghdad on her own, without protection, contacts or knowledge of the language, to make a documentary about the elections there. She got inimitable access—in one scene, she is filming a black market arms deal between an Australian mercenary and a Afghani.