0:00

Heads up, audio listeners, you're about

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to hear a videotaped conversation.

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For the full experience you'll find a video

0:04

version of this episode on Spotify or YouTube.

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By the way, said Donkey, did you hear those rumors about rabbits

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covered with keratin-based fur?

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And filled with blood

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and veins and intestines,

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full of bacteria and acidic liquids? Oh, yuck.

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How gross, said Rabbit.

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Sorry, said donkey.

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They were silent for a while.

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That is a moment from a movie called <i>The Conversations of Donkey

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and Rabbit</i>.

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A quick little short by a filmmaker

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known for, let's say, grander visions.

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She's legendary Hungarian

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filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi.

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Her sci fi classic, <i>My 20th Century</i>,

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won the Camera d'Or at Cannes back in '89.

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And this year, nine movies

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and an Oscar nomination later,

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she returned to the festival,

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this time to head up the jury

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that picks the best short

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film of the whole competition.

1:00

I'm Rico Gagliano. This is the MUBI Podcast.

1:04

Welcome to a special season of conversations

1:04

from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

1:15

This is episode nine

1:15

Ildikó Enyedi on short cinema.

1:19

Starting with the little

1:19

pandemic-era short of her own

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you just got a taste of. It was 2020.

1:25

So during the real lockdown.

1:28

And it's a tiny 3 minutes film,

1:33

very close to my heart

1:33

and to the heart of those who made it.

1:36

I was stuck in Budapest.

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Marcell Rév, my cinematographer

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and good friend was stuck in L.A.

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We made conversations.

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So I had a little rabbit,

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he had a little donkey. And these two animals were conversing

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about the big questions of life.

1:57

We should probably specify not a real

1:57

rabbit and donkey having a conversation.

2:00

- These were...

2:00

- It's true stuffed animals.

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So those... but those were

2:03

in two separate spaces.

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I was shooting in Budapest

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in my eight square meter study.

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Where I was isolated from my family.

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Having one of the first ones

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to have the COVID.

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And Marcell was in

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Los Angeles, stuck...

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At least he had a garden. Actually tomorrow

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he comes...

2:29

- To Cannes? - To town, yeah. And we planned

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to shoot the next conversations

2:33

of Rabbit and Donkey.

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- Here at Cannes. - Here in Cannes. So together at last.

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Yeah, they meet. Then they separate again

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and who knows what the future brings.

2:46

Had you made a short

2:46

in a very long time?

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After film school, I made

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one short, one single, short.

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It's a love story

2:54

between a teenager alien,

3:00

and a human... humanoid teenager.

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There's a part of me that thinks that

3:04

making a short is much harder.

3:07

Because we gotta compact things. And I'm wondering if you felt the same way,

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or what you were feeling

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as you were making that short. As opposed to your features. Actually...

3:16

It can be,

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and you can see, also in Cannes,

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it can be considered from two sides.

3:21

It can be... the first tries of the future

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feature filmmakers.

3:27

And I'm very happy...

3:31

to also try to watch

3:31

film school films,

3:35

because... I somehow I became really

3:41

very much addicted to teaching,

3:41

which is not really teaching.

3:45

It's working together

3:45

with with young people.

3:48

And the other thing is really tough,

3:52

when you made features

3:55

to really boil down to several

3:55

minutes...

3:59

It functions very differently. What impact do you have

4:05

in picking the shorts

4:05

that are in the competition?

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Is that your purview as well? You and the jury pick

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the ones that are... you do. - You don't?

4:12

- Absolutely not. No, no, no. It's

4:13

a very different.

4:16

I think they may boil down to

4:19

to this very narrow number

4:19

from several thousands.

4:24

- 4000.

4:24

- Yeah, 4000 something. Yeah. Yeah.

4:27

There are 11 shorts in competition? - Something like that.

4:29

- Yes. Then your jury is seeing

4:30

these movies fresh.

4:34

Absolutely.

4:34

Totally.

4:36

In cinema.

4:38

So nothing influences us beforehand.

4:41

I have...

4:41

They're not available by design.

4:44

You're not supposed to have ever

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shown them before to get into Cannes.

4:47

Yeah, but they do have trailers,

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which is kind of amazing.

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A trailer for something that's already short. But I've looked at them

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and some of these trailers

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are just amazing, amazing looking.

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But it brings to mind a question

4:58

which is that, you know, this is

5:02

as you said, this is a way for

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students or first time filmmakers

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to really get their foot in the door. It's like their way to start making movies

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or to like maybe foment

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the idea for a feature. But it feels like

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the bar is already so high.

5:17

You know, like there was a time,

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I feel like, where you could make a short

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and be like, on a shoestring. Now I still I feel like even shorts are on

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such an incredibly high technical level.

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Do you worry that it's maybe a

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disincentive for people to, like, try it?

5:30

I don't, because actually...

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With the different hubs on the

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Internet, with the different possibilities

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to appear, for example, like MUBI,

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but many others

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tiny films can get a chance

5:47

to to get their audience.

5:52

So actually,

5:55

actually it was really

5:59

terrifying to make shorts,

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let's say 20 years ago, and...

6:03

Because no one would see them, you say. And now

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you can gather your audience

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from the Globe.

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Well, this is true.

6:10

Distribution in a way, maybe

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easier in that sense.

6:14

There are more platforms for it.

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Yeah, but I'm talking about

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just the barrier of entry to making them.

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Once again, I have to go back to

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to my school films experiences.

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And sometimes I see rich schools,

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well-equipped schools,

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in good contact with

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different equipment providers.

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And the films are

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shiny, they are perfect. But...

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Yeah. There's nothing there.

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They used to have, I remember

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back in the day they had before,

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you know, there were any platforms

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for these kind of things.

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They would actually have roving festivals

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of shorts where you go to the cinemas,

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you know, that was the only

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way of seeing these things.

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And I remember seeing some things

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that were, that I still remember

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today, particularly animated shorts

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that were still like

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I remember seeing the first Simpsons

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animated short, bizarrely. That obviously...

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But actually it's not

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Cannes it's Berlin.

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But I remember

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the short of Rubin Östlund.

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- Oh, really? - Yeah. - What is it?

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- <i>Incident by a Bank.</i>

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But, have you seen it? No.

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Why, what... Wonderful, extremely funny.

7:29

Everything is already there. Like every...

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It's Östlund? It's him. It's full of him.

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It's full of him. Elegantly simple.

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Actually, the camera is in one position.

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It's just one shot. One shot.

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Yeah, zooming and moving a bit, but...

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I mean, panning a bit. And you can also see that...

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some influence from Roy Andersson,

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who I think, I am not mistaken,

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that he was teaching in the film school.

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And they seem so different

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and through this film

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you can understand that sort of sharp,

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cruel, very right eyes,

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how they watch the world.

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It is true when you go back and see

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like the early shorts of a filmmaker

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and see like all the

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beginnings happening there.

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Do you have maybe a set of criteria

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that you have for a short,

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like what makes for a good short?

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If you had to tell a student

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how to make like...

8:35

three rules for making a good short,

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or three things to avoid

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or something like that. Do you have such a thing? Number one,

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never listen to the three rules.

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That sounds pretty good.

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So the one rule is there are no rules.

8:48

Yeah, I think everyone in the cinema

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wants to be surprised,

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and blown away emotionally.

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And you can be blown away emotionally if...

9:00

if the heart of that

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person is in it. And...

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if this passion to tell

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something goes through

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even clumsy at times

9:09

can become a style.

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If they want to achieve something

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with this short that, okay

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this is the step, and then

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I can get financing for... and so on.

9:24

It dries out this sort of magic.

9:28

What is nice and

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oh so terrifying in our

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profession that oh, they

9:31

are cheating all the time.

9:35

That's filmmaking. But every lie is very visible.

9:40

Whatever you want to hide, you can't.

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Even your moral

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lies can appear in the sound design or

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or in the choice of...

9:58

the typography or whatever.

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So...

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you better be truthful. Ildikó Enyedi

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her jury awarded the short film Palme

10:09

d'Or to <i>27</i>, a film by Flóra Anna Buda.

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You can judge for yourself how truthful it is when it gets released in the coming year.

10:19

And that wraps up

10:19

our mini season of Cannes Conversations.

10:22

It was an honor speaking

10:22

to these very special filmmakers

10:24

at this very special festival. We'll be back later this year

10:26

with a season of our regular documentary

10:29

style deep dives into

10:29

cinema history and culture.

10:32

Follow us so you don't miss it. Till then. This episode of the MUBI Podcast

10:36

was written and hosted by me,

10:36

Rico Gagliano.

10:39

Ciara McEniff produced along with Elodie Fagan

10:39

and Josephine Pérez-Portillo.

10:43

Mustafa Koca edited the show, and

10:43

Michelle Cho is our supervising editor.

10:47

Yuri Suzuki composed our theme music.

10:49

Our camera crew in Cannes

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included Cedric Hazard, Alice Desplat,

10:52

Rob Godfrey,

10:52

Solal Coulon and Mathis Toti.

10:55

Special thanks to MUBI's additional team in Cannes, Eric Isssenberg,

10:56

Sam Leter and Ilyass Malki.

11:00

This series is executive produced

11:00

by me, along with Jom Barrenechea,

11:04

Efe Cakarel, Daniel

11:04

Kasman and Michael Tacca.

11:07

If you're a Spanish speaker,

11:07

our sister show MUBI Podcast Encuentros,

11:11

is also posting interviews taped at Cannes

11:11

with Latin American filmmakers.

11:15

Watch or listen

11:15

wherever you get your podcasts.

11:18

And of course, to stream the best in cinema, head over to MUBI.com

11:19

to start watching.

11:22

Have a great summer and may

11:22

all your cinemas be well air conditioned.