(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez helmer Elia Petridis who was raised in Dubai opens up about his cinematic journey and the grand gesture of Western heroics
Elia Petridis came under the spotlight with his 2014 film The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez. The Greek-Lebanese director who was raised in Dubai won the Panavision Grant for the film that starred Academy Award winning actor Ernest Borgnine.
A staple on the festival circuit the film made a splash with its riveting storyline and brilliant cast. City Times caught up with the maverick filmmaker. Excerpts from the interview:
The Man Who Shook The Hand of Vicente Fernandez has won rave reviews. Tell us more about the making of the film.
We shot it on 35mm! We won the Panavision Grant which let us do that and that’s the way Ernie (Ernest Borgnine) deserved to be shot (I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ernie on digital) it was fitting for an actor of his calibre and generation. The last scene of the film was the last scene we shot ironically the first scene I wrote. Yes the screenplay was written backwards like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
We were shooting the scene in slow motion and Ernie asked “Do you mind if I tip my hat to her.” And I kept thinking “We’re running out of film! He wants to tip the hat in slow motion that’s going to guzzle film!” And then my brain shut up and my heart said “Of course” and people talk about that moment all the time now.
It was also one of the last films of Ernest Borgnine. How was it directing a great actor like Borgnine at the end of his career
The one thing Ernie really impressed on me although I’ve noticed it from directors I’ve admired but saw it first hand with him something I like about the industry in that generation and something I actually love about American cinema that is an industry of cinema not art-house cinema is that they just do it like it’s work. I like making a film like I balance a checkbook.
I like wearing a tie to set not because Hitchock did it but because it sets the tone for everyone else not to gaze at their navel or think about the art but think about the work. Great films are made like that under the constraints of budget and time schedules technology.
The art has been addressed before that. In pre-production meetings colour film stock costume approval the writing late at night the dream of watching the film in your head. But once you’re on set time to work. Ernie taught me that showed me that. Leave your ego at the front door time to work.
The Man Who Shook The Hand of Vicente Fernandez was noted for its brilliant cinematography and stunning visuals. Do you think that the art of cinematography is in a way the art of story telling also
The cinematography is very particular for this film. I am a filmmaker who loves films about film. I am a modernist filmmaker trapped in a post-modern time. Vicente Fernandez is a film that knows it’s a film. We invoke Western visual grammar all the way through. That’s why it was so cool to shoot on film. We also shot in cinema-scope making the interior of the nursing home feel like a western landscape.
While it depicts a simple handshake does the film try to depict the grand gesture of Western heroics
Of course. It’s a play on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Gracia – these classics – where now the genre in this day and age dealing with the this character and making it relatable to all our lives just deals with a handshake. Big thinks come in small packages.
Coming to local cinema how do you see the Emirati film industry evolving
I’m very protective of Dubai. Dubai in the 80s and 90s we’ll never get that again. Everyone who was here then says it; it’s in our DNA. That’s the Dubai really that raised me and I want to pay that back. What I want to contribute to here is literally an industry. Be careful sometimes that word is used too casually. Think about what is really an industry; a whole ecology that revolves around the making of entertainment content both globally and for the region.
I would like the UAE film industry to leap forward in the speed that the rest of it is leaping in bypass National Cinema bypass being simply a location for hire but grow quickly into a hub for making frequent financially successful critically acclaimed material by borrowing the ideas that have been pioneered by those successful in the game and applying the unique insight and touch the region has to offer.