Affricate
A single mother’s adventure by the seaside leads her to recognise her unnecessary martyrdom for her disabled teenage daughter.
Interview with Director Anna Gyimesi
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Thank you!
I'm particularly interested in the taboos surrounding motherhood, and Affricate is my first work on this topic. I felt the desire to show the plight of a mother who, limiting herself exclusively to the role of motherhood, unconsciously decides to repress her own desires and ceases to exist as a woman.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
Even if you're not a mother, even if you're not a woman, you can empathize with the protagonist. What it must feel like to identify unwittingly with the social expectations of a mother image, a mother role that deprives you of all other aspects of your identity. From this point, the protagonist does reach the end of the film, as a result of a liberating process that transcends herself, the ability to experience pleasure, and this is good to see, to feel with her.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
The themes of motherhood, the motifs of the mother-child relationship, are inspired by the relationship with my own mother and my own possible relationship with motherhood. Because of my mother's chronic illness, I often felt that the roles were reversed and that I was the parent. It was a role that I didn't want, that was a burden for me. Perhaps because of that, I am afraid that motherhood would become a burden for me. It's important for me to have mother characters in my films whose motherhood is also a burden because I can play over and over again with the idea of laying down that burden through my films. I believe that is the universality of my choice of subject as well.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
It helped me a lot in the writing process that I have participated in workshops already in the early treatment phase. At the Talent Sarajevo Pack&Pitch workshop at the Sarajevo Film Festival, I won the best pitch award. With the help of a script consultant and co-writer, I used what I learned in the workshops to write the script. It was also very important for me to develop the script with the actors to make it as authentic as it could be, so as soon as I had the final casting, I immediately held rehearsals with them. The script was built and authenticated a lot from that. These improvisational rehearsals were particularly important because of the amateur actor in the film, Kinga Csutak-Hoffmann, who plays the disabled Lena. Her authenticity, and the fact that the actress playing the main character, Adél Kováts, also raised a child affected in real life, were the basis for the three-way conversations that helped to nuance the situations and dialogues in the script.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Besides the accuracy of the film, a lot of people praise Adél Kováts for her performance, these are the most common feedback I get. Some people, however, are not very touched by the film, at least that is what I sometimes gather from the Letterboxd reviews. I think Affricate can appeal to many people, but perhaps those expecting a really spectacular, action-packed, more stimulating film may be disappointed, as this film is rather slow, relies a lot on the acting, on subtle nuances, and will therefore appeal to those who are interested in psychological themes.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
The film is set in Croatia, where a Hungarian family goes on holiday. It is important to know that there is some political tension between Croatia and neighboring Serbia. When the film was screened at the Küstendorf Film Festival in Serbia, the audience erupted into a frenzy at Mark's line when he offers Slivovica to the protagonist as a Croatian drink. The Serbians consider this short drink to be their national drink and were outraged that the Croatian character in the film calls it a Croatian drink. This reaction was very shocking, and I understand the reason. The lesson I learned is that you cannot be careful enough in preparing a film regarding the customs of the country in which the film is set and at the same time, you cannot please all different nationalities of the audience neither without not hurting someone. In the end, it worked out well, we won an award at this festival and I learned that Slivovica is considered a national drink by Serbians which I was not aware enough about before.
When I hear the feedback that the audience didn't expect what was going to happen between the protagonist and Mark, I'm always happy because I'm a bit afraid that this is a predictable move.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
Eastern European films, I think, especially overseas, cannot be visible enough. I'm proud that the film is the representative of Hungarian cinema in the prestigious Seattle International Film Festival competition this year and I think www.wearemovingstories.com can help make the film more visible. I hope that Affricate will be noticed by the curators of other festivals and events as well and that the film will reach an even wider audience. Affricate deals with an important topic: what it means to raise a disabled child in Eastern Europe today, and how this affects the self-image as a mother. This is a universal theme, and it is the potential East-West contrast about this question that could make the film a subject of serious discussion. So further accessibility and visibility in the USA would be an exciting new perspective.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
In particular, we would like to draw the attention of film festival representatives, streaming platform representatives, and journalists.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I wish the viewer to empathize with the fate of the protagonist, specifically: as a mother of a teenager with a disability, there are serious challenges I face, in a different way than my fellow mothers raising an ordinary child in this sense.
At the same time, I am more concerned with the more universal questioning, and I hope the viewer will be able to ask as well: can I be a woman if I define myself solely as a mother of a child with a disability? In general, can I remain a woman if I am a mother, can I remain an autonomous person able to live her desires if I am a parent? However, I think Affricate is not only for parents but for everyone who has faced the difficulties of detachment and letting go.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Can I be a woman with desires as a mother? Am I allowed by the society and myself to be a woman as a mother of a disabled child? Are there differences between East and West on this issue?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I am currently working on my first feature film, Soft Hours, as part of the Midpoint Feature Launch workshop. Like Affricate, it explores my main theme, the taboos surrounding motherhood. In order to break out of a state of constant uncertainty and vain hope, which is hard to call life, the protagonist has to accept that his son, who has been missing for ten years, is probably dead. I have already asked actress Adél Kováts to play the lead role, as she did in Affricate. As in Affricate, this project approaches motherhood as a burden, from both negative and positive aspects, focusing on the possibility and difficulties of letting go as a central theme.
Interview: May 2023
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Affricate
A single mother’s adventure by the seaside leads her to recognise her unnecessary martyrdom for her disabled teenage daughter.
Length: 26:18
Director: Anna Gyimesi
Producer: Ádám Felszeghy, Zoltán Mártonffy
Writer: Anna Gyimesi, Fruzsina Danszki
About the writer, director and producer:
ANNA GYIMESI was born in 1985, in Budapest. After receiving her degree in medicine in 2011, she turned to filmmaking. She graduated from the film directing program of the University of Theater and Film Arts in 2019 and from documentary film directing in the Docnomads Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Course in 2021. Her interests are taboo social dilemmas represented through personal dramas, especially connected to motherhood, womanhood, and social marginalization. With Affricate she won the Cinelink-award for the best pitch at Talent Sarajevo Pack&Pitch 2020 and took part in the European Short Pitch Works-In-Progress Co-Production Forum in 2022. Recently she is developing her first feature.
Key cast: Adél Kováts, Kinga Csutak-Hoffmann, Lilla Kizlinger, Márk Nagy
Looking for: buyers
Facebook: Affricate//Affrikáta
Instagram: @affricatefilm
Hashtags used: #affricate #affricatefilm #affrikáta #affrikátafilm
Website: www.lightsonfilm.com/affricate
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month?
Friss Hús Budapest International Short Film Festival, Huesca International Film Festival(Spain), CINEMA JOVE - Valencia International Film Festival (Spain)