Cannes Conversations — Ildiko Enyedi on short cinema

Oscar-nominated Hungarian filmmaker Ildiko Enyedi is celebrated for her bold, unclassifiable features (like the Cannes-winning sci-fi MY 20TH CENTURY).  But at this year’s Cannes she trained her eye on smaller-scale visions: She helmed the jury picking the festival’s best short films.

Enyedi tells host Rico Gagliano about her own whimsical shorts, her optimism for the future of the form, and fangirls out on fellow master Ruben Östlund’s first, one-shot foray into cinema.

Every May, the population of sleepy Cannes, France triples — as film pros and cinephiles from around the globe convene for the two-week movie-thon called the Cannes Film Festival.  For the fourth season of the MUBI Podcast, we sent host Rico Gagliano into the eye of this celluloid storm, accompanied by an intrepid camera crew, to grab interviews with a cross-section of filmmakers who made Cannes 2023 one of the most celebrated in years. Guests include legendary director Wim Wenders, perennial Cannes favorites Kleber Mendonca Filho and Monia Chokri, and a slew of new filmmakers destined to be world cinema's next wave — from Belgian hip-hopper-turned-auteur Baloji to New York's wry boundary-smasher Joanna Arnow. 

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Transcript

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Heads up, audio listeners, you're about to hear a videotaped conversation. For the full experience you'll find a video version of this episode on Spotify or YouTube. By the way, said Donkey, did you hear those rumors about rabbits covered with keratin-based fur? And filled with blood and veins and intestines, full of bacteria and acidic liquids? Oh, yuck. How gross, said Rabbit. Sorry, said donkey. They were silent for a while. That is a moment from a movie called <i>The Conversations of Donkey and Rabbit</i>. A quick little short by a filmmaker known for, let's say, grander visions. She's legendary Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi. Her sci fi classic, <i>My 20th Century</i>, won the Camera d'Or at Cannes back in '89. And this year, nine movies and an Oscar nomination later, she returned to the festival, this time to head up the jury that picks the best short film of the whole competition. I'm Rico Gagliano. This is the MUBI Podcast. Welcome to a special season of conversations from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. This is episode nine Ildikó Enyedi on short cinema. Starting with the little pandemic-era short of her own you just got a taste of. It was 2020. So during the real lockdown. And it's a tiny 3 minutes film, very close to my heart and to the heart of those who made it. I was stuck in Budapest. Marcell Rév, my cinematographer and good friend was stuck in L.A. We made conversations. So I had a little rabbit, he had a little donkey. And these two animals were conversing about the big questions of life. We should probably specify not a real rabbit and donkey having a conversation.- These were...- It's true stuffed animals. So those... but those were in two separate spaces. I was shooting in Budapest in my eight square meter study. Where I was isolated from my family. Having one of the first ones to have the COVID. And Marcell was in Los Angeles, stuck... At least he had a garden. Actually tomorrow he comes...- To Cannes?- To town, yeah. And we planned to shoot the next conversations of Rabbit and Donkey.- Here at Cannes.- Here in Cannes. So together at last. Yeah, they meet. Then they separate again and who knows what the future brings. Had you made a short in a very long time? After film school, I made one short, one single, short. It's a love story between a teenager alien, and a human... humanoid teenager. There's a part of me that thinks that making a short is much harder. Because we gotta compact things. And I'm wondering if you felt the same way, or what you were feeling as you were making that short. As opposed to your features. Actually... It can be, and you can see, also in Cannes, it can be considered from two sides. It can be... the first tries of the future feature filmmakers. And I'm very happy... to also try to watch film school films, because... I somehow I became really very much addicted to teaching, which is not really teaching. It's working together with with young people. And the other thing is really tough, when you made features to really boil down to several minutes... It functions very differently. What impact do you have in picking the shorts that are in the competition? Is that your purview as well? You and the jury pick the ones that are... you do.- You don't?- Absolutely not. No, no, no. It's a very different. I think they may boil down to to this very narrow number from several thousands.- 4000.- Yeah, 4000 something. Yeah. Yeah. There are 11 shorts in competition?- Something like that.- Yes. Then your jury is seeing these movies fresh. Absolutely. Totally. In cinema. So nothing influences us beforehand. I have... They're not available by design. You're not supposed to have ever shown them before to get into Cannes. Yeah, but they do have trailers, which is kind of amazing. A trailer for something that's already short. But I've looked at them and some of these trailers are just amazing, amazing looking. But it brings to mind a question which is that, you know, this is as you said, this is a way for students or first time filmmakers to really get their foot in the door. It's like their way to start making movies or to like maybe foment the idea for a feature. But it feels like the bar is already so high. You know, like there was a time, I feel like, where you could make a short and be like, on a shoestring. Now I still I feel like even shorts are on such an incredibly high technical level. Do you worry that it's maybe a disincentive for people to, like, try it? I don't, because actually... With the different hubs on the Internet, with the different possibilities to appear, for example, like MUBI, but many others tiny films can get a chance to to get their audience. So actually, actually it was really terrifying to make shorts, let's say 20 years ago, and... Because no one would see them, you say. And now you can gather your audience from the Globe. Well, this is true. Distribution in a way, maybe easier in that sense. There are more platforms for it. Yeah, but I'm talking about just the barrier of entry to making them. Once again, I have to go back to to my school films experiences. And sometimes I see rich schools, well-equipped schools, in good contact with different equipment providers. And the films are shiny, they are perfect. But... Yeah. There's nothing there. They used to have, I remember back in the day they had before, you know, there were any platforms for these kind of things. They would actually have roving festivals of shorts where you go to the cinemas, you know, that was the only way of seeing these things. And I remember seeing some things that were, that I still remember today, particularly animated shorts that were still like I remember seeing the first Simpsons animated short, bizarrely. That obviously... But actually it's not Cannes it's Berlin. But I remember the short of Rubin Östlund.- Oh, really?- Yeah.- What is it?- <i>Incident by a Bank.</i> But, have you seen it? No. Why, what... Wonderful, extremely funny. Everything is already there. Like every... It's Östlund? It's him. It's full of him. It's full of him. Elegantly simple. Actually, the camera is in one position. It's just one shot. One shot. Yeah, zooming and moving a bit, but... I mean, panning a bit. And you can also see that... some influence from Roy Andersson, who I think, I am not mistaken, that he was teaching in the film school. And they seem so different and through this film you can understand that sort of sharp, cruel, very right eyes, how they watch the world. It is true when you go back and see like the early shorts of a filmmaker and see like all the beginnings happening there. Do you have maybe a set of criteria that you have for a short, like what makes for a good short? If you had to tell a student how to make like... three rules for making a good short, or three things to avoid or something like that. Do you have such a thing? Number one, never listen to the three rules. That sounds pretty good. So the one rule is there are no rules. Yeah, I think everyone in the cinema wants to be surprised, and blown away emotionally. And you can be blown away emotionally if... if the heart of that person is in it. And... if this passion to tell something goes through even clumsy at times can become a style. If they want to achieve something with this short that, okay this is the step, and then I can get financing for... and so on. It dries out this sort of magic. What is nice and oh so terrifying in our profession that oh, they are cheating all the time. That's filmmaking. But every lie is very visible. Whatever you want to hide, you can't. Even your moral lies can appear in the sound design or or in the choice of... the typography or whatever. So... you better be truthful. Ildikó Enyedi her jury awarded the short film Palme d'Or to <i>27</i>, a film by Flóra Anna Buda. You can judge for yourself how truthful it is when it gets released in the coming year. And that wraps up our mini season of Cannes Conversations. It was an honor speaking to these very special filmmakers at this very special festival. We'll be back later this year with a season of our regular documentary style deep dives into cinema history and culture. Follow us so you don't miss it. Till then. This episode of the MUBI Podcast was written and hosted by me, Rico Gagliano. Ciara McEniff produced along with Elodie Fagan and Josephine Pérez-Portillo. Mustafa Koca edited the show, and Michelle Cho is our supervising editor. Yuri Suzuki composed our theme music. Our camera crew in Cannes included Cedric Hazard, Alice Desplat, Rob Godfrey, Solal Coulon and Mathis Toti. Special thanks to MUBI's additional team in Cannes, Eric Isssenberg, Sam Leter and Ilyass Malki. This series is executive produced by me, along with Jom Barrenechea, Efe Cakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. If you're a Spanish speaker, our sister show MUBI Podcast Encuentros, is also posting interviews taped at Cannes with Latin American filmmakers. Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, to stream the best in cinema, head over to MUBI.com to start watching. Have a great summer and may all your cinemas be well air conditioned.