It’s hard\nto say. I started making actual films during my Cinema studies, when I already was\n25 years old. As Sergey Paradjanov said,\nand I guess he was right, we were born directors, and for as long as I can\nremember I have been making movies in my head, creating them among my family,\nfriends. Fantasy is hard to control. When I was 7 I created a street theater,\nwe were inventing stories and performing them in children gardens and yards\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then\nlife matters forced me and my family to leave our land, Ouzbekistan, and we immigrated\nto Israel. We arrived 2 weeks before the war started (one of many), so my dreams\nwere going away from me, disappearing <\/a>in the fog of this new\nlanguage, this new, hard life of immigrants, wars, military service. This immigration\nwas very hard for me but made me what I am now, a stronger person, I think.\nAfter the army, where I served as a graphic designer, I became a web designer.\nI was enjoying very much my work, but at some point, I understood that a single\nimage was not enough for me, even if you manage to say many things in it. I\nwanted to tell stories. So I started everything from a blank page and I decided\nto finally realize my dream. Cinema Studies in Paris. I was 25. I started then\nto live the dream. The real one.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> What film was your directorial\ndebut? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This one, \u201cOlma\nDjon\u201d, that I have the honor to present to the Filmmaker Festival of New York Festival\nis my first feature film. My first film was \u201cNicotine Intime\u201d, a short film I\ndid in school, about a girl who keeps her memories in her cigarette butts. Her diary\n<\/a>is made from them, and if she wants to live again any moment in her\nlife, she just needs to smoke it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> What is your recent film about? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOlma Djon\u201d is about finding Love.\nDeep in our hearts, the most Perfect and Pure love – the one given by the\nMother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This film was a research for me about what is Motherhood, in many levels. In \u201cOlma Djon\u201d the father of the family can’t find a way to communicate with his daughter<\/a>, who refuses to speak. Only when he digs his way deep inside himself to reach and rediscover his mother\u2019s love will he succeed. This film was a real “voyage” for everyone who participated <\/a>in the process. A fantastic journey deep into the heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> How did you go about casting for\nthe film?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I always go by intuition. I never\nwatch my actors\u2019 previous films. I need to feel. To see this invisible\n“link” that unites me with the actor, from where we can start the\nwork. What is interesting for me is to work with the actor, involving his and\nmy personal <\/a>feelings, past, and dreams. The process is as much\ninteresting for me as the result itself. And every actor is different in the\napproach that he or she needs in order to reach what I am searching for, the deepest\n<\/a>TRUTH about the character. This deep truth for me can’t be\n“played” but has to be “lived”. Then the spectator can\nidentify to the character. Then his pain and joy become the ones everyone\n<\/a>can feel. Some times everything happens because I meet an inspiring\nactor, like it was for Olma Djon. I met Aziz Beyshenaliev and we had\neach others’ trust. From the first day of writing \u00ab Olma Djon \u00bb we\nspoke, discussed it, and this film is inspired and contains every corner of his\nsoul. Now we are working the same way on our next project \u00ab Cinecitt\u00e0 \u00bb.\nAziz became a real collaborator<\/a>, as we share the same\n“past”, we see the world through the same prisma. Then and now he is\nthe spine of the project. I am very thankful <\/a>for\nhis support to me, as he is a very well known actor and Olma Djon was my\n“debut”. I did not have the same work process with Natasha\nMashckevitch and Aysha. It\u2019s another story, deep and interesting, very different\neach time\u2026 About Natasha Mashkevich – I saw her photo and knew immediatly that\nit had to be her for the role of Sara. We met and discovered that so much of\nour path was the same. We had less time to work than with Aziz, but she followed\n<\/a>me, very pregnant, to Kazakhstan. I discovered that she, too, like\nmyself, was originaly from Central Asia, and that this shooting was her first\ncoming back to her homeland… She is a talented <\/a>actress\nwith an incredible courage, always agreeing to try things and not being afraid\nof anything – She is a rare pearl. Very different from Aziz that needs more\nwords, Natasha is more about capturing the energy of things. She also\nexperienced immigrating in Israel as well so sometimes when I wanted to tell\nher something without anyone else understanding, I would talk to her in hebrew.\nThat was our secret. Her part was difficult, without any word, and in that cold\natmosphere, hearing a few words in hebrew was like a “love” whisper\nto her soul. We also discovered that she and Aziz were born in the same city.\nAnother piece of the puzzle. With Aysha Berrikkizy – our youngest actress on\nset – we had worked together on my previous film. I saw her in a very small\nrole, and I wanted to meet her. Sometimes I get confused and think that she is\na younger me.. LOVE at first sight. In her eyes I saw everything I needed. Deep\ndeep wisdom, coming from I don’t know where. You know I worked with Ronit\nElkabetz, a very well known israeli actress and director who passed away 4\nyears ago. She was telling me “I found every character I play in my\nprevious lives.” That is the case with Aysha. This girl was born with a\nhuge talent. As any child, she was playing between the takes. But as soon as I\nwas saying “action” she was transforming. It was amazing for everyone\non the set. I did not want to direct her, I wanted to discover what she would\npropose to me. And each time it was a thousands levels up from what I was\nthinking. About Saltanat Tashimova who interprets the Shaman Woman, I wanted to\nhave a true shaman in my movie. She is one. She is a painter and had an exhibition\nplanned during our shoot, but after we talked and I told her the story, she decided\nto cancel the exibition. The role was her’s. That face was there and we were\nall under her shamanic inluence. What a journey!<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> What was the most important\nlesson you had to learn that has had a positive effect on your film? How did\nthat lesson happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The lesson was not to be afraid of\nyourself. To go to the place where the intuition guides you and act from there.\nThe film was shot in 9 days in difficult conditions. As it was extremely\n<\/a>urgent for me to shoot this film for personal reasons, I had to\nadapt myself to what was offered to me. We were in the Kazakh winter, minus 20\u00b0\ncelsius, in snowy mountains, with a low budget and many risks. Only 9 days to\nshoot a full lengh feature film. As a director, you are asked questions every\nsecond. You don\u2019t have time to think. You only have time to feel. The answers came\nfrom the belly<\/a>, so they were right. And when you as a director are\nconnected to your real CORE, the crew, every one on the set, trust you and follow\nyou, reaching their truth about the light, the acting, the costumes, the frame,\nthe rhythm<\/a>\u2026, everything. So actually you create the wave,\nand everyone is swimming <\/a>on it. That was a great\nexperience I guess for everyone there. We were very tightened <\/a>by\nthe\n<\/a>conditions<\/a>, time etc\nbut at the same time very free. This freedom was very important. Of course\n<\/a>I only succeeded <\/a>because I had an\namazing supporting team, especially my producers that made everything for me to\nfeel confortable. I learned from Kazakh Hospitality so much. I was received\nlike a queen, everywhere. I learned a lot from this country, the Dignity I\nthink the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what I “learned” from\nthis film – EVERYTHING! In terms of professional cinema, I had the chance to\nwork with huge Maestros in Post Production. A year and a half of continuous\nmaster classes. Pavel Doreuli who designed the sound, teached me about voices,\nas we re-recorded the dialogues. He virtuosly recreated the sound of the entire\nfilm from scratch! Do you know what is the sound of a snowy apple garden? Now we\nknow. Vincent Arnardi, the re-recording mixer, has been the most precious gift\nI had on the film. I learned to listen and to hear. But not only the sound,\nalso my heartbeats. My breath. With Herve Schneid, the editor (and my husband),\nthe montage journey was an intense and ininterrupted self questioning<\/a>.\nI learned to tell the story from what I had in my hands. It was amazing to see\nthat the more experience these people have, the less they are afraid to try,\nand the craziest they are. For exemple the trance scene was a complete surprise\nto me. A Master Piece. That\u2019s when I learned to be free from rules. I learned\nso much from my dear composer Shigeru Umebayashi who teached me the Meaning of\nmusic in a film, and from composer Abbas Bakhtiari who gave me the heart beat\nof the film with his Iranian instrument The Daf\u2026 Color Correction, the\nminimalist difference between colors and how it influences the perception of\nthe scene, from Elie Akoka. Special effects, the magic! from Alain Carsoux. I\nlearned from Aleksandra Aronova, art and costume designer, that it is possible\nto create “No Time” what she actually did. I learned how to work in simposium with\nIskander, my DoP – that <\/a>definetly became now my\n“Cine-Eyes”. And many many others, actually I learned everything from\nevery one. I hope I was a good student!<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> Tell<\/strong> us a bit about the other films you\u2019ve made and your other projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You know, we directors can speak hours\nabout our projects, but here we have only few lines \ud83d\ude42 I will tell you about\nthe previous one \u201cTreasure\u201d which I also shot in Kazakhstan, with the same\nactress Aisha Berrikizzy and the same DoP Iskander Narymbetov. This short film\nwas made in 2 days. Also a very urgent film. I had only 5 days left in Kazakhstan\nwhen my \u201cCine-Father\u201d, the kazakh director Satybaldy Narymbetov told me: \u201cthe\nstory you just told me about your childhood, go and shoot it!\u201d. It was like the\nbiggest Blessing I ever received. When you are given Wings, you just go and\nfly. Everything came to place <\/a>very quickly like a puzzle,\nwe shot it and the film traveled <\/a>all over the world in many\nfestivals. That\u2019s when this life gift collaboration with Iskander Narymbetov –\nmy dear DOP started. I have many projects, many dreams, that I hope will be\nachieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> What role have film festivals\nplayed in your life so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You don’t do films\nfor festivals but you want them to be watched. So festivals are super\nimportant. You meet interesting people and your movie is seen by a public, which\nyou are in contact with immediately<\/a>. Our premiere was in\nEurasia Film Festival in Nursultan, Kazakhstan. I was so suprised by the way\nthe public received the film. A real deep dialogue happened there. This woman\nfor example who told me that she arrived to the film by pure chance and that it\nmade her forgive her own mother… This is something big, you know\u2026 Then it was\nthe Rome Independent Film Festival, where we had our first award, Best Feature\nfilm. I swear, you never forget your first award. It gives you this energy to push\nfurther, to believe in what you do. Another beautiful exemple is the Torino\nUnderground Cinefest. It went online this year because of the corona virus.\nFirst we were sad not to have a proper screening, but then the miracle\nhappened. The film was seen online by 2300 people in Italy only! I received\nletters from the epicenter of the corona, from people thanking me for the movie,\nwhich they saw in these so peculiar conditions, isolated in their homes, and it\ntouched them even more. You understand, when you receive such letters, that\nyour mission is accomplished<\/a>. You feel happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> Is\nit harder to get started or to keep going? What was the particular thing that\nyou had to conquer to do either?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The hardest think for\nme is to keep going. Sometimes in this very big competition you get lost, you\nloose hope and trust in yourself. But you have friends, new ideas, feelings,\nand you just can’t not restart again. In my case the crisis lasts about 3 days\nmaximum. As I am a very passionate person, strong feelings are here to help me\nto want to create again. To say something urgently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> How\nhas your style evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a very\ninteresting question. I needed to go back to my roots in order to find my true\n<\/a>self and to create from that place. As the same \u201cCine-Father\u201d told\nme: \u201cStop telling stories about others, tell me your own story.\u201d That\u2019s when\neverything started. You know you can go far away looking for the truth but it\u2019s\nactually just inside you. In your roots is the truth for your fruits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> What has been your personal key\nto success? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To define success for myself. What is\nit about. Not to play other people\u2019s success but my own. I think it is\ndifferent from one person to another. It is so easy to fall into the trap\n<\/a>of the game around us, especially in the cinema world. I guess to\nLOVE what you do and to do only what you LOVE is the key for life, not only for\nsuccess. Not to compare your path to other\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> What are you thinking about\ndoing next?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As I said, I am working on a few\nprojects, one of them I wrote in Italy last year, entitled \u201cCinecitt\u00e0\u201d, where I\nexpressed all my love and admiration for Italian cinema, from after the war to\nour days and Italian people. I wrote it with the precious collaboration of Aziz\nBeyshenaliev, for whom the main caracter is written. The female caracter is a very\ninspiring actress too, but I can’t tell you yet her name. I hope that it will\nbe an incredible Duo. I have another\nvery challenging project based on the amazing script written by a great Italian\nscript writer Rinaldo Rocco, that will happen in Paris. And the one based on my\nbook \u201cChez Moi\u201d (My Home) the quest for where my home is and what it means to\nme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam:<\/strong> Where does your studio want to\ngo from here? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am an independant director so I dont\nhave any studio giving me directions. I have my own wishes, ambitions, beliefs\n<\/a>and convictions<\/a>. Like a boat in the open\nocean, free and happy, sailing wherever the wind of creativity and desire takes\nme! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victoria Yakubova (Schneid) was born in Tashkent, Ouzbekistan, former Soviet Union, in 1977. In 1990, at the age of 13, due to the 90\u2019s events there, she immigrates with her family to Israel. In 2002 she leaves Israel to realise her Biggest Dream: carry out her film studies in Paris, France. She directs several short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19253,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631\/revisions\/19253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/nyglamour.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OLMA-DJONmail-757x1024.jpg\")