................................. MARIKA . KRAJNIEWSKA ......
PORTUGUESE DIRECTOR AND SCRIPTWRITER , PRESENTED IN 2012 WITH THE ALBERT R . BROCCOLI AWARD . IN 2011 SHE DIRECTED HER FIRST SHORT FILM , MK SPITFIRE , AND IN 2012 , HER SECOND , AS THE DAYS WENT BY . HER FILMS HAVE BEEN SCREENED AROUND THE WORLD IN
USA , FRANCE , PORTUGAL , POLAND ,
KAZAKHSTAN , THAILAND , GHANA AND BRAZIL – INCLUDING THE OFFICIAL SELECTION AT CAMERIMAGE FILM FESTIVAL 2013 . IN THE MEANWHILE , SHE HAS BEEN WORKING AS ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN BOTH TV AND CINEMA INCLUDING THE FEATURE NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON , DIRECTED BY BILLE AUGUST
– THAT HAD ITS PREMIERE AT BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - , AND THE 26 EPISODE SERIES ENTITLED OS FILHOS DO ROCK , DIRECTED BY PEDRO VARELA AND STREAMED AT THE PORTUGUESE NATIONAL TV , RTP . WHILE AS THE DAYS WENT BY IS GOING AROUND THE FESTIVALS CIRCUIT , FILIPA IS ALREADY WORKING ON HER NEXT
PROJECT .
With its beauty and melancholy , As The Days Went By is a psychologically complex portrayal of the dyna mics of love . Keeping dialogue to a wonderful minimum , Filipa Ruiz closely follows the intimate details and rhythms of her characters ' daily life . The story of Hans , a writer seeking for inspiration , and his unconfessed love for Jenny is told with a mixture of naturalism and magic realism that infuses everyday life with a special vibrancy . And behind the came ra , the talented director uses an energetic narrative structure to inject unexpected images and fresh emotions into the film . We are pleased to present Filipa Ruiz for this year ' s WomenCinemakers Edition . Filipa , tell us about your trajectory as a filmmaker . What inspired you to express yourself in this medium ?
I understand Arts as the medium that human beings found to preserve their memory through time . It through pain tings , photographs , sculptures , writings even music and architecture that we are able to know and study the human being from pre-historical times till modern times . Art is a cultural record , and people have always fascinated me .
My trajectory into filmmaking happened in such a natural way I always loved painting , writing , and photography has always been with me as well . I attended the Fine Arts University for my Bachelor degree in Lisbon , and soon I flew to Finland where I wanted to continue my studies . Cinema is known as the Seventh Art as it synthetizes all the traditional arts together ( the spatial arts and the temporal arts ). When one thinks that to make a film one has to go from a written script into drawing shots , building sets , developing characters , music composi tions ... being an Art lover , I easily found this being the medium I would like to express myself in . My inspiration is People , absolutely . And my will is to instill hope .
As The Days Went By is a poetic and immersive film . What attracted you to this project ?
At the time I was making some studies on the essence of where the artists get their inspiration from . I went to visit a friend of mine in Barcelona . He collects everything he might find interesting from the street or objects that people give him and he builds his own pieces out of it . Every item in his house is unique , and has his handprint on it . The lights built with nets shading the rooms in different textures , his bed built over long wooden structures which allows you to walk under it , he places canvas over walls that he covered with pages from his favorite musical orchestrations and projects images over it and so on . It became this one whole installation , which I believe that reflects both his soul and the world he is in . I wrote some notes down and started building my own character .
For me , the way artists think they are seen by the society and how the society gets reflected on them plays a major role in the art they produce . Artists are observers by nature . But it was only when I visited my sister , she was living in Denmark by then , that the story took form . I visited Hans Christian Anderson house in Odense and it was there that I had the opportunity to read some of his diary notes . I was surprised to find out that they fit exactly in the line of thoughts I was