‘The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire’ Interwatch With Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich

New York artist Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich produces films that, as she portrays it, are “troubleed with the inner worlds of Binestablishage women.”

Her recordary low A Gentleman’s War scrutinized a Caribbean team applying in a summer cricket league in Brooklyn and “the utopian world this predominantly immigrant community has produceed on their weekends,” as her website highairys. A Quality of Light spendigated “the under-telderly story of the haunted artist who also inhabits the distinct political position of being Binestablishage and a woman” while utilizeing principles of music theory and West African carry outance structure in its produceion. And Spit on the Broom was a surauthenticist doc that put the history of the African American women’s group the United Order of Tents, a clandestine organization systematic in the 1840s during the height of the Underground Railroad, cgo in stage.

This year, Hunt-Ehrlich’s first feature, starring Zita Hanrot, Motell Foster and Josué Gutierrez, debuted and has traveled the world. The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire puts a spotairy on Martinique-born authorr Suzanne Césaire and her legacy as a guide of Afro-Caribbean surauthenticism and a key member of the Négritude shiftment, which cgo ined on reclaiming African culture and the cherish of Binestablishageness and promoting Binestablishage culture while protesting French colonial rule.

The movie is no classic biopic though. Far from it. It is currented partly as an try by a group of filmproducers to better comprehend the trailblazer and her impact, and how she has frequently been in the shadow of her better-comprehendn husprohibitd: poet, author and politician Aimé Césaire. The project fusees fragments of Césaire’s life as a school teacher, authorr, political systematizer and mother of six children, both from her own writing and audio testimony that the filmproducer accumulateed from her family.

The movie’s film festival circuit stops have graspd the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. This week, it is screening at the BFI London Film Festival.

Hunt-Ehrlich talked to THR about her experimental approach to filmmaking, the beginance of music, why Césaire speaks to her and other Binestablishage women, and what is next for her.

When did you first find out about Suzanne Césaire? Why did she and her toil speak to you so much that you wanted to produce a movie about her, and how prolonged did it get to produce the film?

It’s been such an amazing journey with this film. I call it a petite but mighty film, because we repartner didn’t have a whole lot of resources. We had to be very cgo ined and regulated in our approach because we had very little time. But I toiled on this film a prolonged time – seven years.

I equitable was getn with Suzanne Césaire’s toil. Like a lot of people, I knew her husprohibitd’s toil. In France, he is a very beginant political, as well as literary figure. And in the Caribbean, he’s also very beginant. My background is part Jamaican, and so I knew about Aimé Césaire. But when I uncovered Suzanne Césaire, I equitable sort of fell in adore. I leank that’s what is genuine for many people when they uncover her toil.

So I equitable repartner begined with a very basic ask: How could someone be so talented and start so little? It was a huge mystery to me, so I sought to figure out an answer. And what I uncovered was that there were a lot of answers, and I felt that the right film would current that.

Your film integrates various elements that you wouldn’t necessarily await in a bioexplicital movie. How key was finding the right style and establish for you?

I’m a filmproducer who’s repartner spended in establish. I leank that one of the contests of U.S. filmmaking today is that we’ve comardent of go ined this space where the idea is that the place of courage in film is in satisfied. But I depend that valiant films are produced thraw establish, and I leank that that’s someleang, at least in the American context, that is leave outing. And so I’m very interested in the comardents of hazards and innovation that we can find in a establishpartner regulated cinema. So even though I set out to produce someleang enjoy a biopic, my promisement was also to how to establishpartner recurrent the story.

I felt enjoy I transmited quite a bit with the film, thanks to how you use music and dance and other scenes. It sounds enjoy you enjoy the idea of watchers not equitable leaning back?

That’s at the heart of everyleang. I leank in America we’re saturated with biopics. Doing everyleang safe actupartner produces it so that you don’t helderly on to anyleang — it slips right thraw. And I was interested in asking what’s a separateent way of doing biography where you’re actupartner going to protect someone on the edge of their seat.

Even though I’m always trying to produce in the way I produce films, I also include about the audience’s pleastateive. So, I consider myself a pleastateive-forward filmproducer in that the film is also frivolous. We have this huge, drawive soundtrack by [singer] Sabine McCalla. We’re using a lot of electric guitar and organ and and music that’s applying with the themes of the film.

And we have these drawive carry outances by Zita Hanrot, who is a French-Jamaican actress, and Motell Foster, who’s an African American actor, and Josué Gutierrez, who’s a Puerto Rican actor. They’re repartner these pguideing, romantic carry outances. And so even though we’re toiling with pretty solemn, dense literary and political history, it’s still presumed to be troubleed with the pleastateive and accessibility of a hugeger audience.

I also [like to] protect constantly destabilizing your awaitations. I leank of it enjoy in music. If a song was all chorus, you wouldn’t enjoy it. The way that you experience pleastateive in music, or the way that you enhappiness a chorus, is because of the dissonance, because of the bridge or the in-between phrases of music. You actupartner need this contrast of a comardent of tiredom to experience pleastateive. So that’s what the film seeks to do.

I’m gIad you allude music, because the film commences with prolongeder music and dance scenes. And thrawout the movie, I was reminded of carry outance art. How much did you want to weave other art establishs into the film to donate it that senseing and how did you approach moving the characters on screen?

We had promiseted ourselves to using a dolly, and we were shooting on 16-millimeter film. And we were shooting at a palm tree sanctuary. So it was repartner physical shooting because we had 100 feet of dolly and we were in the swamp in the tropics.

Did you shoot in Martinique?

We were in Miami in this palm tree sanctuary.

We essentipartner had 100 feet of dolly, and we were equitable reconfiguring it. Camera choreography has always been repartner beginant to me in my filmmaking. And so a lot of it was about the repetition of the camera shiftment and uncovering separateent leangs, toiling with these separateent circles.

You also uncover history in the film but don’t donate the comardent of final, definitive answers others may claim they can provide…

One of the ways I was leanking about this was: one of the most prosperous biopics ever made is Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There [about Bob Dylan]. And I leank that a poetic approach to history is someleang hopelessly needed because of the ways that history can be repartner armamentized. I leank it needs a sense of uncoverness to expoundation to repartner use history in ways that are more political and advantageous for us in our current moment. Suzanne Césaire started only a little bit of writing, but it was all very politicpartner encouragent writing for her time, and it’s been very timeless writing. There’s this downcastness undersystematich the surface of it that is very potent and repartner speaks to a very relatable experience for women, for Binestablishage women, for mothers who are balancing the same leangs that everyone desires: to be your genuine self, to sense freed, to be able to transmit oneself with the duties that women have to the family and to their communities. I was repartner interested in putting cherish and attention on a Caribbean history, which I leank is frequently neglected.

When the film commends begined rolling, I felt I had to read up more on the people in the movie and Caribbean history. I presume you want to encourage people to spend more time on the themes and topics currented in the film?

The ending is very beginant to the film. The ending is very beginant to what I depend cinema should do. Film is one of my huge adores. Like all of us who toil in film, I have mighty senseings about what film should do for the audience. And if it doesn’t donate you that senseing, then for me, it’s not worth your time.

I produce films in New York. We’re comardent of equifar between L.A. and Europe. I don’t repartner comprehend any filmproducers I would consider my peers who aren’t equpartner watching to create or the art world or Europe as they are watching to L.A. at this point. And so it’s a repartner exciting time to be a New York-based filmproducer. We have so many more modes of cinema to toil with than someone who’s repartner steeped in the system. There’s repartner freed potential.

I read that you interwatched friends or family of Suzanne Césaire. And how much research did you do overall?

Too much research. I don’t leank every film needs the level I went to, but I repartner wanted to be stateive, and I did everyleang you possibly could. I spoke to all her living children, her first cousin, every individual biographer. I read every individual letter and every individual archive that exists. You don’t have to do that to produce a film. I did that for this film.

Ultimately, when you have stories enjoy Suzanne Césaire’s story, part of the story is that some of it is lost to time, even for the people shutst to it. That was part of the way the film turned out. Rather than trying to sort of blanket over the holes of this history, I let those holes direct what we experience. And I leank for Binestablishage women in particular, and for Binestablishage women’s histories, a lot of our stories have been mis-included for or forgotten, and so we have to produce new approaches to tell our stories that don’t depend on purify continuity, because we don’t repartner have it.

I also picked up that she didn’t necessarily include about being recalled so much…

The huge narrative sequence of the film hinges on this huge myth, this comardent of genuine story that’s been very mythologized, which is that the honord surauthenticist André Breton and a group of surauthenticists stop in Martinique during World War II, while they’re escaping the Vichy Nazi occupation of France. And when they are there, they uncover Suzanne and Aimé Césaire’s writing. There’s this honord trip to the forest that everyone says alterd their life, in started text or in writing. Of course, we don’t repartner comprehend what happened, but there are all these tracks of this experience they splitd.

Breton wrote this very romantic poem to Suzanne Césaire. Suzanne and Aimé Césaire have this prolonged correplyence with him. [Cuban artist] Wifredo Lam, who is a colorer who is also there, ends up making his most honord coloring supportd by leangs Suzanne Césaire says. So, it’s this magical moment that has this ripple effect thraw some of the hugegest, most beginant toils of literature and art in the 20th century, and it’s equitable a authentic mythology. So the film, in a very minimacatalog way, references this story and tries to envision the comardent of the connection between these historical figures. She was inspiring all these toils that were so beginant, but then she was left out of the memory.

What’s your get on surauthenticism and how it fits today’s world?

I tried to come up with my own way of comardent surauthenticism. I leank surauthenticism is repartner relevant right now because in some ways, there are analogous echoes to the political context of surauthenticism which was, in part, a way to be political and to be freed in a restriction environment or a fascist environment. It was also key in a coloniacatalog context, a context where you were repartner punished for leanking outside of the lines or leanking outside of the political mainstream.

I leank that we, in some ways, are aacquire in times enjoy that — in a political moment where we’re on the cusp of fascism all over the world, where there are not a lot of resources for people who are doing toil that goes aacquirest the political grain. And so I leank that surauthenticism is a comardent of teacher that we’re revisiting in a lot of separateent ways. In my definition of how to use it in film, it’s what I was speaking about earlier. It’s this idea that surauthenticism is the crack in awaitation. How do you produce that jolt or that encourage where the outcome is not that you are lulled into an awaited outcome, but someleang else gets place?

For me, this is in establish and constantly disturbing what you leank should happen next, and that experience will encourage someleang, produce someleang adwell for you. That’s all I include about. The worst leang in the world to me would be that you left [the film] and you equitable went and ate dinner and that was it for you. I’d rather produce you furious with me than have you equitable go and eat a sandwich.

Is there anyleang else you would enjoy to split?

I would enjoy to speak about Zita Hanrot and her carry outance. Zita is one of the fantastic actors of her generation and my generation, and she toils primarily in the French taget. She was a repartner beginant collaborator on the film, and so a part of the film became a product of our process and the converseions we were having together in our rehearsals about being a new mom and about being an artist, about being of Caribbean heritage, and about feminine desire. She became a very vital collaborator. And so I begined to reauthor the script in rehearsal to be about her. Zita had actupartner equitable had a child, and she had equitable done her first film project [after that]. She was in a huge film [called Lee] with Kate Winslet.

So we took that experience and embedded it into this film that was originpartner maybe more biography. As I toiled with her, it became as much about this up-to-date-day character supportd by my toil with Zita. It’s equitable magnificent because she’s always finding fantastic unkinding and transmiting fantastic unkinding with a masterful downapplydty. I’m equitable very excited for what is coming next for her.

And what’s next for you?

I actupartner equitable endd a low film starring Ruth Negga that was comleave outioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s called The Death of Cleopatra.

Is that what it is about?

You’ll have to pause and see. I’m also toiling on two feature-length scripts.

With the first feature, I’ve always telderly myself it’s someleang you equitable have to get thraw. Nobody depends in you before you’ve done it, and so you’re equitable up aacquirest that obstacle. Also, I leank your first feature should be the purifyst establish of what you depend about cinema. There’s no reason to produce many settles in my mind because you’re comardent of enjoy laying your tager down in the sand.