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Girolamo Marri
Italian video artist
His video “Against all Odds” is part of the “image vs music” selection
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Interview: 10 question
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background –
I was born in Rome, once capital of the world, now capital of
stillness and procrastination. Of endless sessions of pointless
speculation in front of a coffee cup and some reactionary reading. If
I now take a look at the sketching I did instead of listening to
teachers in school I find it repelling to say the least. I left Italy
for Belgium to study children books illustration. Before getting
really depressed by the weather I’ve had time, just enough, to develop
a muscular hate for children and children books haunted by teddy bears
going shopping and swinging penguins. I went back to Rome and painted,
assisted a photographer, studied art history, but mostly wasted huge
amounts of time, for three years. Then decided it was about time to
get a proper BA and move out of all that lovely nothingness. But in
the end I came to London and studied fine arts instead.
2. When, how and why started you filming?
No one could bear my painting anymore; I was strongly pushed to try different media. I had this image of me crawling on the floors of my flat in a kafkaesque way and wanted to film it, it’s been really long a process, but after three versions and a year later I had a wonderful little video installation.
3. What kind of subjects have your films?
Me. And the rest filtered through me.
4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
Recently my work is close to documentary/interview and
I’m obviously influenced by the cheapest among these, but the more I
stay away from stylistic references, the happier I am. I generally
read something somewhere that triggers me and I plonge myself into it,
replacing the actual subject with myself, then it all follows those
that what be my natural reactions. Among these my reluctance to
succomb my natural reactions and subsequent liing and denial.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
Pretty basic at the moment, for financial reasons. I have an HDV camera and a pretty solid tripod, the rest (lights and microphones) I generally
hire. The editing I do on a powerbook mostly with Final cut and
struggling with After Effects
6. What are the chances of new media for the genre film/video in
general and you personally?
There are too many chances for digital media, we are not talking of an elitarian media anymore. And this really annoys me for I hate competition.
7. How do you finance your films?
Unfortunately it’s not like we are talking about millionaire budgets. It’s more than sufficient to steal wallets on the bus and sell drugs to kids outside school.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team? If you have experience in both, what is the
difference, what do you prefer?
I generally work with one or two people, mostly my good friend Henrik Potter, a skinny wizard of shaky hand filming. For the little I know about big teams I must admit that I really love being in command of a big ship but I’m really scared of responsibilities so end up being not authoritarian enough and really jealous of anyone who might steal my place.
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making? –
The awfully inelegant habits of this vulgar society and this pathetic
self-obsession
10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
I really don’t know. At the moment having an assistant to get me some
coffee would be a good start. I’m a simple man.