The film ‘Cottontail’ from the new FEST 52 programme section was presented to accredited journalists at the 52nd International Film Festival FEST.
Director Patrick Dickinson and producer Gabrielle Tana spoke about the British-Japanese co-production.
‘Cottontail’ is a drama in which a father and son who have a difficult relationship embark on an unusual journey to fulfill the last wish of the woman they both loved.
Director Patrick Dickinson, who spent part of his life in Japan, says that, for someone coming from Europe, Japan is a fascinating country.
‘People in Japan talk about it as if it is a totally different country, different people, different way of life. However, when you go there to study, like I did, and live there, and when you get over that beginning, you realize that these are people like us, they have the same soul, the same heart, they fall in love and fall out of love like us. You come to realize that a Japanese family is the same as a Serbian family or an English family,’ said Dickinson.
He also told an anecdote from the filming when one of the crew members was offered green tea,
and he incidentally said that he preferred black with milk in the English style. The same day, two types of tea with two national flags appeared on the serving table.
‘That is how we concluded that we were all tea lovers, just different kinds of tea,’ he said, jokingly. In response to the statement that in his film about a Japanese family, the relationship between father and son is quieter, he says that family relationships are similar everywhere, only the difference is in the pitch of the sound, and his hero is only one type of Japanese.
Producer Gabi Tana stated that this film was her love letter to Japanese cinema. ‘I really like Japanese films, and when Patrick proposed this story, I gladly accepted. I think this is a universal story about family,’ said Tana.
According to her, this film was awarded as the best debut film at the festival in Rome, the cinema distribution in Japan has also started, it will soon be shown at festivals in Istanbul, Sydney, Hong Kong, and it is currently in the repertoire of cinemas in the USA.
The audience can see the film at FEST on 24 February (Cineplexx Galerija, Hall 5, 7.30 p.m.), 25 February (Cineplexx Ušće, Hall 2, 5.30 p.m.), 26 February (Cineplexx Ušće, Hall 1, 2.30 p.m.) and 27 February (Cultural Centre of Belgrade, 12 p.m.).
Gabrielle Tana announced that this year the plan was to shoot a film directed by Anton Corbijn starring Helen Mirren, but also a film that would be made in Serbia. It is the film ‘Miss Einstein’, about Mileva Einstein, which will be filmed in Novi Sad.
