It takes a brilliant insight to get a question added to the podcast, but my guest, South African filmmaker Tristan Holmes, achieved that. Do you actually like your movie? It stunned me when he said he wonders if his debut feature was better off as an idea and we got to the real truth of it in the podcast.
What exists on screen of THE FRAGILE KING (2023) is award-winning — it tells the story of a 15 year old sent to live with his grandfather who he doesn’t know after his mom dies — but what Tristan knows is what was left out and the brilliance that wasn’t made. And he, not the audience, is left with that feeling. Wow. Just wow. I tried to just get out of his way on so many topics — AI, film school, mentorship, and more — that I think you’ll really love his takes.
And if you hear me ask the Tristan Holmes question, well, here’s where it came from.
In this episode, Tristan and I talk about:
Tristan’s Indie Film/filmmaker Highlights: LEVIATHAN (2014) dir. by Andrey Zvyagintsez; LOVELESS (2017) dir. by Andrey Zvyagintsez; Abbas Kiarostami; Nuri Bilge Ceylan; THE GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE (2024) dir. by Magnus Von Horn; Joachim Trier; Aki Kaurismäki; SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000) dir. by Roy Andersson; Abderrahmane Sissako
Memorable Quotes:
“[THE FRAGILE KING] was the only one that actually made it through the gauntlet of finance, which is what film is now more than ever.”
“You realize that through those stories that actually they've had the ultimate apprenticeship, which is the mentors, the parents.”
“It’s the challenge of today because now with. Instagram, social media and ai. You get this immediate feedback, but it's not the feed, the quiet feedback of experience.”
“AI is never going to mentor you.”
“Even now that it is made and it is out there and it's done well, there's still a part of me that wonders whether it would've been better if it remained as an idea.”
“It seems like an audacious thing to try and birth a film into existence.”
“You have to be making something all time because that moment where you are confronted with the weight of your limitation, your lack of resources, the unavailability of time.”
“If your idea is always remaining theoretical or never getting to that point of confronting reality, having the audacity to give them birth into something real and tangible, then the artist will never cultivate. The artist will actually sit and instead return to the comfort of being an academic or being a critic or being a theorist.”
“There's a feeling of outsideness in your own country that is unresolvable.”
“We all know that campaigns and making films, it’s a money business. This is a producer first medium. Directors, we are not gonna arrive on set without our script and then it’s gonna get made.”
“The South African government, as much as they put forward and do support film, I don’t think they do enough once the film has been made.”
“For me, the process of discovery always happens with the actors.”
Links:
Tristan's Website (Watch the "Hard Work" ad -- trust me)
