Q&A with Dir. Ivan MARKOVIĆ of “From Tomorrow On, I Will” (DCCFF-ALULA Film Festival)
The 5th DC Chinese Film Festival-ALULA Film Festival takes place virtually this week at the ALULA Film Village.
Please visit http://www.dccff.org/schedule.html for schedule and ticketing information.
On Thursday, Dec. 17, at 9 pm EST, narrative feature selection “From Tomorrow On, I Will” — directed by Ivan MARKOVIĆ and Linfeng WU — will be shown at the virtual ALULA E Street Cinema. Tickets can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-tomorrow-on-i-willbest-narrative-feature-nominee-2020-dccff-tickets-131428475107.
In this metropolitan story based in Beijing, Li and his roommate work in opposite rhythms and share an underground housing, a home they will soon leave. The film was selected by 69th Berlinale International Film Festival Forum Section.
Ahead of the screening, we were able to sit down with Director Ivan MARKOVIĆ for a Q&A:
Q1. You co-directed this film with Chinese director Linfeng Wu, and you’ve collaborated with him before on a short film titled “White Bird”. Can you talk about your collaborations? How and why did you decide to team up?
Wu and I met back in 2010 at the Kustendorf Film festival in Serbia, and also at some other festivals while we were still at universities. We started talking about films and soon wanted to work on something together. Our first attempt was in 2014, when we started shooting a documentary that we never had the budget to finish shooting.
In 2015, we shot “White Bird,” where the main protagonist was one of the protagonists of the documentary, a teenager Luo Tianqing. This film was a combination of documentary and fiction, and had the premiere at Berlinale Shorts, which was a big step for us at the time.
Q2. The English title of the film, “From Tomorrow On, I Will” is an open-ended question, while the Chinese title “Chun Nuan Hua kai” conveys a somewhat hopeful future. Did you have a discussion about the titles and what was the naming process like?
I like how you noticed that, and the ambivalence this brings. Both the english title and the Chinese title are from the “Chun Nuan Hua Kai” poem by Hai Zi: English title is the first line of the poem, and the Chinese title is the last line.
Although the film was mostly shot on real locations, choosing locations and certain elements of set-design were very important to us: especially the relationship between nature and architecture. I wanted that the pillow slip (which is the poster of the film), that is on their bed, has the same flowers as those in the last scene, in the park. While we were working on these details, and custom-making that pillow slip, Wu remembered this poem. He showed it to me and I liked it immediately.
Q3. The film is a quiet portrait of one of the busiest cities, if not the busiest one, in modern-day China. There is very little dialogue and many still shots of the city and the people in the city. It almost feels like a city symphony that presents another “folding” side of Beijing. Can you talk about the artistic choices? Coming from a cinematographer background, what are some of your influences — any films or filmmakers that inspired your style of filmmaking?
I think that the film contrasts quiet and dark, with bright and loud and chaotic images. We wanted to create a subjective feeling of how the main character feels in the city: for him, the city is an unexplored realm, he is there but he doesn’t really belong. As he works by night and sleeps by day, being in the city outside feels like leaving the tunnel and entering strong daylight, almost blinding.
Visually, I wanted to show the harshness of these conditions and the city, but not in a stereotypical way. We wanted to avoid smog, air polution, and other kinds of usual way of portraying Beijing. Instead, the clarity and shininess creates a different kind of abstraction: it shows how the city feels for the protagonist — it is all around him, but out of reach.
There are many filmmakers that Wu and I look up to, but I would not say that we were directly inspired for this film by any particular film or filmmaker. We both like Tsai Ming-Liang, Robert Bresson, Hou-Hsiao Hsien, Edward Yang, Pasolini, Italian Neorealism, Yugoslav Black Wave.
Q4. Can you talk about the casting choice and character ideas? Particularly for the actor who played Li, where did you find him? Since the film uses an observational/documentary style, how did you manage to get the shots done organically without disturbing the people around you?
We knew from the start that we want to mostly work with non-professional actors, with real people, so we did a lot of street casting. After many weeks of street casting, the two of us were getting desperate: we found a lot of the side roles, but not the main character, so we asked for more help.
Luo Tianqing, whom I mentioned before — our protagonist in the short film “White Bird” we did in 2015, started being interested in filmmaking after making that film with us. So Wu invited him to come to Beijing and help us with the street casting.
It was Luo who found our main actor, Li Chuan, in a worker village under a highway bridge, waiting for work with other workers. We rehearsed with Li a lot, he was really unique and smart and had his own understanding of this which contributed to the film a lot.
The film in general was shot with the minimal team, almost as documentarists are shown. We were shooting in chaotic conditions and did everything by ourselves, which allowed us to also be flexible. I guess that had a positive side too.
Q5. Both in similar living and working conditions, Li and his roommate seem to be living completely different lives. Li is shy and clumsy, while Ma is very confident about himself and his future. Why did you set up the characters in contrast like this? Is there an underlying romantic relationship between the two characters?
I think this is open to interpretation, each viewer might have a different impression about this. For myself, I don’t see it as a romantic relationship, they are joined through circumstance and necessity, both needing to cut living costs as much as possible by living in the same room.
However, unlike his roommate Ma , Li has few chances of other contact with people. Li sees in Ma a better version of himself: younger, taller, with a girlfriend and friends, with more energy and perspective. Li, on the other hand, is worn out from trying to be a person he thinks he should be: he rehearses this “better version of himself” in front of the mirror, imagines himself owning a flat, and meanwhile his daily life remains empty.
Q6. The ending of the film seems to be correlated with current events that happened in Beijing a few years ago — the fire in rural Beijing which led to the evacuation of many undocumented underground workers. Did you draw any inspiration from real life stories and what prompted you to choose this topic for your first feature film?
The ending can be interpreted in many different ways, but the Beijing fire in the south is one of the direct references. For me, coming from Serbia where similar things have happened, it was also an important topic, and a topic that I think exists worldwide: the people from the margins, who are building the cities, are at the same time being pushed out.
The modern cities, with their appearance, want to communicate a faceless idea of success and progress. The migrant workers and their improvised living areas don’t fit this “image,” so they are being pushed out. The wide compositions of the city are dominant in the film, but we wanted to end the film with the shot of the people without a city.
