Maurice Seleky - Monologue a Deux | Schilder en de laatste aanschijn

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Who is Maurice Seleky?

Maurice Seleky (23) is a not so regular law-student at the University of Amsterdam.
Besides making short films and writing short stories, he works for CREA, the cultural organisation of the University of Amsterdam. For CREA he organises the CREA Film night, an open screen for student-filmmakers. He also writes articles as a junior journalist for the FOLIA, the weekly university newspaper.

Why filmmaking?

Seleky loves film because he thinks it’s the most complete form of art – it can combine the power of literature, music, photography, fashion, design and acting. After acting in various plays as a student and writing fiction since high school, he wanted to visualize the world of his own poems and stories.

Your film is about...

MONOLOGUE A DEUX is about the situation in life that somebody loves a person who doesn’t love that somebody anymore. In a certain way that was an autobiographic situation. SCHILDER EN DE LAATSTE AANSCHIJN (Painter and the last Countanance) is the sad story of an artist who loses his vision, his friends and the love of his life after a duel in which he killed an old friend.
Both films are filled with nostalgia and melancholia: characteristics Seleky tried to express because they belong to his essence as a human being. He is a hopeless romantic.

Financing your movie?

Seleky did not try to get money for his films, mainly because he knew he could make them very low-budget. Actually for both films he used no budget. The actors and the crewmembers, like director of photography Philippe Hoefsmit, were all friends of him who wanted to participate for free. CREA helped him with some free locations and equipment.

New Media; a challenge for film makers?

Seleky thinks New Media like internet and TV on the internet are very interesting for filmmakers and the public, because they enable people all over the globe to see films whenever they want. New Media create extra opportunities but also new difficulties, because everybody can put anything on the net – so a filmmaker must weapon his work against an overkill of visual information (a resemblance with the real world…). At this moment MONOLOGUE A DEUX and SCHILDER EN DE LAATSTE AANSCHIJN are both already visible online at the New Arrivals contest atwww.cinema.nl.

Do your films have style, just as some painters have?

Both films are shot in black and white, they both show some extreme close-ups, all people are dressed merely in black, most of the locations and accessories are old-fashioned, retro or antique. Also the films feature some highly styled tableaux vivant, like slowly moving paintings. Seleky describes his style as Cool Noir. SCHILDER EN DE LAATSTE AANSCHIJN is in one way very different than MONOLOGUE A DEUX and that’s the fact SCHILDER has red as a colour between the black and white.

Influences?

Seleky regards Stanley Kubrick and Federico Fellini as highly influential directors for him, because they made intelligent and artistic films in which they show that the medium can be true and honest, in a similar way capable of changing lives as the very best books and the very best songs.

Individual film making or co-operation?

Seleky doesn’t deny he likes to be in control, but he prefers working with a small team of kindred spirits, people who share his views as a writer, director and man. His own specialities are the concept, the decoupage, the script, the mis-en-scene and the directing.

In the future...

Maurice Seleky likes to create an internationally well-known oeuvre of intelligent, sincere and moving films.

Did you ever have another ambition in life than to become a filmmaker?

Next to the profession of filmmaker Seleky always wanted to be a writer. Now he’s working hard to accomplish both goals.

Digital or classic?

MONOLOGUE A DEUX and SCHILDER EN DE LAATSTE AANSCHIJN are made on mini-DV, because it’s way more cheaper an convenient to work with video than with film. But of course Seleky hopes that the future will bring him tons of celluloid.

Copy the interview with Maurice Seleky