“Nowadays not even a real story is import­ant, as it is often manip­u­lated in order to achieve a more sen­sa­tional or news-​like effect” — says Piotr Bernaś, dir­ector of doc­u­ment­ary film “Paparazzi,” which is going to be shown at the upcom­ing fest­ival in Amsterdam.

IDFA– a mecca for the buffs of doc­u­ment­ary genre– starts on 16^th Novem­ber in Ams­ter­dam. Three Pol­ish pro­duc­tions are tak­ing part in this year’s edi­tion: “Viol­ated Let­ters” by Maciej Dry­gas, “The Trip” by Bar­tosz Kruh­lik, and “Paparazzi” by Piotr Bernaś (more inform­a­tion about Pol­ish films at the fest­ival in Ams­ter­dam can be found here).


In an inter­view with Daniel Stopa the dir­ector of “Paparazzi” dis­cusses, among oth­ers, the behind-​the-​scenes of the pro­duc­tion of the film about a notori­ous Pol­ish paparazzo, who like his West­ern col­leagues is a gossip-​hound, and the role of pho­to­journ­al­ism and doc­u­ment­ary film in con­tem­por­ary media.


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“Paparazzi” starts with a con­ver­sa­tion scene that takes place in a car, some­where in a forest, far from the city. The way you talk with the prot­ag­on­ist is quite intim­ate. How did the acquaint­ance with Przemysław Stoppa begin and was the mutual trust present from the begin­ning?

Piotr Bernaś: Before I knew this would become the theme of my film, I had known Przemysław Stoppa from his tele­vi­sion appear­ances. He did not seem to be very inter­est­ing to me then. He was in fact the very last per­son that I thought of even at the stage of the doc­u­ment­a­tion pro­cess. “The closer rela­tions” developed dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of the film, which was inev­it­able. I wanted to tell a true story of this man, and to be able to do so, I had to get to know him and under­stand his think­ing and actions. In the case of Prze­mek Stoppa, the most dif­fi­cult thing for me was giv­ing up my own pre­ju­dices. Get­ting to know each other and gain­ing each other’s trust was a gradual pro­cess that was tak­ing place dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of the film, and the con­ver­sa­tion in the woods took place in one of its last stages.


The film is quite dynamic. The accel­er­ated speed of the images, the short shots, rapid edit­ing, a lot of close-​ups and a fast-​paced score are used. Is this the reg­u­lar pace of Przemek’s every­day life?

P.B.: Indeed. I was par­tic­u­larly intent on con­vey­ing the protagonist’s nervous­ness and his every­day func­tion­ing. I wanted the viewer to at least par­tially be able to feel the emo­tions that I exper­i­enced while rid­ing in a car next to him. Music was an insep­ar­able part of his day, and addi­tion­ally gives him power. Close-​ups were employed to con­vey the private world of the prot­ag­on­ist, but they also con­sti­tuted the way to escape the hardly “filmic” situ­ations, such as spend­ing hours in a car, which, by the way, is in my opin­ion the protagonist’s main home.


And how did Przemek’s world, mean­ing the con­stant hunt for the news, the wait­ing, the life in the car, being on the move and the days away from home affect the mak­ing of the film?

P.B.: As far as the pro­duc­tion part is con­cerned, it was very tense, chaotic, and quite unpre­dict­able. From the very begin­ning of the shoot­ing up to the con­ver­sa­tion in the woods (which con­sti­tutes one of the last scenes we shot) I regret­tably did not have the com­fort of full cooper­a­tion on the part of the prot­ag­on­ist, but more of his resigned declar­a­tion to cooper­ate. As a res­ult, I was being tol­er­ated in his car, and with time this tol­er­ance expan­ded on another crew mem­ber (some­times this tol­er­ance exten­ded by another mem­ber of the team) – the other cam­era oper­ator– Łukasz Żal. Some­times the prot­ag­on­ist would dis­ap­pear for a few months, not answer his phone and no trace of him would be found. These were the worst moments of uncer­tainty. It also influ­enced the sub­sequent changes to the script. How­ever, one of my ini­tial and key assump­tions has been retained, mean­ing con­duct­ing the obser­va­tion of Prze­mek and the media events over the longer course of time (the film was shot through­out 13 months). Regard­ing the film­ing pro­cess alone, I along with the cam­era oper­ator had to con­form to the pace and the man­ner of the protagonist’s work. There was a pos­it­ive side to it. The rapid shots and edit­ing are partly the con­sequence of how we were forced to work. In the effect, 90 % of the shots and the situ­ations are authen­tic. When we finally man­aged to talk the prot­ag­on­ist into film­ing the scrip­ted shots, I already knew that the emo­tional and visual mater­ial was equally good.


Prze­mek states that he is like a raven­ous wolf. Adren­aline, the desire to be the best, money, and pos­sibly break­ing down the bound­ar­ies – what is it that hooks the prot­ag­on­ist?

P.B.: It is the com­bin­a­tion of all these ele­ments, and what seals the case is redu­cing your per­cep­tion to the level of mere mater­i­al­ism. It seems to me that fear is the factor which plays the addi­tional and key role. The fear of begin­ning a new life, build­ing it anew and from the scratch. The fear of effort and pos­sible fail­ure. The fear of chan­ging one­self. Cling­ing to one’s con­stant habits and get­ting around already known and beaten paths is the way of escap­ing it, even if loneli­ness is the prize. Because can you live in the world where you always need to be on guard, the world full of enemies and other pred­at­ors, and not feel lonely?


What you men­tion is Przemek’s biggest prob­lem. On the hand, in a world full of pred­at­ors he is strong, and on the other – weak, as he has no altern­at­ive. Could it be that Przemek’s pos­i­tion con­sequence of his own choice? Or has Prze­mek fallen vic­tim to con­tem­por­ary world?

P.B.: Is it his own choice? It is a dif­fi­cult ques­tion – it partly is, I believe. Then again can you talk about the choice when addic­tion comes into play? In some ways Prze­mek is for me a tra­gic fig­ure, a con­tem­por­ary fig­ure suc­cumb­ing to trends that are get­ting out of his con­trol. On the one hand, Prze­mek is a per­fectly adjus­ted human being. On the other – he becomes the vic­tim of our times. The protagonist’s inner dilemma only proves that he has not alto­gether lost human traits.


But human­ity may bring him to ruin. The world we watch does not need reflec­tion, restraint, pri­vacy. Even the woman who has come to pray before the Pres­id­en­tial Palace pulls her cam­era out…

P.B.: Yes. This is also my view­point of the con­tem­por­ary world. If you ana­lyse it ration­ally and reas­on­ably, then it is ruth­less, unre­flect­ive and in con­stant rush. If you have any scruples, then you will inev­it­ably fall prey to some pred­ator. How­ever, at the emo­tional and com­pletely irra­tional level I remain an incur­able optim­ist, who believes in humanity’s good nature and its sal­va­tion.


This optim­istic tone can be felt in your inter­view with Kalina Cybul­ska. You men­tioned then that the form of photo essay “builds a man’s story in pic­tures…” Con­front­ing this sen­tence with Przemek’s atti­tude, I wanted to ask what is a photo essay today?

P.B.: A photo essay, whose nat­ural space of oper­a­tion was press, does not exist any longer. There are its niche mani­fest­a­tions in the form of albums that gen­er­ate very little interest, and occa­sional pho­to­graphy exhib­i­tions. The news alone dom­in­ates the media. The human being has become a com­mod­ity. Nowadays not even a real story is import­ant, as it is often manip­u­lated so as to achieve a more sen­sa­tional or a news-​like effect. Main­stream journ­al­ism is the pro­fes­sion of gos­sipers, spec­u­lat­ors, and often manip­u­lat­ors.


What about doc­u­ment­ary?

P.B.: It remains in the sim­ilar niche as the photo essay, or other doc­u­ment­ary forms. How­ever, when com­pared to a photo essay, a doc­u­ment­ary film is the cre­ation inde­pend­ent of the scis­sors or the tastes of photo edit­ors or edit­ors. Its role in soci­ety is argu­ably neg­li­gible. It is more of an occu­pa­tion for those in search of them­selves, the truth about another human being, and the truth about the world – it is a cer­tain way of life that allows you to remain in good men­tal health.


Before “Paparazzi”, you were a pho­to­journ­al­ist for “Gaz­eta Wybor­cza”. How did the con­front­a­tion between Piotr Bernaś — a former pho­to­grapher and Przemysław Stoppa – a paparazzi, look like?

P.B.: It was mul­ti­level – dif­fer­ent view­points and interests, dif­fer­ent ways of work­ing and its subject-​matter. The only thing we had in com­mon was pho­to­graphy and the abil­ity to adapt one­self to hard con­di­tions. In my belief, the media world in which I used to work died. The cur­rent media world is to a large degree the world of Prze­mek Stoppa. It is the world that I have ruled myself out of.


Finally, I would like to quote your own words: “Maybe this is naïve, but I first took up pho­to­graphy and then doc­u­ment­ary film, because I felt this served some pur­pose, that this was not only to increase sales.” How did the film affect Przemek’s stance?

P.B.: It has been a long time since that con­ver­sa­tion. I may still be stuck in my naiv­ety, because, as I already said, it gives me good mood and a men­tal com­fort. As far as the prot­ag­on­ist is con­cerned, his story has come full circle. What at the begin­ning breathed optim­ism and seemed to be a strong stim­u­lus to indi­vidual change, the reason to stop and reflect on one­self, it has now become the pur­suit of suc­cess. Recently, the prot­ag­on­ist has taken up polit­ics and he got close to some polit­ical leader. This chain of events writes an unex­pec­ted scen­ario for the second part of the film, though the theme is rather bey­ond my interest. On the other hand, one should not be sur­prised – one swims how­ever they can.




(Trans­la­tion by Agnieszka Mruk) (02.11.2011)