5 Questions with Daniel Ali & Jake Schühle Lewis
1) Can you talk briefly about your background(s), and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
DA: For as long as I can remember I've always had a camera in my hand, always wanting to be the one to take the holiday snaps rather than being in front of the camera. After completing my Master's degree in photography and film I pursued my love for documentary photography seeking out stories across the world using my camera as an excuse to travel and meet extraordinary people. I worked in the photography world for a couple of years but found myself naturally drawn to filmmaking and now I've been making short documentaries for the last 5 years.
JSL: Like most people I’ve always been interested in film, but I never really considered the idea of it was something I could get into. My parents are both artistic, but I grew up in a Yorkshire mining town.
When I moved to London I ended up working in the photography industry, and that’s where I realised I could make the jump into film. I love photography, but I think I’m a better filmmaker.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
DA: I came across the Kukeri practices a couple of years ago whilst on one of my late night Googling sessions, I often stay up until the early hours of the morning researching and contacting bizarre and wonderful subjects to potentially make a film about. I have an ongoing list of films that I would love to make and that list slowly gets culled until the stars align and everything works in my favour to be in a solid place to get one into production. Kukeri was the first of my shorts where I relied on a local production company, language was a slight issue so they reached out to the family on my behalf and we discussed the project and the logistics over the course of about 4 months before going out and making the film.
Visually Jake and I had a preconceived idea of how the film was going to play out, Jake specialises in gimbal and steadicam work therefore involving a lot of movement naturally seemed a perfect fit with our Kukeri subject. Despite never knowing exactly what you're getting yourself into when working on independent projects like this we storyboarded, drew up a shot list and constructed an interview that led the narrative, this was vital because we only had a few days with the family and a lot to get through. We were incredibly lucky because our fantastic family were totally onboard with the premise for the film and were more than happy to put in the hours and the hard work to capture everything we needed in order to tell their incredible story.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?!
The biggest challenge for us was the language barrier. We had a great fixer who translated for us, but it's so much quicker and easier to ask someone to do something directly. It also makes it much harder to know if you’re making something authentic. Obviously Kukeri isn’t an observational documentary, but we still wanted it to be true to reality and represent them as accurately as possible so there were a lot of discussions with the family to make sure then were 100% happy with the decisions we were making.
The easiest part of the film has to be capturing the magic! The Kukeri outfits are remarkable! The way the outfits move with every step and jump creating is mesmerizing, we loved every moment because it was just so much fun and an absolute honour to witness this rare tradition. When you have a subject as magical as this and you're in the beautiful surroundings of Bulgaria and the visuals are creating themselves you can't wish for anything else.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
JSL: Not a film, but I’ve been binge watching Dark, which is beautiful. Honestly, the last film I watched was Dirty Dancing at a friend’s birthday party! I’m not arguing it’s a masterpiece but In my head I had it lumped in with Grease, which is unfair. It feels more progressive in some ways than the major films that are being released now.
DA: Well I discovered one of my favourite films of all time just a few months ago, it's called "Island of the Hungry Ghosts". I ABSOLUTELY love this film for so many reasons, the storytelling is impeccable on so many different levels. To start with it's visually beautiful and furthermore the director seems to have an incredibly intimate relationship with the main subjects which lets you into their world in such a way that you feel a part of their lives and not just the story. My favourite element of the film is that there are 3 or 4 stories running parallel, some seemingly unrelated but the symbolic connections that are drawn between the stories really lift the film to more than just a straight-forward documentary. I can't big this film up enough! GO WATCH!
5) What’s next for you?
DA: Jake and I are at the very early stages of developing our next short documentary together in India (in collaboration with Radi, the person who translated Kukeri for us) but with Covid and general commitments in life it's hard to know when we'll get to a place to make that happen, hopefully at some point in 2021!
Jake is currently finishing off a black mirror-esque short which we shot a few weeks ago (it plays out over webcam so maintained social distancing), and working on a couple of other narrative shorts. And I have just started production on my next longer form short documentary which is about a recovering alcoholic who through attending alcoholics anonymous meetings finds solace in new and very unusual spiritual beliefs which are very very different to those of a Christian based AA meeting.
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IG: @danielalifilms
IG: @jeak