Breakfast with Anna

Interview with Or Sinai, director of Anna

 The last image we have of Anna is her getting dressed and going to work. Would you say she has gone on a journey in the last 24 hours? What are the repercussions on her?
Of cours Anna had a very important journey in the last 24 hours. During this 24 hours she suddenly feel she is breathing, after all this years of struggling and being so practical in this stuffy desert dense town. She was so used to live like a robot; only to work and to take care of her son. During this 24 hours she had the time to remember that she is not only a mother but also a woman, and that she has desires, and feminine strength and she can let this things to be alive.

 What motivated you to tell Anna’s story for your graduation film?
It is a good question, I don’t really know. I think it is a mixture of things that are important for me. First of all it is important for me to tell female stories, not only because I am a female and I know female characters better, but also because it is important that there will be more and more female stories in the cinema. Also I like dealing with characters that are from the outskirts of society, first of all because they are more fragile and it is touching for me, but also because I want to have the chance to put the camera on the people we don’t used to see in our daily life, because they are transparent in a way. To be honest, Annas search for wormth was something that I could really identify with. I felt very lonely during the time I wrote the script, so I made up Annas character, which is also lonely, but she is much braver than me.

 What are your cinematic influences?
I am a fan of Andrea Arnold, and I make all my crew to watch her films again and again before shooting. Also I like Jim Jarmusch, The Dardenne brothers, and Iranian films. I love Terrence Malick, and John Cassavetes.

 Can you tell us a bit more about your subsequent projects?
I am writing now my feature script, which is a development of Anna. But meantime I have few short scripts I hope to shoot before. One of them is about a woman who goes back to deal with some crazy thing from her past, with her old sick father.

 If you’ve already been to the Clermont-Ferrand, could you share with us an anecdote or story from the festival? If not, what are your expectations for this edition?
Ive never been to Clermont but from all the stories I heard about it I expect it to be a beautiful home for many many beautiful short films.

Anna is being shown in International Competition I3.