Night cap with Riviera

Interview with Jonas Schoelsing, director of Riviera

 Why did you want to depict an elderly person and his activities?
My intention of showing an old man’s routine is tied to my own questions about how I viewed my grandparents, and by extension elderly people in general. What do we really know, what do we know about their past, their history and what endures and is still visible of those things in their daily life as retirees?

 Why are there no colors in the film?
The choice of black and white corresponds to the idea of dryness and hardness that I wanted to lend the whole. Aesthetically, I liked it and I thought I could pull it off. I was a bit intimidated by color.

 How did you create the relation to calm and tranquility?
By thinking about my grandparents’ time spent napping: the din of cicadas that stands in for silence and the heat that makes any activity that is too “alive” impossible. It was a form of forced tranquility, a deceiving calm where the slightest flash in the distance seemed like an event. Where you come up with all sorts of things to kill the time. Polished boredom.

 Can you see yourself making other films that deal with the difficulties of aging?
Not in the immediate future, but it could happen. Who knows?

 Have you discovered any advantages that the short film form provides?
I don’t know. In any case, I did not “limit in my ambitions” at all, and since what I was trying to do didn’t require an hour and a half, it worked out pretty well.

Riviera was shown in National Competition.