Night cap with Tienminutengesprek [School’s Out]

Interview with Jamille van Wijngaarden, director of Tienminutengesprek [School’s Out]

What did you want to express or explore through this teacher’s rant?
I wanted to show how this woman who’s been battered over years, enduring all sorts of scrutiny from her students’ parents, finally reaches her boiling point and unleashes all her fury. And I wanted to do this in a way that we as viewers still sympathize with her even though she massively crosses the line. As the tension builds while debating what manliness truly means, I wanted to flip the teacher’s character into a real “alpha male Rambo” type. The classroom slowly changes into a jungle where she reigns. And with strong passion she’ll show the mom all the masculinity she’s been asking for.

Is any of it drawn from personal experience?
I must say I’ve never encountered a teacher losing the plot like that, haha. But the general discontent among teachers in the Netherlands is a very current affair. Strikes as a result of poor working conditions have hit the news and is a well-known issue. More personal I would say is the gender discussion, the other main topic in our film. Growing up, I never liked the fact that certain activities were labelled as “boy things”. Who says girls can’t skateboard or mountain bike? This has always annoyed me but fortunately, it has become part of an ongoing debate to help us be more open-minded about gender.

The film is quite darkly comedic. Is this a genre or tone you like to work with in particular? What other themes and genres would you like to explore?
I always like to use comedy to tell stories and make big subjects more palatable to the viewer. It’s nice to balance on the edge between humor and drama. I feel it gives the humor more punch. I really like to create worlds that are slightly out of the ordinary. In my opinion, it’s an incredible freedom to use film to do so. It’s something I always push for in my work and will keep doing regardless of genre. I’ve also been drawn to horror films as well, and I would love to play more with the mix of horror and comedy.

What is your background as a filmmaker?
As far as I can remember I’ve had a passion for visual storytelling. As a child, I loved to draw and I made a lot of comic strip drawings. Later on, I used my dad’s handycam to make short comedy-horror films on our holidays, using the whole family as cast. All this finally led to me to enter the Film Academy of Amsterdam where I really got to develop myself as a filmmaker. After graduating in 2014, I had the pleasure of directing several adverts, TV series and short films like the VR-film Ashes to Ashes and the animation film Catastrophe.

Are there any works of art or films that have inspired you?
When I started making my first homemade horror films I was inspired by The Blair Witch Project. It was then that I realized you really don’t need a lot to still make great impact. Just a good story and the ambition to make it. These days, I really like the work of Taika Waitiki. Especially films like Boy, Hunting for the Wilder People and What We Do in the Shadows, they all have the humor I really like. For School’s Out, I found inspiration in the work of the Coen brothers. I love their witty humour and smart cinematography. And the film Carnage (Roman Polanski) has also been an inspiration. Similar to what you see in School’s Out, the scene starts out calm and you get to see two couples getting to know each other. But tension rises between the characters and slowly everything escalates into a big fight. A well-made film. Films by Edgar Wright are also very inspiring. The visual humor, done with clever editing and cinematography, are great to learn from.

Would you say that the short film format has given you any particular freedom?
I think it allows me to make something that really has my signature as a filmmaker on it. Perhaps taking more risks and less pressured by commercial success, it’s a great tool to show what I like to make and what people can expect from me in the future for both short and longer features.

Tienminutengesprek [School’s Out] is part of International Competition I7.