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4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JUNE 2018 THIS WEEK FILM While I certainly don't want to make this question – or indeed, this interview – all about your husband, the cel- ebrated British filmmaker Peter Greenaway, the docu- mentary certainly makes one bubble up with ques- tions while they're watch- ing it. Perhaps the most nig- gling of which has to do with how this film is very much a family affair. What led you to make a documentary fo- cused on your husband and daughter? The project actually started, so to say, when our daugh- ter Zoe was very young – as young as around five years old. So she was just about beginning to understand the world around her, and to grasp at what adult conver- sations could mean. Then, there's the fact that Peter was never really a conventional parent. He wouldn't read out children's books to her, but he would make art projects with her. Her response was always fascinating – because as you can expect, she had no hangups or preoccupations about these things, and was very open. Their conversa- tions were really interesting to listen to, and I could see that she was helping Peter look at things in a different way, because she was not ad- dressing 'Peter Greenaway, The Artist', she was just talk- ing to 'Peter', and she had de- veloped her own relationship with the artwork. And the alphabet was a part of this relationship – they would recite the alphabet and come with their own 'entries' every night before bed. This went on for something like ten years, and it was a process that was entirely theirs – it took no prompting from me. So the two of them certainly made for an interesting com- bination – enough for me to pitch the documentary to a producer. That was going to be my next question, actually – how did the idea for the film edge closer to becoming a reality? So one day I approached a producer in Holland and I pitched it to him, essentially – I told him that it would be nice to do this, that it would show viewers a different side to Peter. They liked the idea but there was no funding for it at the time. But he ap- proached me again later when it became more viable... and it was actually something of a 'now or never' scenario. Giv- en that Zoe had just hit pu- berty, we felt that if we waited any longer the dynamics be- tween her and Peter would no longer be as interesting – as it stood, there was an interest- ing conflict in their relation- ship, but also a really strong connection. What I'd also like to say is that I've always wanted to make the film for Zoe first and foremost. Because her dad is much older than aver- age, and also because I think she hasn't quite grasped the dynamics of his work. So that was my drive, really. And be- ing familiar with my previ- ous work, the broadcasters were confident of being able to come with something that would resonate emotionally, and that other parents would be able to relate to it. That's how the whole thing came together, despite the fact that many people thought I was being somewhat naive in putting this together – "A film about Peter Greenaway?! Have you lost your mind?!" Now of course, Peter is your husband, but what's also very much relevant is that you are frequent collabora- tors, and the documentary lays bare your processes side by side. Could you talk a lit- tle bit about this? Yes, the interesting thing is that there's a key contrast at the root of it all. Because Peter loves working with systems, whereas I'm much more associative in my work – the systemic approach just doesn't fit me. I know this to actually be one of my strengths as an artist, and I think that this is why Peter and I make for such a good creative team. So even in the film... only those who pay extra atten- tion would notice that I actu- ally stop bothering with the alphabet after the letter 'G'. Sticking to the device for the duration of the entire film just felt so boring to me! And the more organic approach gave us the freedom to play around with the beginning and the end of the film a lot more. Were there any parameters that either Peter or Zoe placed on you before you started film- ing? No, none. Because I knew that if I gave Peter any control of it at all, I would lose all control. And the film may look seamless now, but at the beginning it was something of a struggle to get go- ing because he wasn't taking it all that seriously. I needed to know when to catch him off-guard, like in the morning, when he is quite mellow and relaxed, just as he's waking up. The only agreement we had was that they could see a rough edit of the film after it's done, at which point they would be free to tell me if they wanted me to take anything out that they weren't comfortable with. This didn't go quite as planned as at some point down the line, Zoe caught on to the fact that I was receiving foot- age from the editor during the evenings, so she peeked into my computer and started watching it while I was cooking one day. This caused something of a crisis at home as Peter got really jeal- ous about Zoe seeing the film be- fore him... but when I finally sat them both down to watch it, he relaxed. There were some minor edits we made to Zoe's contributions – she didn't like herself in certain scenes, and felt she was too force- ful, and of course I had to respect that so I toned that down. So yes, I offered to take out anything that they would have objected to, but I only gave them the last word after the rough cut was finished. When art starts at home During her visit to the Valletta Film Festival last week, Dutch multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke sat down with TEODOR RELJIC for a chat about The Greenaway Alphabet – a stylised documentary structured like an alphabet and recording the intimate, whimsical and insightful conversations between her young daughter Zoe and her filmmaker husband, Peter Still from The Greenaway Alphabet