Episode #14 - As the appointed contributor, Director, Producer and Cinematographer Olga Loginova is an incredible collaborator and artist who speaks poetically and with no filter. She recently graduated from Columbia where she learned to make scientific documentaries. Originally from Belarus with Russian roots, she has chiseled her vision of a storyteller through rigorous training in Germany, China, and the U.S.A., as well as by traveling and reporting across continents.
Our screening took place in Bushwick, Brooklyn, at Fourwind Films’ headquarters where for the short, Olga presented the stunning film Volte (2017), directed by Monika Kotecka and Karolina Poryzala. Volte is a truly moving, 10-minute coming-of-age documentary from Poland. Olga talks about how she resonates with the film because “as a child I danced, and very soon I became too tall. I was lagging behind because I was too big, too big, too big.” This film is made in the Slavic school of teaching “where every shot is perfect.” Olga describes this film as “the difference between trying to document something and art. This is art.” This Eastern European documentary that was picked up by The New York Times Op-Docs.
For the second film of the event, Olga presented her very own feature Sacred Leaves. The documentary is about the wonders of the Amazon rainforest and the constant destruction it faces for human profit. Olga talks about how her interest in the Amazon grew from how climate change in Brazil changes people’s lives as it does in her own ancestral lands of Siberia. There are countless adventure stories from her seventeen days of shooting. She discusses characters who come “once in a century,” and what surprised her most. She shot the film before the wildfires hit, and offers insight into the many sources of deforestation that led to the rainforest’s current state. She plans to return to Brazil in the winter to show the film.
For Sacred Leaves, we served caipirinhas and pão de queijo.
Olga herself is a character who comes once in a lifetime, and we were thrilled to have her international talents. Enjoy the episode.
Episode hosted by Justin Joseph Hall.
Olga Loginova - Director/Cinematographer
Credits:
Host - Justin Joseph Hall
Production Company & Location - Fourwind Films
Transcript:
00;00;02;00 - 00;00;29;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Welcome to Feature & a short. My name is Justin Joseph Hall and this is a podcast presented by Fourwind Films. Feature & a short is a monthly screening hosted by us where an appointed contributor presents their chosen feature motion picture and a short movie. There's only one condition for the screening. The presenter must have been directly involved with one picture and not the other. This time, we have the lovely Olga Loginova
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Olga Loginova:
Hi guys!
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Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
who decided to bring her first feature that she finished called Sacred Leaves.
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Olga Loginova:
It's a term. It's a Brazilian term, actually. “Folhas Sagradas.”
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Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Olga is a producer, director, cinematographer. She's done pretty much everything. But she uses natural light better than most people I've seen in documentaries. And the short that she brought is Volte, which is an Eastern European documentary that was picked up by The New York Times Op-Docs. It's a nice short, ten-minute piece about young women and horses.
00;01;00;00 - 00;01;57;00
Olga Loginova:
It took my breath away. I think it's so beautiful and so well-made. It's something that I would aspire to do. It's a coming-of-age documentary made by two Polish filmmakers, Monika Kotecka and Karolina Poryzala. They're both graduates of the uh, National Film Academy in Łódź. And well, this is one of the best filmmaking schools in the world. I tried to get in there like years ago. This is the best.
Legitimately, Poland is uh such a treasure for filmmakers. The cinematographer had a degree in Social Science and the screenwriter was a zoologist. And so, they kind of merged and they made this beautiful, beautiful short that also premiered at the IDFA. I think it was selected by Sundance Lab. It's chosen by Op-Docs and, uh, many other festivals just, like, so, and I hope you like it. And it's made by women filmmakers. I didn't even know that. Yeah, and I'm not gonna say another word about it. Enjoy.
00;01;57;00 - 00;02;01;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
So after the short, we had a small discussion on what happened.
00;02;01;00 - 00;02;41;00
Olga Loginova:
So, I was going through different descriptions of the film on different websites and uh the one that is on Polish Institute website is kind of, I don't know, it kind of captures it, but it's uh observational and creative portrait about sacrifice, frustration, physical limits and endurance. Uh, and it shows how the team must accept that Zuzia’s position is basically untenable, that she has just grown too big. And so as a child, I danced. And uh, very soon I became too tall, I’d at, always being, like, lagging behind because you're too big, too big, too big. Really, it's not the reason why I chose this film, but I kind of know how it feels.
00;02;41;00 - 00;02;42;00
Audience:
I felt connected to it
00;02;43;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah.
00;02;43;00 - 00;02;45;00
Audience:
because uh growing up in Russia, you always feel the pressure
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Olga Loginova:
Yeah.
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Audience:
to be born to be the best.
00;02;48;00 - 00;02;56;00
Olga Loginova:
You feel that, like, it's you. What a difficult career. Like, talking about the subjects, though. The girl is 12. So
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Audience:
Yeah.
00;02;56;00 - 00;03;47;00
Olga Loginova:
at 12, she's too big and, like, her emotions were not the emotions of a child in a way. But again, for me, like, what, I'm kind of jealous of this film to be honest. Because again, like every shot here is beautiful and I, like, I wish every shot in my film, like. I know how to frame or, like, you know, I've been learning cinematography and the cinematography is unparalleled. Sometimes you are somewhere and you just don't have time. It's so perfect, and like, this perfection eludes you. And then you see something that is, like, perfect from the beginning, end to end. And it's like, “ugh!” I think it's very much also Slavic school of documentaries, the Russian school as well, like where every shot is perfect. That’s taught. And again, this speaks to Łódź school. Pawel Pawlikowski, the one who made Ida and Cold War, he’s a graduate of that school.
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Justin Joseph Hall:
That was one of the most beautiful shorts I’ve seen in a long time…
00;03;50;00 - 00;03;56;00
Olga Loginova:
I'm telling you, Poland is incredible. Krzysztof Kieślowski, um, Zanussi. They're all Polish.
00;03;56;00 - 00;03;58;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Kieślowski’s now my favorite one.
00;03;58;00 - 00;03;59;00
Olga Loginova:
I love Kieślowski.
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Justin Joseph Hall:
I mean, it's beautiful, but it…
00;04;00;00 - 00;04;05;00
Olga Loginova:
Watch Blue, Red, White. Blue, White, Red. Those are amazing and uh
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Justin Joseph Hall:
Yeah.
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Audience:
Yeah.
00;04;05;00 - 00;04;20;00
Olga Loginova:
The Secret Life of Veronica is amazing, it’s just, it’s the great films. They’re fantastic.
Um, so how do you capture the audio if you're not in their faces? And I don't think there was a boom, so I think it was a long lens, I can assume.
00;04;21;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Yeah.
00;04;21;00
Olga Loginova:
I don't know…
00;04;22;00 - 00;04;25;00
Audience:
And most all of the editing. How they integrated the horses,
00;04;26;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah!
00;04;26;00 - 00;04;29;00
Audience:
the sounds with the music, anything with it, you know?
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Audience:
Yeah.
00;04;30;00 - 00;04;44;00
Olga Loginova:
And that shot of a girl, Zuzia, just like her stare. And you can hear the hooves of the horses and the music and it's like, ah! But this is the difference between just trying to document something and makes art, because this is for me, is art.
00;04;45;00 - 00;04;49;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Well, it is like a documentation too, and it has a whole arc…
00;04;48;00 - 00;05;00;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah, it’s like a feature film, but just, it’s like there is a catharsis, there is this drama. This is the second time I watch it, actually, but I've been thinking about it, like, for over a year.
00;05;00;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Yeah.
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Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Then leading into her film, Olga had a few words to say.
00;05;05;00 - 00;05;49;00
Olga Loginova:
I just graduated from Columbia and my specialty was science documentaries. In a way, it is a student project because I did have to follow and work with my advisor and science is supposed to be a big part of it. It's ethnobotany. And uh sometimes it gets in the way of narrative. While I did everything on my own, more than ever I realized that filmmaking is a team effort and it's not an effort of one person. Uh, it’s not perfect. I love it very much and I think it tells an important story. It will change in the course of the next six months, but I hope you like it. My soul is in it, like everything I can do is in this film. I think it's my best work.
00;05;49;00 - 00;06;10;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
During the showing of Sacred Leaves, we had a few less things to eat and a few more things to smell. As her film is set in Brazil in the rainforest, there were some unique things that I’ve never seen before, and I don't think most of the audience had either. On top of that, we had Caipirinha and Pão de queijo for everyone to snack on.
00;06;11;00 - 00;06;14;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Does anybody want a Caipirinha before we start?
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Audience:
(chatter)
00;06;17;00 - 00;06;25;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
In the end, after the movie was over, because this was a unfinished product for her feature, she had a few questions for the audience and we discussed it a little bit.
00;06;26;00 - 00;07;04;00
Olga Loginova:
So, the reason why I did this film was kind of also personal. My family's from Siberia, from the, like, the heart of Siberia, and generations of women in my family were doing the same thing. They were going to Taiga and collecting herbs and barks and oils, and they were treating their family and the whole community. So when I had to choose a topic, I had two topics and I went for this, for ethnobotany and how deforestation affects medicine. So yeah, I think this aspect has really shown how climate change and deforestation in Brazil would change people's lives.
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Audience:
Yeah.
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Audience:
Defores… yeah.
00;07;06;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;07;06;00 - 00;07;07;00
Audience:
What did you shoot it on?
00;07;07;00 - 00;07;08;00
Olga Loginova:
C100 Mark II.
00;07;08;00 - 00;07;10;00
Audience:
Okay. Those are nice. Especially for run and gun.
00;07;11;00 - 00;07;13;00
Audience:
How long were you th, how long was the shoot?
00;07;13;00 - 00;07;14;00
Olga Loginova:
I had 17 shooting days.
00;07;14;00 - 00;07;15;00
Audience:
Oh okay.
00;07;15;00 - 00;07;16;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
And you were there?
00;07;16;00 - 00;07;17;00
Olga Loginova:
21 days.
00;07;17;00 - 00;07;18;00
Audience:
Fun trip.
00;07;18;00 - 00;07;19;00
Olga Loginova:
Oh, it was a fun trip.
00;07;19;00 - 00;07;21;00
Audience:
Who you were traveling with? The crew, were you just
00;07;21;00 - 00;07;22;00
Olga Loginova:
It was just me.
00;07;22;00 - 00;07;25;00
Audience:
you, and you weren't scared that you were, like, going to have your camera broken or?
00;07;25;00 - 00;07;56;00
Olga Loginova:
Oh, I was very scared. It was my personal camera. I took the, the school's tripod which was the worst tripod ever. He was so light. It would move from, like, the air movement. It was like, but also it fit my suitcase and I had very little money so I had to save on every bag.
I, I have a question for you. I think, personally, the whole first scene, it's like probably not as well shot as the rest of the film, but it's kind of important because it gives the introduction to the main character. Did it bother you that the camera was shaking?
00;07;57;00 - 00;07;58;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
I didn't notice.
00;07;58;00
Daria Huxley:
I didn’t know.
00;07;59;00 - 00;08;03;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
The only thing I, the only thing I did notice but there was the one where you did a stabilization.
00;08;03;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah.
00;08;04;00 - 00;08;05;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
That was a lot.
00;08;05;00 - 00;08;09;00
Audience:
Uh, I just paid more attention on, like, this huge sky shot.
00;08;10;00 - 00;08;12;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Yeah. It was nice. Lightning’s always fun to watch.
00;08;12;00 - 00;08;13;00
Olga Loginova:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00;08;13;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
(laughter)
00;08;13;00 - 00;08;15;00
Olga Loginova:
And I was lucky to be there.
00;08;15;00 - 00;08;16;00
Audience:
Do you have a translator?
00;08;16;00 - 00;08;17;00
Olga Loginova:
I hired a translator
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Audience:
Okay.
00;08;17;00 - 00;08;19;00
Olga Loginova:
there because I don't speak Portuguese.
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Audience:
Yeah, I was like.
00;08;20;00 - 00;08;23;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah, but she was very moody and she would not translate, but
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Audience:
Ah.
00;08;23;00 - 00;08;24;00
Olga Loginova:
it's a different story.
00;08;24;00 - 00;08;26;00
Audience:
Bad translator. Bad.
00;08;26;00 - 00;08;31;00
Olga Loginova:
The first scene I edited, I edited it for 3 weeks because I didn't understand the words.
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Audience:
(laughter)
00;08;31;00 - 00;08;34;00
Olga Loginova:
So, but that, also that scene is the best scene in the film.
00;08;35;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Yeah.
00;08;35;00 - 00;08;37;00
Olga Loginova:
So honestly, we don't need to understand what's going on.
00;08;38;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;08;40;00 - 00;09;26;00
Olga Loginova:
American woman, Patricia, uh 20 years ago maybe, she studied forestry and then she went to Brazil and she wanted to do normal research. She worked with a big organization and she needed to count the trees and how much they bloom. And she met this woman from a village and they started talking, and actually, they started working together. And when uh Patricia wrote a book, together with Gloria, they would go from village to village and they talk to people in the villages saying, “Hey, you sell your trees?” Because this is what, it’s like,
of course, sometimes just like the big farming industry moves in and cuts everything and then there is a legal, illegal deforestation. But very often, a guy with money comes to the village. Everyone has their own patch of forest. And then the guy says like, “Hey, here is $1,000.”
00;09;27;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;09;27;00 - 00;09;48;00
Olga Loginova:
And they say, “Yeah, take it.” But the forest costs much more. The trees are amazing. They bring everything, not just the medicine but also food. And if there, there is no fruit, they attract game. So one tree of ???? attracts, like, 50 whatever coxinha, the little pigs, they're very cool. Well, you know (laughs). Yeah, so they lose everything.
00;09;49;00 - 00;09;51;00
Audience:
I really like that man, the…
00;09;51;00 - 00;09;52;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah, he’s a legend.
00;09;52;00 - 00;09;53;00
Audience:
How did you get involved?
00;09;54;00 - 00;10;02;00
Olga Loginova:
Oh my god. It's like, again, pre-production, it was like a detective story. He lives there, he’s now a naturalized Brazilian.
00;10;02;00
Audience:
Wow.
00;10;03;00 - 00;10;32;00
Olga Loginova:
He's like Charles Darwin with better character. He's this interdisciplinary scientist who's a geneticist, archaeologist. I think people like him, like, they come, like, once in a century. He kind of teaches generations of ethnobotanists and um if you do research of the field, you kind of come across the big names and you ki-kind of try to get in touch with them. So, he was one of the names. Patricia is the main one. It took me 4 months to find her. I was calling like hundreds of people.
00;10;32;00 - 00;10;34;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
What were you most surprised about when you went down?
00;10;37;00 - 00;10;40;00
Olga Loginova:
Me, like as a human, by
Justin Joseph Hall:
Huh? Poverty.
00;10;42;00
Olga Loginova:
poverty.
00;10;42;00 - 00;11;14;00
Olga Loginova:
I like, so I grew up in a country that was not rich. Especially Bela-, uh, I think Russia is, like, more affluent than Belarus. In Belarus, we’re like shit. But then you go to Brazil and you see a favela where people… well in Brazil only 30% of people have sanitation. They don’t have sewage. You know, when people have nothing, and what they have to do to survive, you kind of, it’s, or that when people have nothing but they manage not only to survive but be happy. When you’re always, like, I always complain about stuff.
00;11;16;00
Daria Huxley:
New Yorkers.
00;11;16;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah.
00;11;17;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;17;00 - 00;11;18;00
Olga Loginova:
So that surprised me the most. Uh, but everyone also uses, like, oils and barks
00;11;24;00
Audience:
Oh, yeah.
00;11;24;00 - 00;11;25;00
Olga Loginova:
and you open the medicine cabinet.
00;11;25;00 - 00;11;26;00
Audience:
Yeah, yeah.
00;11;26;00 - 00;11;30;00
Olga Loginova:
This is what you use. There, like people don't have roads, well they do have roads, but
00;11;30;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;30;00 - 00;11;33;00
Olga Loginova:
their main road is the river, the Amazon.
00;11;33;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;33;00 - 00;11;37;00
Olga Loginova:
And sometimes you live in one spot, and it takes you 3 days to get to a hospital.
00;11;38;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;38;00 - 00;11;41;00
Olga Loginova:
So if there is no copaiba; you’re dead.
00;11;41;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;42;00
Olga Loginova:
Because
00;11;42;00 - 00;11;43;00
Audience:
What’s copi— What’s that?
00;11;43;00 - 00;11;48;00
Olga Loginova:
Copaiba, it’s this oil that uh Justin gave us. This is antiseptic and antibiotic and
00;11;48;00 - 00;11;49;00
Audience:
Oh okay.
00;11;49;00 - 00;11;52;00
Olga Loginova:
it treats cuts and wounds. Uh, like I brought andiroba and
00;11;52;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Yeah.
00;11;52;00 - 00;11;53;00
Olga Loginova:
copaiba too.
00;11;53;00
Audience:
Oh, cool.
00;11;54;00 - 00;11;56;00
Olga Loginova:
And se- and sexual potency tonic
00;11;56;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;11;56;00 - 00;11;57;00
Olga Loginova:
accidentally.
00;11;57;00
Audience:
That is
00;11;58;00 - 00;11;59;00
Olga Loginova:
Accidentally.
00;11;58;00 - 00;11;59;00
Audience:
I know you, Olga.
00;12;00;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;12;00;00 - 00;12;01;00
Olga Loginova:
No, it’s like, you know
00;12;01;00 - 00;12;02;00
Audience:
…accidents…
00;12;02;00
Olga Loginova:
(laughs)
00;12;03;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;12;03;00 - 00;12;10;00
Olga Loginova:
Like we get home and I’m like, “Can you please read me what it’s about?” And she’s like, “Okay. It's like sexual potency for men.”
00;12;11;00
Audience:
For men.
00;12;11;00 - 00;12;13;00
Olga Loginova:
“Good, good for a prostate.” And I'm like, “Great.”
00;12;13;00
Audience:
(laughter)
00;12;14;00
Olga Loginova:
“Great.”
00;12;14;00 - 00;12;15;00
Daria Huxley:
That's great for you.
00;12;15;00 - 00;12;18;00
Olga Loginova:
So if anyone needs something, it's like still in my fridge.
00;12;18;00
Audience:
(chatter)
00;12;18;00 - 00;12;20;00
Audience:
I’ll, I’ll let you know if my prostate!
00;12;23;00 - 00;12;27;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah, no. Like, I've never been in a, like in a place as dangerous as that.
00;12;27;00 - 00;12;28;00
Daria Huxley:
Why was it dangerous?
00;12;28;00 - 00;12;49;00
Olga Loginova:
In Belém, you cannot be outside. You cannot shoot from a car with the windows open. You cannot stay in the streets after 5:00 p.m. That, that mark—, you're getting robbed or killed. That market that I shot at, people were screaming that I should get away because I'm a white, tall person, foreigner with an expensive camera.
00;12;50;00
Audience:
Target.
00;12;51;00 - 00;12;59;00
Olga Loginova:
And I made a big mistake. So initially, I wanted to work with a woman translator. I thought it would be more comfortable for me. She was freaking out every 5 minutes. I,
00;12;59;00
Daria Huxley:
The woman?
00;13;00;00 - 00;14;45;00
Olga Loginova:
yeah. I was like, it would be much better if I had a man bodyguard, or I don’t know. And like the two guys in this um witchcraft store at the, like in the entrance, they were all waiting for me and so actually they were like, they blocked me there and they, they would not allow me to leave. And then when my translator showed up because I was filming in the store alone, they kind of left and I'm like, something is off. She's like, “We cannot stay here. It's already 5, we need to leave.” Because every mo-moment, it’s getting more dangerous. And um, the moment we started moving, they just jumped out of the next door and, like, it was a very weird feeling. It’s like your safety is compromised and it's kind of your integrity is compromised. Luckily, there was a cop, undercover cop in that store. He escorted us to the car and they kind of like, he started talking loudly and so they left. So the, the feeling of danger that you cannot see, because you don't see like people with guns, but you know that you are being watched. And uh yeah, that was very uncomfortable.
So, I stayed in the house owned by my translator’s mother. So it was like a household. And like, first there was a metal gate and then there was a house, and it had like metal bars and all the windows were barred. And like, then there was another metal, like, basically everything was in cages. And I think it's very, very common in Latin America but for me, like to see bars everywhere and like you need to use two locks to lock yourself in because somebody can come and kill you and it's just like, okay, cool. That was very strange. That was a very new experience. I just tried to be very fast and I knew that I would not have a second take.
Daria Huxley:
Mmm…
Olga Loginova:
That was that.
00;14;46;00 - 00;14;47;00
Daria Huxley:
Well, you do some research, like where
00;14;47;00 - 00;14;48;00
Olga Loginova:
Oh, yeah.
00;14;47;00 - 00;14;48;00
Daria Huxley:
is that window…
00;14;49;00 - 00;14;53;00
Olga Loginova:
Yeah, well, some of it. Yeah, like 50% of it worked, 50% didn’t.
00;14;54;00 - 00;14;56;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Where exactly were you, like what’s the…
00;14;56;00 - 00;15;01;00
Olga Loginova:
I was in the poorest state. It’s Belém, it’s the capital of Pará state.
00;15;01;00
Justin Joseph Hall:
Okay.
00;15;02;00
Audience:
Would you do it again?
00;15;02;00 - 00;15;03;00
Olga Loginova:
I would do it again in a heartbeat. Again. Next time, I'm going to Nigeria.
00;15;06;00
Audience:
Yeah.
00;15;07;00 - 00;15;10;00
Olga Loginova:
And I want to go back to Brazil in the winter to show them the film.
00;15;11;00 - 00;16;02;00
Justin Joseph Hall (as narrator):
Thank you so much for listening to Feature & a short. We just want you to be aware that if you would like to attend one of the screenings, please just write us at info@fourwindfilms.com or hit us up on social media at @fourwindfilms on almost any platform, that's f-o-u-r-w-i-n-d-f-i-l-m-s. And in addition we also have merchandise for sale for our narrative projects. And we have hats and different things for sale. So head to our website if you'd like to check that out. We've been doing traveling shows, so even if you're outside of New York City and you want to attend the show, contact us because we're likely heading to Minneapolis and Seattle and hopefully we'll be able to do that more in the future. So, thank you for listening to us. And we'll see you next time. Ciao.