xxii pärnu international documentary and anthropology film festival ...

President of Estonian Parliament Ene Ergma:
Art and science may discover together
Mark Soosaar: It is generally known that art speaks in the
language of images and metaphors, science in the language of
definitions. You are a scientist, me maybe an artist. What do
you think, is it possible to make a film where definitions and
metaphors meet, where science and art co-operate?
Ene Ergma: Yes, I believe they can co-operate. For me, art and
science are the two faces of one medal. It is interesting that on
the border areas there evolves a totally different vision. Usually,
the holders of a certain field have quite a conservative way of
thinking. They want to keep their area clean. In science it is well
known that the interdisciplinary fields are the most successful
ones. There is a lot of new. I like the people who can acquire a
new look watching the world. I believe that art and science can
discover things together.
MS: Documentary film makers sometimes believe that they
are the cleverest, so they have to put their knowledge into
other people’s heads. In your opinion, how educative should a
documentary be ?
EE: I do not like to be mistaken for some kind of a bowl into
which something could be put and I should swallow it all. I like
different kinds of films. I think documentaries should make
people think. That is much better than the way of giving the
audience some ready made truths. I evaluate the films which I
can remember for long years, maybe even for tens of years. For
instance, the film Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa. Whenever I
recall that film, I think of our recent past. How everyone sees the
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past with his or her own eyes. How everyone of us looks back
upon the nineties, the story of Estonia becoming independent!
You were also in the movement of the creative societies – for
example, how do you see that time and how do many others
remember it now? Mart Laar, Edgar Savisaar, Marju Lauristin
remember it differently. It is a large complex of different images
and truths. Just like one story described in Rashomon through
different people.
MS: Everyone has his or her own truth and of all those different
truths a great truth is formed!
EE: Yes, everyone has his or her own truth and a right to keep
it. And later, historians and the next generations find their truths
of the past. The one that suits them best!
MS: Does it mean that a documentary film maker should not
force his or her truth on the others, that the film maker should
be an urgent collector of the truths of the other people?
EE: Yes, it seems to be the best way. But still, the result depends
on the choices of the author. For instance, the famous film To
Be and to Have. What does it show? I was very surprised to
see France so different. No glittering Paris, no glamour, only a
village school. It was so unexpected, so fantastic.
MS: That is the film by Nicolas Philibert about a small village
school. To Be and to Have got the Estonian People’s Award in
2003. The film does not teach anybody, it follows life in a school
where there are only 14 children and the adamant teacher makes