We first heard Jela’s story at GoShort – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen’s Industry Day 2019, which dealt with and celebrated, amongst many topics, the failures filmmakers face from time to time. Jela was brave enough (and funny as hell too!) to tell her journey and while hers is a unique experience, it is very universal, too. We all make mistakes and in most cases, we move on and make new ones of course, but at least we learn from those or even better, turn it into a successful short film! Let’s hear Jela’s tale of failure from the talented Swiss director herself!

I’ve been asked to write this story as part of the magazine’s focus on “mistakes and fuck-ups”. This is the story of my fuck-up as a filmmaker. A fuck-up which at first seemed so severe I would never recover from it – where the only solution was to turn it into a film.

It all happened exactly six years ago, in the spring of 2013. I was five months into the preparations of my graduation project from art school. I wanted to make a film about a man who directs, produces and acts in porn movies. In short, I was going to compare his work to mine, raising questions on intimacy: is it more intimate to show yourself while having sex, or to reveal your private feelings in front of a camera? But suddenly, one week before we started filming,

I received an email from my one and only protagonist, telling me that he no longer wanted to be part of the project. End of the discussion.

It was the beginning of March, my graduation was meant to be in June, and I was devastated. Not only had I lost this idea that had been consuming most of my time for several months but most of all, I had not seen it coming (I am also aware of the numerous jokes one can make about him pulling out, not coming etc).

So in a way I had failed one of my key assessments as a director, which is to know and understand the protagonist, and build a strong relationship of mutual trust and shared vision. In retrospect, I do acknowledge that after all, the guy was rather unique, both in his character and his way of life, and it probably wasn’t my fault, or at least not fully, as there were other factors out of my control that had led to his decision.

But in that moment, it just felt like I had failed, and failed BIG TIME.

At the same time, I felt very lost. Having to make a film to graduate was not my main motivation, I could take a break and try again with a new project the following year. But I think it would have destroyed me completely to just do nothing. So after several days of weeping and drinking (not great to admit, but true), I picked up my camera and let my mum drive me over to see my grandmother. I had to start somewhere. 

That’s when I discovered that my family were almost as upset about my failure as I was, but for a different reason: they hadn’t understood my project from the outset, and they almost certainly didn’t approve of it. While my sister thought it was just disgusting, my dad feared I that by making such a film, I would never find a job, and my mum suspected that my interest in porn was the proof that I had actually personal problems with my own sex life.

My family is not especially conservative, but my parents being teachers and my sister studying economics certainly made their outlook on life rather different from mine. Why couldn’t I do something “normal”? Why didn’t I make a film about something they’d appreciate, like (my mum’s suggestion) about kids? Or (my dad’s suggestion, and remember, it was 2013:) focusing on refugees? 

Lucky for me, or really because I insisted quite strongly they did so, they all revealed this directly in front of the camera. So I came back to the editing room with a hard disk full of my fight with my parents. 

Since I still felt upset, I looked at the interviews as an incredibly tragic thing. To me, it was still the biggest failure that had ever happened. Fortunately, my editing supervisor forced me to show an assemblage of the material to a test audience, and that’s when I discovered that not only did people recognize their own families in mine, but they also thought it was funny. That really helped to distance myself from the material, and also reach a more positive attitude towards the project. Because in addition to feeling depressed, I was constantly angry. It seemed like I was making the exact same sort of film that I had repeatedly made fun of in the past: all those directors making a film about their family. I just hated it. But at least by making it a funny film, something other people could relate to, it might say something different.

I also started to shape and highlight each of us as distinct characters in the film, with my family representing an archetype of the average prudish Swiss family, and me the involuntary rebel. In reality, I actually have two sisters, but only one made it into the film – the other one was just too understanding of my problem so it fit with the idea of me being “the black sheep”, so she was left out. After all, it is cinema.

With the help of my friends, teachers, colleagues, and especially my mentor,I managed to finish the film in time and graduate. It even got co-produced by the Swiss Television, shown at festivals, won me an award. 

Although a part of me still wishes this experience had never happened, I learned so much through the process.

About family, about filmmaking and about my need to interpret it, learning how to focus on a (personal) conflict in a cinematic way, and not being afraid to dig in and get dirty. It also helped to distill lessons that would probably have taken so much longer for me to understand or experience, if it hadn’t been for making this story. 

So, I survived failure, and more importantly, I am still, or have since become, a director. I have managed to make more films. And at least I have already made “the film about my family” and I won’t need to do it again. Now it’s time to move on to new topics!