Péter KerekesInterview with Péter Kerekes Olek Młyński July 2025 Interviews Issue 114 “My belief is that people love to play”. It’s hard to find a neater quote summarising the essence of Péter Kerekes’ cinema than the one coming from the man himself. The Slovakian documentary filmmaker balances fact and fun in his works, constantly experimenting with axiomatic definitions of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, as his method of filmmaking spearheads the recent trend of hybridity in nonfiction cinema. In the most recent film, Wishing on a Star (2024), Kerekes deep-dives into the world of astrology. Although an easy target for ridicule for less sensible filmmakers, Luciana, the film’s protagonist, is depicted with child-like inquisitiveness, which comes as no surprise to anyone who’s seen a Kerekes film before. Wishing on a Star continues a trajectory established with his debut Murder Ballads and Other Legends from Ladomírová (1998) and then perfected with each new addition to the filmography. Born in 1973 in Košice, Czechoslovakia, Kerekes was already an odd one out as a child: “My parents spoke Hungarian, and they decided that the best way to teach me Slovak is by simply throwing me into the kindergarten among the local kids”. As an outsider unable to communicate with fellow adolescents, he had to quickly learn how to observe reality and discern information from people’s body language: a lesson Kerekes deems critical to his later development as a documentarian. During his time at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava he made two crucial acquaintances: his future wife, animator Katarína Kerekesová, and photographer Martin Kollár, who would go on to become the director of photography on most of his projects. The partnership with the latter allowed Kerekes to fashion a particular aesthetic. Although his works often revolve around the theme of the past, and as such invite a typical ‘talking heads’ setup where interviewees recount their stories, Kerekes always finds a way to make these static images come alive. Already the feature-length debut, 66 Seasons (2003), a film about an open-air swimming pool in his hometown, is emblematic of this playfulness. In one scene the director asks his subjects, 60-something men, to reenact how they ‘played as Indians’ at the same swimming pool when they were kids. The framing ideas the Kerekes-Kollár duo come up with are often absurd, with off-kilter compositions sneaking a bit of drollery to even the most dramatic moments. This is perfectly encapsulated by a scene from Cooking History (2008), in which the only survivor of a submarine sinking, who also happens to be a chef, is asked to retell the horrific events whilst cooking at the beach. Once the waves of an arriving high tide submerge everything, including the protagonist helplessly trying to carry on with the cooking, a typical Kerekesian scene offers itself. The Slovak’s secret is that the image, as caricaturist as it may read on paper, does not feel like a cruel joke made by the director on his subject. Rather, the tragicomic scene becomes an almost existentialist metaphor for life’s hardships, and our duty to respond to them with a smile. Wishing on a Star Resistance, Balkan Conflict, open-air swimming pools, a saga about famous shoemaker family: the themes and topics of Kerekes’ oeuvre are vast and perhaps impossible to be grouped together in a rational way. This is because, as one can often read in interviews with him, Kerekes works instinctively, first formulating bonds with the protagonists and switching the camera on only at the end. The aforementioned aesthetic and penchant for directorial intrusion into the filmed space contribute to the particular semi-fictitious feel of Kerekes’ filmography. This was only reinforced by 107 Women (2021), his first open foray outside of the world of documentary cinema. With the next fiction project lined up for the future, an adaptation of Witold Szabłowski’s Dancing Bears, True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny, the director seems to be oriented to further exploration of new pastures. This interview was conducted during the 67th DOK Leipzig, where Wishing on a Star screened. – O.M. *** In your most recent film Wishing on a Star I found myself questioning the veracity of particular scenes. How important for you is the grey zone in documentaries between the staged reality and the observed one? I think it’s important to recognise how unnatural it is to film anybody, in any context. Ethically and philosophically speaking, it’s absolutely the same, regardless of whether we employ a huge crew, or act as a fly-on-the-wall seemingly hiding somewhere from the characters. My filmmaking process could be the root of the staged feeling you describe. I don’t speak Italian, which at first was a huge hurdle, especially whilst conducting the interviews. But what happened next was the magic of cinema. We took our time by repeatedly asking questions, translating, and asking again. Interestingly enough, our subjects did not repeat themselves. Instead, they got deeper and deeper into their stories with each retelling. This gave us the opportunity to change camera setups, which is why it could give off this impression of fictionality. My process isn’t necessarily based on being creative, patience is key. We were also experimenting a lot with conversation topics. Our work relied on constantly preparing traps of sorts, and that, for me, is 90% of filmmaking. The other 10% is reconstruction. Reconstruction? Yes, we just knew that certain things happened in the past, and we asked the characters to act them out for us again. One scene in particular comes to my mind when you mention it. An elderly lady travels to Croatia to swim in a lake. It’s a cold November and she’s not allowed to be there. When she is suddenly arrested, it feels like a set up situation… Did you call the police on your protagonist? You have to fictionalise stuff, if you want to make it absolutely realistic. To ensure the veracity of a scene where a woman swims in an illegal place, it has to be in fact an illegal place. You will see the fear and the excitement in her face which she otherwise wouldn’t be able to act out. So of course, it was completely staged. We had this Baywatch guy standing on set, then there was the police, waiting to join in the action. Later it was a question of how to make this dialogue between the woman and the policemen in the car sound realistic. How to have the officers talk openly and maybe even antagonise her a bit? So I asked them to narrate a similar story which in fact happened one year earlier, and then edited it, so it sounded like the policemen were talking about my subject. The authenticity sprang from them telling a true story. If I asked the officers to treat the scene as a fictive dialogue, it would be a disaster because they are very bad actors. We combined realities, because from the policemen’s perspective the lady they caught today, or the lady they caught last year were practically the same. We didn’t have to be fully attached to the facts, but we were attached to the truth. Wishing on a Star I think this approach goes against the rules that many documentary purists apply to the genre. For some it might be unethical and manipulative. The ethical approach of storytelling is not attached to the technicalities, the ‘how did this get done?’. It’s so easy now to fake and stage things. I believe that you can also be truthful when tinkering with reality. I had a fantastic teacher, Dušan Hanák, who kept saying: “the documentary is not what is in front of the camera. The documentary is always what is in the head of the director’. Even in your feature-length debut 66 Seasons there are a lot of sequences where scenes are so tied together and the camera movements feel so controlled, that the impression of fictionality again comes to the fore. Those strategies of hybridity seem to be more prevalent now, what do you think has changed when comparing to the times of your debut? People are now much more afraid of how they are represented and filmed. I simply think it would be impossible now to come with a camera crew to a swimming pool and shoot whatever. What might happen? If you in fact tried to make 66 Seasons: Part 2 today? A lot of people would think I have bad intentions. Which is a shame, because my belief is that people love to play. So, like in the case of 66 Seasons, we could ask 60-year-olds to run around the swimming pool with toy guns and pretend they are kids again. I think of film as a carnival, during which people wear masks, and are able to have fun without the consequences. We try to give that sort of opportunity to my protagonists. There is some fiction, we might change stories, but the emotions are absolutely true. Also, I strongly believe that people love to confess. And since we are not going to the church anymore, a lot of people look for other forms of that experience. That’s when I come in. Maybe my real calling was to become a priest? Even if people are filmed, they are happy to share their biggest fears, secrets and desires with me. 66 Seasons How to achieve comedy in a documentary without it being offensive towards the people you’re depicting? I think that good humour has no limits. The only rule is not to make fun of those weaker than you. Dictators are a good target. Victims not so much. Unless you are a victim yourself! And if you truly love your characters, you just won’t be able to make ill-intentioned jokes about them. It all boils down to the formed relationship. For example, I wouldn’t make a joke about your glasses now, because we aren’t friends yet. I’m really curious how that joke would go… I don’t know now, but definitely the closer I am to someone, the more offensive I could be. This is my way of communication. I could turn a Holocaust story into a comedy because that’s the way I see the world. You mentioned earlier that we don’t go to the church anymore, even though we need spirituality. Do you think that astrology is the new form of religion? Astrology was always popular; it’s just that now we have media that sensationalise it. Thousands of years of knowledge about human psychology are conserved in astrology. But people didn’t have the right terminology so they used planets, ascendant stars, and zodiac signs. And I’m curious whether in 200 years’ time, the future scientists will look at the psychology of today and think: “look at all the funny superstitions about Freud and this nonsense about the unconscious… they were basically right, but they were not using the right words”. Nowadays psychology exists parallel to astrology. And still, people choose to go to someone like Luciana instead of a therapist. How did you cast your protagonists, and how would you explain their desire to look for help and answers outside of the rational world? Regarding the casting element: knowing when not to film is the most important rule of filmmaking. Initially, I spent a lot of time observing Luciana and her clients, without the cameras. After that stage I looked for people, who could start their journey with my protagonist. I wanted to film the whole process, because for me the initial surprise and encounter with her… it was just magical. And why would they decide to go to an astrologist rather than a psychologist? I think we somehow want to believe in magic. And then of course, Luciana asks them to make trips to all those various places in the world. It brings us back to religion again, to the act of pilgrimage: Rome for Catholics, Mecca for Muslims, Nou Camp in Barcelona for football fanatics. Every religion has it, because it’s a magical act of breaking the everyday routine, of being in an alien territory. From the production perspective, wasn’t this project difficult? Luciana kept sending your characters to all those faraway countries, and following them must have been costly. That was part of our game. For example, we told Luciana: “send your clients wherever you want. Just please keep in mind that we have a co-producer in Brazil.” So, she told one of the clients to travel to Brazil, but he didn’t want to go. That was how we lost $100,000 in funding for example… But at least we have a good scene where he refuses to make that journey. Cooking History All of the characters go through a change in the film. I’m curious to know if you, as an observer of this process, also experienced some sort of a revelation? This will sound very unprofessional, but I realised what we had actually filmed only after the rough cut. Until then there were funny characters, ridiculous events and crazy dialogues. I realised that this film is about people who are stuck in their childhood. That they never grew up. That they all have poor relationships with their parents, which completely destroyed their personal lives. We followed the surface of the story for a very long time, and I actually found the depth right at the end of our work. Why do you describe this method as unprofessional? Everyone in the industry will tell you to be confident and know what you are doing. “What is the point of your film, what is your target audience…” The truth is, I have no fucking idea what I want to tell my target audience! I just have a big curiosity. But no, I didn’t have an understanding of the deeper layers of the movie at the beginning. Looking at your entire filmography, you seem to be moving away from political and historical territory to more introspective stories of individuals. Can you explain this change of perspective? I’m older, and that’s why I see these topics more. If you compare Wishing on a Star to my previous film 107 Mothers you will notice similarities. They both are about female characters and relationships they have with their clients in a way. I would love to make an edit one day, where these two stories are weaved together. One of the things noticeable in your films is the cinematography. Martin Kollar is the DoP you’ve been working with since the beginning of your career. How has your working relationship evolved over the years? My Hungarian name translated to Slovakian would be Kollar. So, we basically are two sides of the same person. A professional director will know all about the lenses, lighting and so on. As a technical idiot I have no clue about that, so I have to use a different language, talk about mood, atmosphere, and inspiration. Martin understands that, and we found a way to communicate over the years. A second fantastic thing is that Martin… he hates to work. I always have to entertain him. He is mainly a photographer, so being on film sets doesn’t excite him. That’s why Martin rarely works with someone other than me. As I mentioned, we often do multiple takes, and my main goal is to always be patient. But also, because Martin gets bored easily, I have to try something different with each setup and be creative to keep him entertained. If he’s bored, that means that my idea for a scene is terrible, but if he’s interested, then I know we might be up to something. What happens to you, when he’s bored? Then I am depressed. There is something nostalgic about Wishing on a Star. The film is in a way reminiscent of the Italian works from the ‘50s or ‘60s. Was it something you were going for on purpose? It was very much on purpose. When I embark on a new project I never think about the message or ‘what I’m trying to say with this film’. I’m glad you haven’t asked me that question, because I don’t have an answer for it. But for me, the atmosphere is always the most important thing. You mentioned 66 Seasons earlier. There I really wanted to recreate the feeling of actually being at a swimming pool, the chaos, constant distractions, running kids and the beautiful girls… We used a handheld camera and we only shot on hot, sunny days to emphasise this vertigo. With Wishing on a Star we wanted to have the tone of Italian films, so we used stereotypes like the Vespa scooters, food and constant family arguments. That’s why I wanted to have twins in my movie, knowing that they would quarrel all the time. Once you prepare the ingredients, it all goes smoothly afterwards.
