Unfortunately, COVID also came about, so we were unable to be there to film the two last shooting days, but we sent a crew to the hotel for those days. Then, when the producer came on-board, we came back five or six times with a team, and this lasted about two and a half years. So, for a few months, we were going into the hotel and meeting people and filming with the 16 mm, and sometimes also with a smaller camera. Maya Duverdier: It was just the two of us, Amélie and I, with a 16 mm camera. What was the duration of the making of Dreaming Walls? How long were you filming in the hotel and what were some of the logistics of that?
What I liked in the way we worked together was there was a lot freedom and experimentation, and I think this place needed it so much, so I'm happy two worlds and two inspirations worked together. But like Amélie said, the process is the same, even if I've never done a fiction movie, but it's not far from it. So, I had done docs, but only short ones, so this was my first feature documentary.
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Maya Duverdier: My background was actually in art school, where I learned how to film, but it wasn't a cinema school, and then I went to cinema school, because I knew I wanted to make documentaries. But I didn't feel like the process of filmmaking itself was so different from my past experience in fiction, especially in editing and all of that. It's just another way to approach filmmaking, but I don't feel like there is a difference between them.įor me, it was like doing a fiction movie, but with a friend and thinking a lot about the careful approach we had and the respect we built with them and their history that they shared generously to us, that was really amazing and something very special. I don't like to make boundaries films and documentaries, because it's just another process and another way of capturing people, but the rest is all the same process. (function() ) Īmélie van Elmbt: Coming from fiction and doing feature films, for me, documentaries are films.
To go back a little bit, what can you share about your backgrounds in filmmaking and documentaries, and how that led up to the making of Dreaming Walls? I think I was amazed by the staircase, because you can always imagine it, but when you see it in reality and so many real things also happened there, the building itself was really amazing. Maya Duverdier: I think it was also an encounter with the building in itself, because outside it's obvious, but inside, it's very well put together. There were just about 50 people living there, mostly older people living there from the '70s, and they were still creating amongst the presence of the jackhammers everyday, so we were impressed by their will and their resistance and the way they were so committed to what they were doing for so many years, that was really amazing and unexpected.Īlso, to see the condition of the rooms and the walls and the state of the place, and we were also much more expecting to see famous people and artists walking around the place, but people like Merle and a lot of other artists were the fertile soil of this place. They are not the well-known people of the place, and that's why we wanted to tell their stories, because they have lived there forever.įilming Dreaming Walls with the history behind the Hotel Chelsea, what were some of the most unexpected things you saw or came across during the making of the film?Īmélie van Elmbt: First of all, with the situation of the place, we had in mind a lot of images that I think are part of the collective image of the mythology of the place, but that was not really the case. We understood that the reality of the place was amazing and it was really a turning point in the history of this place, so we thought, imagining all of the older residents living there, we needed to film their history. She invited us to her room, and that was the first time we really entered the place, so going in the hallways and seeing the extent of the renovations and hearing from Merle about the reality of the place today, that it was becoming a luxury hotel and had people living there from before everything changed. While we were in the lobby, we had the chance to meet Merle Lister, who is in the film, and we began to speak with her and fortunately weren't kicked out! So we went in and checked it out, and we discovered that the place was totally upside down and had some big renovations.
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Maya Duverdier: So, four years ago, Amelie and I were at the Tribeca Film Festival, because Amelie her second movie shown there, and fortunately, when we were walking along 21st street, we came across the Hotel Chelsea, which we knew of from the book Just Kids. Screen Rant: How did Dreaming Walls first come about for both of you?
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