In 2006, the ÉCU – The European Independent Film Festival was founded in order to celebrate the art and innovation of true independent cinema. Since then it has become a beacon for filmmakers, actors, and filmmakers around the world, a place where the most authentic and courageous voices find a platform to be heard.

As our 20th anniversary approaches, we decided to embark on a nostalgic journey, interviewing those who have participated in past editions of the festival. In this series of articles, we will explore the stories and memories of these masters of independent cinema, discovering how the ÉCU has influenced their careers and artistic vision. We thought that the best way to celebrate this important birthday was to celebrate together the quality that the ÉCU Film Festival Group has been carrying out since its foundation. 

In this article, we will focus on 2007, a year that saw extraordinary talents emerge and that marked the history of the festival. Through the words of the participants of that edition, we will find out what they are doing now and how their career has evolved from that participation If you are curious about the stories of those who helped make the ÉCU such a special event, and find out how the festival has continued to evolve over the years, read on. This journey into the past will give you a unique insight into an era of great creativity and innovation, celebrating the invaluable contribution of European independent cinema. 

On this occasion, I had the opportunity to chat with Marianna Yarovskaya, who in 2007 had brought Holy Warriors, winning the Best Non-European Documentary, but also with three incredible directors whose films participated in the non-European category Dramatic Short: Mona Zaidi, director of Small Potatoes, Paul Bickel, director of Hollow and Emerie Snyder, director of Walls. Find out what they told us!

Marianna Yarovskaya is a director, producer and film researcher born in Moscow, Russia. She initially studied journalism at the Moscow State University and after, when she moved to America, she studied film at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Her career took off quickly: in 2001, when she was in her late twenties, she won the Student Academy Awards, the Student Oscar, with her first film as a director Undesirables. When I asked her about the moments in her career that she is most proud of, she replied: “winning a student Oscar was a proud moment because I had my father in the audience and I had to wear a nice dress and go and stage with Katie Bates and say I’d like to thank the Academy something that many people would like to say and never get a chance to say (…) I think another proud moment was being shortlisted for an Oscar again”. In fact, she was also the first Russian woman director to be shortlisted for an Oscar. A few years later, in 2007, she participated in the ÉCU Film Festival with Holy Warriors, directed in collaboration with director Olesya Bondareva and won Best Non-European Documentary. This film is about soldiers, specifically snipers, who found religion after fighting for many years in Russia before the fall of the USSR. One soldier became a priest, another converted to the Muslim religion and yet another became a shaman. Now that it has passed some time she confessed to me: “Looking back at it I could have marked it better (…) I didn’t know enough about marketing and about selling that’s how you know when I look at it but I think the story is very interesting and they deserve to be told and I think these soldiers are remarkable characters but I wouldn’t go back to reshoot it differently. I think, you know, as we go through life we just abandon ourselves. You know we don’t go back to them really and they live their own life”.

In the last few years she has combined her work as a filmmaker with that of Archive Research and Archive Producer: “I think that the documentary field is changing but one thing that has not changed is that very often filmmakers have to wear many hats”. For example, she told me that she was invited to be a researcher and consultant on the series being produced by Apple TV Star City, a sequel to For All Mankind. 

Right now, Yarovskaya is working on a new project, whose tentative title is Lyuba’s Hope and it will be about Lyobov Sobol: “Nobody really knows her very well abroad. She was Alexei Navalny’s first employee. He picked her out of a hundred many hundreds people. She was first a lawyer and a single mother (…) she went through a very difficult deal when Democracy in Russia started closing down the remnants of democracy so the film is about her fight”. She added that she does not yet know whether it will be a short documentary of 40 minutes or longer due to lack of funds.

I also had the opportunity to talk with Mona Zaidi, director of Small Potatoes.

Zaidi is a writer and director based in Toronto, Canada, but her parents were born in India. About her origin she told me: “I think this has actually influenced me as an artist because on one hand being born and raised in North America gave me a very modern sensibility and modern influences but on the other hand you know the culture that I come from, a very ancient culture, gave me a tremendous connection to old storytelling techniques and old mythological traditions and I think that’s sort of the collision or the kind of interesting mix that that most informs my work as an artist”.

We walked down a little bit in memory lane and talked about Small Potatoes which was considered one of the funniest movies of that ÉCU Film Festival edition. When speaking about the film, she told me: “Basically [Small Potatoes] is a comedy and the idea behind it was – you know everybody tells you to follow your heart, that you should follow your heart – but what if it turns out that your heart is an idiot and that every decision your heart makes is a terrible decision, absolutely wrong, and it leaves you ultimately completely destroys your life? Like what happens? That was sort of the general question that the film was exploring and it was my first film project, my first large Film Festival that I had ever attended so that particular film has a very special place in my heart okay”. Zaidi shared with me another memory of her participation in the festival: it was the first international festival she had attended and she had come with a small team, about four people. Once she arrived at the venue where her film was to be screened, she noticed that there were about six or eight people in the hall. “Plus four of us, that will be 10 people. That’s good!” she thought. When she returned to the cinema after going out for a coffee, she noticed a very long queue in front of the cinema hall, which turned out to be just that of people queuing to watch her film. She told me: “What really impressed me was that the audience was not only not only enthusiastic but they were very literate. They were a very well informed and excellent film audience and I guess I’m saying that because they loved my film” she added laughing. About the festival she recalled: “Now that I’ve been to other festivals I can really appreciate how much care was put into it from the artist’s side (…) there were so many opportunities to get together with other artists but also they facilitated talking to press and getting interested in your project. I think it was one of the best film festival experiences that I’ve had in terms of the level of support for artists to ensure that they get what they need to have to make it a meaningful experience”.

Zaidi told me that the real area of interest of her work has been taking old storytelling traditions like pieces from literature and mythology from around the world and looking at how she can show them in a way that is new and fresh for a modern audience, using modern storytelling, but keeping the seed of what is eternal and universal in old storytelling. Since then she has been working on a series of adaptations from classics of old literature for which she had a lot of success. She did a series that was adapted from Shakespeare and they were just awarded in the UK by Sir Kenneth Branagh. Her latest adaptation of Shakespeare participated in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and it will soon have the off-broadway debut in New York City. Again in the wake of getting young people in particular to rediscover the stories of ancient traditions, she is currently working on an adaptation of the Oedipus myth in a modern key: a man is given the prophecy that his son will kill him. As a farewell, Zaidi added: “ÉCU Film Festival has such a special place in my heart because this was the festival that accepted me when I was just starting on my path”.

I also discussed with Paul Bickel, who in 2007 presented at ÉCU Hollow.

Bickel grew up in Indiana, USA, in a small farming community of a couple of thousand inhabitants. After his brother got an internship in Hollywood, he followed him and started working in the film industry. Since working in the field he has done props, he used to do production design and art direction and finally started making films: “that’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, since I’ve been a kid (…) but it’s you know when you’re from Indiana you don’t feel like you’re allow to make films, you don’t feel like that’s something that you can actually do”, he told me in the interview. 

Hollow was shot on super 16 and it was the last film he made in this form. It was interesting considering at the time he was working for 20th Century Fox. 

During the lockdown he started the project he is currently working on, a feature film: “We had this little cabin in Big Bear California which is about two hours away from Los Angeles and is the perfect place to spend a lockdown because no one’s around (…) so I came up with the story idea, it just popped in my head one day and I started writing it and then the lockdown went from two weeks to a month and I thought I had to shoot this and so before the script was done which I don’t recommend doing always have script that’s done before you start filming – he added laughing – we start filming and it was just my lady and I, we didn’t of course have a crew it was just me and her”. The title of the film will be Our Happy Place: “ it’s a thriller, dramatic thriller with a little horror and a little bit supernatural and a tiny bit of really dry comedy that only I would say kind of people who are people are going to drag comedy will laugh at will laugh in few in a few moments at least. I hope they will. If not, then I haven’t done my job properly”. 

At the end of the interview Bickel wanted to give advice to all young filmmakers who want to start their first project: “If you want to be a filmmaker don’t wait for anyone to start filming, create a story that you can do within a budget. Don’t do a you know period piece judge don’t do something that’s going to create a lot of you know car chases or whatever it may be to create a film you know you can shoot within a budget and also you’ll find your way more creative you’ll come up with things you never thought that you would come up with if you are contained within the box (…)  I waited on a few producers in the past saying oh yeah we’re gonna fund your film we’re gonna fund our film never happened you know ultimately nobody cares about your project only you’re gonna care about it so make sure that you just start doing something and you’re on your own and then until you become you know to get into some good festivals or fine an agent or find somebody you’re definitely on your own”.