To strive, to seek, to find…

More film fest excitement for y’all!

Last night saw director Paul Greengrass receive The Variety UK Achievement in Film Award at an event held in conjunction with the London Film Festival. He was then interviewed by Variety magazine’s Europe and Middle East correspondent, Ali Jaafar. The discussion ranged from Greengrass’s interest in Northern Ireland to the process of making The Murder of Stephen Lawrence. Suchandrika Chakrabarti reports

Here’s a fun excerpt:

It’s a question you’ve been asked many times, but why make United 93?

Why wouldn’t I want to make a film about 9/11? Five years felt right. The families wanted this film to be made. That great “let’s roll” idea was at the heart of it; that was at the heart of the political response.

9/11 was given a set of codified meanings. The purpose of the film was to not accept those given meanings. It’s like a piece of great photojournalism in it rawness, in its capturedness, you find the real meaning. There is the incredulity that such a thing could happen; our blindness to the rage outside. We want not to acknowledge the burning outside our city walls.

The film brought the conflict down to its core and allowed different meanings to emerge. We must seek meanings for ourselves and not be content to have them handed to us by politicians.

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LFF: Sicko

LFF 2007

Paul Greengrass

london film festival