British filmmaker Joanna Hogg, who this week serves as chair of the Feature Narrative Competition Jury at Egypt’s ninth edition of El Gouna Film Festival, tells Diversity She likes to know as little as possible about a film before watching it, “not even a summary of the story.”
“I like to go in with no parameters and a very open mind,” she explains. “I’m looking for something that inspires me, but it can also be something that strikes me in a special way. It doesn’t have to make me cry, but just something that has a clarity about it, a feeling that the filmmaker has ideas and a vision.”
With films from first-time and established directors, a range of genres and stories from different parts of the world, Hogg sees no sense in applying the same criteria to each. “I really feel like I’ve traveled, even though I’ve been here in El Gouna. I’ve really traveled all over the place.”
This is Hogg’s first visit to Egypt, and she describes herself as an outsider on the jury which includes filmmakers from Egypt, Iraq and Turkey. Hearing their perspective, she says, “really whetted my appetite to explore films not only from Egypt, but from the Middle East in general.”
The experience also marks a return to watching films after being immersed in his writing for several months. “I’ve been writing at home for several months and not really watching any movies,” explains Hogg. “It’s been really nice to kind of come here with a clear mind instead of going to the movies. Reading a lot, but not watching. And so I think it’s made me more receptive to movies.”
Hogg is currently writing her next film, in which she once again grapples with the line between lived experience and fiction. The director’s work, which includes “The Souvenir,” “The Souvenir Part II” and “The Eternal Daughter,” is intensely personal.
She adds, “I’m very interested in how that tension between my personal and real experience is transformed into cinema and fiction.”
Despite drawing on his experiences in several films, Hogg doesn’t think the process has been easy. She says, “It’s a different story I’m telling with this film. Every time I’m kind of learning from scratch, which I love.”
Hogg graduated from film school, but she began working in television rather than making films, an experience she recalls with some fondness.
“It was kind of a disappointment that I went into television,” she admits. “I went into it because I needed to work and it wasn’t as easy as I thought making my first feature film.”
The turning point, she remembers, came when she was directing a television episode, which she felt little connection to. Hogg recalls, “I can almost remember where I was standing when I thought of it.” “I was rehearsing a scene with these actors. It was very much television and it wasn’t a story I had any connection to. I didn’t write the script.”
His feeling was simple. “I thought I should tell you something really personal.”
The late American filmmaker Barbara Stone, a friend of Hogg’s who went on to produce his 2007 debut film “Unrelated,” provided the final push. When Hogg told him she intended to make a short film, Stone challenged her, asking, “Why make a short film? Make a feature.”
Hough’s working relationship and friendship with Tilda Swinton goes back even further to their 1986 graduation film “Caprice”. Their career paths diverged creatively for decades before reuniting in “The Souvenir” films and later “The Eternal Daughter.”
“We talk about it sometimes and we said, ‘Well, actually, maybe it’s not a bad thing. We both developed our own way first,'” explains Hogg. “Then when we came up with ‘The Souvenir’, which was several years later, it was such a joy. We thought, ‘Why did it take us so long to do another one?’ We’ll do more together.'”
However, for now, Hogg’s focus is still on the unannounced film waiting for him back home. After spending several days in El Gouna immersed in the work of other filmmakers, he is anticipated to have some difficulty returning to his film world.
“I have to turn down the compression,” she explains, before she can “quietly get back to my story,” allowing her to organize the movies she’s watching.