Interview with Chantal Ughi
by John Farris
Chantal was born in Milan Italy and grew up in both Italy and France. She has acted in many European films, such as Traveling Companion (competition at Cannes International Film Festival); Not of This World (Montreal World Film Festival Winner); Growing Artichokes in Mi Mongo; Alabma Blues, to mention a few. In 1999 she directed her first movie, a short film called My Right Hand. After that Chantal moved to New York. My Right Hand won the Best Short Film Subject Award at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. Her second movie, Voices Underground, was presented at the NY Turkish International Film Festival.
This interview was conducted on December 10, 2005.
JF: Chantal, tell me how did you get into film?
Chantal: I got into film, well, I’ve been acting for a while, I was in a few European movies and then one day I saw a friend of mine doing a movie and I experienced being behind the camera. And I kind of realized that this was most fulfilling to me...than just being in front of the camera. Because an actor, I mean is important and its a group work...but just one part of the picture, so, I kind of wanted to be a person who coordinated everything. And who can tell stories. They think film can change the world but I don’t know.
JF: Well, for a few minutes, a few hours maybe...
laughter
So, what films were you in? You were in Traveling Companion, what was that about?
Chantal: That’s the movie with Michel Piccoli and Asia Augento and its about a man who has Alzheimer’s and he loses his memory. He leaves his home and starts traveling around Italy on the train. So it’s about what happens to him.
JF: What was your character?
Chantal: I am one of the characters...well this young girl is hired to follow him, she’s kind of like a shallow grungy girl -- that’s not me -- but anyway every town that they stop he ends up meeting different people, and one of them is me. I work as a receptionist at a hotel but I’m also a very spiritual person. I answered to, what do you call that, answered to a newspaper ad about friendship and love...
JF: Oh, the personals
Chantal: Yea, so I’m looking for my twin soul and I write poetry to the personals and I respond to the ads in the newspapers in poetry.
JF: That’s romantic...So, umm, when was that?
Chantal: That was in 1996, and it was my first movie. And it was strange because the part was -- the director had written it to be a boy. I went to the audition wearing my old grandfather’s tuxedo and he saw me and he changed the part to be a woman. Sometimes when you write parts, characters in a movie, then you see a person, an actor that can inspire you into something else and you can change the part and shape it around that person.
JF: And then you did Growing Artichokes in Mi Mongo and Albania Blues, tell me about those, oh and you did Not of this World, too.
Chantal: Yea.
JF: And that was the winner at the Montreal Film Festival.
Chantal: And it was released in New York at the Union Square Theater. You can also find it at Kim’s Video.
laughter
But, anyway, its the story about a nun, her spiritual path and something happens to her and she decides to quit being a nun.
JF: And you can get that on video and dvd?
Chantal: Yes, and Traveling Companion too.
JF: And then you did --
Chantal: Albania Blues. I was the lead character in that movie. It was a story about a girl from Albania who comes to Italy because she wants to be on t.v. And she ends up meeting this man that comes from this little town that fixes the antennas on the roofs of people, and he kind of makes her believe that he’s going to make her be on t.v...but its not really true.
laughter
It’s like a comedy.
JF: A lot of those ladies that go from Albania to Italy don’t have such a good time, huh?
Chantal: No, no, no they don’t.
JF: So you also stopped being in front of the camera because you were too tall?
Chantal: Yea, basically a lot of lead actors in Italy are very short, sounds like a funny thing but its true. And so for me, I’m kind of tall, so it was a problem for me to get big parts.
JF: So that was one of the factors that pushed you behind the camera?
Chantal: Yea, yea. I actually did a part in a movie where I played, like myself, an Albanian actress who couldn’t get any parts...she was too tall. Every day she takes a train and goes to Rome to audition and she rehearses on the train, creating little scenes with all the passengers.
JF: And can we get that one?
Chantal: That one you actually can get on some website, it was only released in Europe. Oh, and then I was in an American film too, a couple of them. One was called Freaks in the City, and it was like a screwball comedy.
JF: Was that independent?
Chantal: Yea, its about all these odd characters, I’m playing a woman who’s an alcoholic and has six kids from different husbands. At the end of that movie they put a big red wig on me. It was my first American movie...it was a nice experience. That came out in all the German countries.
JF: And you were in another one?
Chantal: I was in a movie in Austin, Texas. An independent experimental science fiction movie.
JF: What was the name of that?
Chantal: It’s called Lucid: The End of the World. That was a woman director from the University of Texas.
JF: So then, you started making your own movies.
Chantal: My first movie is called My Right Hand, about a girl who is a kleptomaniac, every time she steals something she discovers something about other people’s lives.
JF: Wow, that sounds really profound. How’d you come up with that?
Chantal: Umm, actually its kind of an autobiographical story.
JF: Really? You were a kleptomaniac?
laughter
Chantal: Yea, yea I was.
JF: Tell me about it, what did you steal?
Chantal: Well, I was stealing like, anything, like money from my mother’s purse, jewelry from my aunt, umm, I was stealing from stores, books, umm, other people’s houses.
JF: Did you ever get caught?
Chantal: Yea.
JF: Where? How did that happen?
Chantal: Well, I once got caught by my aunt actually, I stole a ring or something, and I actually started to wear it.
JF: You were a bold kleptomaniac.
laughter
Chantal: One time I think I forgot to take it off when I went home and she saw it and she slapped me.
JF: Did it stop you from...
Chantal: No, that didn’t stop me. One other time I was caught in a store. I wasn’t even eighteen. The movie made me stop, the movie was a catharsis.
JF: How long did you make the movie after that?
Chantal: That movie? I made it right before I came to New York in 1999.
JF: So what happened to that?
Chantal: That was in a few festivals in Europe and then it won Best Short at the Brooklyn International Film Festival here.
JF: And then what did you do? You did a film about musicians underground, called Voices Underground.
Chantal: Uh huh, yea, Voices Underground is a documentary about 20 minutes long about subway musicians in New York. I was curious about the lives of those musicians who play in the subway, there’s so many of them and they have many different backgrounds. Some of them are very good musicians, some of them just do it for money. I was interested in discovering what was behind them.
JF: Motivation. And that’s what brought you to NuBlu you were saying?
Chantal: Yea, well I actually met my director of photography, his name is (unintelligible), he’s from Turkey, and he knew Ilhan, so he suggested that we should go to NuBlu, said that Ilhan has this new place called NuBlu, and we should go down there and do an interview and ask his opinion -- what would be, from his point of view, looking at the past, if he ever had that experience of being a subway musician.
JF: And is that where you met Butch Morris?
Chantal: Yes.
JF: And you’ve been using your experience as an actor to perform with Butch. I see you’re wearing a Black February sweatshirt.
Chantal: Yea, I had been seeing Butch performing for quite some time and I heard that he was actually doing something with actors and poets, and so I asked him, told him I wanted to be in it.
JF: What was that like for you?
Chantal: Well, its very interesting to use, umm, to be able to experiment with your voice. I like the whole basic idea of conduction. Basically you use it, every poet or actor can bring a song or text or a poem, everyone brings a different one and something different comes out of it every time. What I like about theater and music is that its happening in that moment as opposed to film. It’s a relieving experience and a catharsis, its happening right there, right now, and its only once. It will never be the same.
JF: Wow. So are you going to do that again? You will be working at Zebulon with Butch in December, right?
Chantal: Yes, we’re going to be doing a performance on the twenty first of December.
JF: What’s your next film project?
Chantal: I’m going to be in a movie with a friend of Butch’s where I’m going to read a text from an Ingmar Bergman film, Persona, I’m going to do that with Butch. I’m going to read a manifesto. And I’m going to do a Hal Hartley movie, hopefully next spring. And then I have my own projects. I’m directing a music video for NuBlu Records, Wax Poetic, and I have a feature film project with Yusuf and Hakan, a laboratory kind of thing.
JF: All that sounds wonderful, good luck!
