Talking Heads

Kristoph Kieslowski was a Polish film director and screenwriter born on 27th Jun 1941. He made over 25 short films/documentaries and 14 feature films including The Decalogue (1988), No End (1984) and Talking Heads (1980).

"The Industry doesn't like to see the complexity of the world. It prefers simple reporting, with simple ideas; this is white, that's black; this is good, that's bad" - Kristoph Kieslowski

Talking Heads (or Gladagece glowy) was short documentary featuring a wide range of people from all generations, backgrounds and professions, who are asked three simple questions.

1) Who are you?
2) When were you born?
3) What is important to you?

Each question was answered individually, told to an interviewer, and was accompanied by the year each person was born in. The film starts with a 1 year old boy, and works its way towards the eldest interviewees.

Here is the original documentary:

The task was to recreate Talking Heads in the style of Kristoph Kieslowski, to go out and interview people by asking them three simple questions.

1) What are you?
2) When were you born?
3) What would you like most in the world?

The team split into three groups: Young (ages 8 - 25), middle aged (ages 25 - 50) and old (ages 50+). The interviews took place in and around Stafford and West Bromwich. Each individual was given a short amount of time to think about the answers they would give, and then the team would film them whilst they talked to the interviewer. To ensure that the volunteers knew what the team were doing everyone was given a consent form to sign, and people under 16 were given a form for parental permission.

After collecting in all of the footage and recordings the team selected a few to edit the film together. It was decided that the style of Kieslowski's documentary would be imitated by using the dates of the individual's birth and making the whole film black and white. 

The basic idea was to simply listen to people's stories and thoughts, and what the group found was that perhaps, by simply going out and doing some spontaneous filming, one can capture and share the best adventures out there: the adventure of an everyday life.

You can watch the finished film here: http://vimeo.com/88444112