/ HUMANE CINEMA MANIFESTO /
written by Sara Marques
I’ve written this manifesto after watching Paul Rogers speech at the Oscars 2023 where he won best editing with the movie “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”.
In his words:
“There’s a problem in our industry that the more you kill yourself for a movie, the braver you are and that’s bullshit. We can do our jobs and we can live our lifes, and the more fully we are able to live our lifes and the more humanly we treat ourselves and the people around us… The better we can do our jobs.”
Someone said it. Someone with a broad audience in cinema, said it.
Cinema should extend a message in time, should serve as expression of voices and unique visions. I see editing as a way to organize what happens before and after a look, to find the ultimate story, what do you want to say, what do you want people to feel? Be true to the feeling, be true to what you want to cut, feel it in the making.
But most of all, I believe this only makes sense if people that tell stories and do movies have the time and health to live their own stories and belong to their own personal movie, being able to be their own main character.
People quit doing movies because they are tired of being mistreated, misrepresented, financially unstable, explored, live on the edge of not having a life.
I believe we should humanize cinema in a better way, to bring authenticity into stories and promote a good environment along the way.
Doing art has to be a pleasure, not a pain.