indieWIRE INTERVIEW | Going Full Frontal: Yair Hochner’s “Antarctica”

How did the idea for “Antarctica” come about?

During 1999, my last year in Camera Obscura - Art School in Tel-Aviv, I started to write the first draft of a script under the influence of my favorite film of that year, Michael Winterbottom‘s “Wonderland.” It was about a group of singles in Tel-Aviv, but I wanted to do a queer film so all the character became gay & lesbians. I decided that I’d do homage to John Waters and Divine too, so I decided to cast Miss Laila Carry to as Shoshana, Omer and Shirley mother. He is one of the greatest Drag-Queens in Tel-Aviv.

Please elaborate a bit on your approach to making the film…

My approach is that the most important thing for the directors is that the crew and the actors should be passionate about the project and will totally trust the director. They are not getting a salary at the end of the day, so they must have a great reason to be a part of the movie.

I don’t believe in rehearsals. We are doing lots of reading and meetings over coffee talking about life, going out to movies - and becoming best friends before the shooting. So hopefully during the production, they are totally in to the film. Although the script is my baby it’s not the bible so if the actors had an idea I was very open minded about it. During the shooting they became the characters and sometimes they can contribute much to the script.

About the influences - I think “Antarctica” start as Mike Figgis’ experimental/Video-art style films, only with lots of sex and full frontal. Then it becomes a realistic movie about loneliness in the big city like “Wonderland”, and suddenly a gay romantic comedy with a touch of camp, a few genres in one movie. 

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in finding distribution?

The movie is screening now for 4 months consecutively in Tel-Aviv’s cinematheque, the only cinema that agreed to screen it in Israel. Commercial distributors refused to screen it in their cinemas but they almost don’t screen any LGBT movies. Outside of Israel it was sold to many countries and is going very well in film festivals. 

What other genres or stories would like to explore as a filmmaker?

I am definitely interested in making horror and action movies in the future. But I prefer to shoot my scripts before and then start to think about my other favorite trashy genres.

What general advice would you impart to emerging filmmakers?

First of all do what you wish to do, don’t think about how to sell it, audience and other economic commercial influences. Do what is in your heart. If you are really passionate about it, the audience will feel it and like it and then you will make some dollars too. Do it raw do it extreme and without limits. Second, find the right people to work with, those who believe in you, and you can trust. I prefer people that are crazy about cinema and not only about money.

Please share an achievement from your career so far that you are most proud of.

Founding and being the artistic director of TLVFest- Tel Aviv’s International LGBT Film Festival is a dream come true. I believe this festival has changed LGBT culture in Israel and there is more queer filmmaking now than ever. I hope that every year we’ll see more and more Lesbian and gay independent directors in Israel that will not have to wait for funds and make their films their own way.