Making a Documentary

Making a Documentary



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Mark: So you are making a documentary?
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yeah right.
Mark: Yes? Where are you from?
Bjorn: The basic crew is from Germany.
Mark: M-hm.
Bjorn: I am from Switzerland. Our main re-enactor is from France. And another protagonist is also from France.
Mark: Right so you are French, Swiss and German.
Bjorn: Yes. It is basically German. It is a German crew.
Mark: Everybody is speaking English though (able to speak English).
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yes.
Mark: What part of Switzerland do you come from?
Bjorn: I am from Bern. The Swiss-German part.
Mark: So you are a German (speaker)?
Bjorn: Yeah. Swiss-German and I have been living for fifteen years in Munich.
Mark: What is the documentary about?
Bjorn: Ok. The documentary is about the character of Henri Le Saux. He is a French monk born in 1910.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: In forty-nine he moved in a mission for the Benedictine…
Mark: Ah He is a Christian.
Bjorn: Yeah. Christian monk. Benedictine monk from Brittany in France. He moved to India in order to mission the Hindus.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: In order to understand the deeper meaning of hinduism.
Mark: M-hm
Bjorn: He went deeper and deeper into the Vedas and eventually turned sanyasin.
Mark: Really?
Bjorn: However without leaving his Benedictine..
Mark and Bjorn: Order.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: It would not be such an amazing case but he left a lot of writings and he wrote a lot of books about this ambiguity and this sort of being torn between two religions but eventually he did not want to serve any of the religions but he wanted to look for God.
Mark: To serve God. Right.
Bjorn: To serve God. Yeah. So he lived here from forty-nine to seventy-three. He never went back.
Mark: Right
Bjorn: Although he was invited to lots of times. He led a very simple and full life and he left a lot of writings and so we… This is the third time we have been in India. We have been here two years ago in Rishikesh. We were last year in south India in Tiranamalai ..where the ashram of Ramana Maharshi is; where he was a scholar.
he had his self realization through Ramana Mahashi. So he had a really deep religious and spiritual experience in his ashram there.
Mark: Great.
Bjorn: And later on he moved to northern India.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: And he made a sort of pilgrimage to the source of the Ganges…to Gangotri where we just have just been re-enacting lots of things with Christian, our re-enactor of Henri le Saux.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: So we are trying to get bits and things together on this small indie movie level.
Mark: It is just an independent movie?
Bjorn: Yeah it is an independent movie and we are trying to put together a ninety minute documentary.
Mark: When do you think you will finish?
Bjorn: I think honestly it is going to be another one and a half years.
Mark: Well. Good luck!
Bjorn: Thank you.