Collective Monologue [+lire aussi :
critique
interview : Jessica Sarah Rinland
fiche film], by Argentinian-British director Jessica Sarah Rinland and presented in the Cineasti del Presente competition at the Locarno Film Festival, shows how crucial it is to listen to and respect animals when coming into contact with them. Through its protagonists, the carers at the Buenos Aires Ecopark, the director establishes a profound dialogue with the animals that inhabit the park.

Cineuropa: Where did the idea of making a film about the intense relationship between carers and animals come from?
Jessica Sarah Rinland: My previous film is about museum and ecological conservation. This fascination with conservation and ecology got me interested in the Buenos Aires Ecopark, which is partly based on other zoos where the animals' enclosures replicate architecture from the countries they come from. Due to various issues, the zoo was closed from 2016 until 2019. In 2009 it reopened again in government hands, and was named Ecopark. By going to the zoo regularly for research, I started to get to know people and specifically the carer Maca Santa María Lloydi, who is one of the participating “actresses”. Maca and I became close friends. It’s hard not to love her, her connection to the animals and her dedication to fighting not only for the animals but also for the workers' rights. I rented an apartment with a balcony overlooking the zoo where I went every day. Despite the workers’ openness, I must admit it was very hard to get official permission to access the park to shoot the film.

How did you gain the trust of the protagonists to be able to film them and film them so intimately and so deeply?
It took me five years to make the film, five years of taking an interest in people who I became friends with and who trusted me. I could get close to the animals through Maca and the other carers in the park. The relationship between the carers and the animals has changed a great deal over the years and through the ages. I honestly don't know, and I’ll never know, whether the animals knew they were being filmed, but I believe a few of them did, especially the
elephants. I was able to get close to the animals via the carers.

In your film, every human-animal relationship is based on tenderness, scritches and positive reinforcement. What are your theoretical references?
The film’s title is from a quote by Jean Piaget. He said that there is a state, between the ages of two and four, when children think that nature is created for them and that they can control it. He described this process as: children sit in a circle and talk but nobody is listening, there is no communication, as if they were talking in a collective monologue. A monologue that can exist between the people who work in the park and the institutions, but also between humans and animals or between animals themselves. There are many different levels of what might be meant by “collective monologue” in the film.

What are your artistic influences in general and for this film in particular?
I started out at art school in London interested in photography and painting. During the first week at university, I was sent to the Tate Modern to write a review of a work of art and there I came across Jonas Mekas' films for the first time. I had never seen films like his before and I fell in love with them. By chance, Mekas was interested in screening some films by young directors at a cinema in London and, as luck would have it, the programmers invited me. Chick Strand, Narcisa Hirsch and May Field are great influences, as is the photographer from the 1880s called George Shiras. He is known as the first to take photos of animals at night. He went from being a hunter to a photographer. Today, this infrared night camera, which is used by biologists, is called a camera trap and is an evolution of the camera invented by Shiras. I am currently working on a video-installation centered on his work, which will open San Sebastián's Tabakalera in September 2024