Interview: Erik Poppe

30th April 2014

We spent some time with Erik Poppe, director of A Thousand Times Goodnight.

Tell us about A Thousand Times Good Night

o Well, the film is basically portraying a female war photographer, Rebecca, one of the world’s leading and most prolific war photographers and her daily life being out in Afghanistan and Congo and wherever in the world.. basically a story about her, and a story about her family back home in Ireland, her two daughters and her husband who find it harder and harder to deal with the fact her job seems to be quite complicated and sometimes quite dangerous. So at the beginning of the film we open up in Afghanistan as Rebecca is following a group of female war suicide bombers and she gets to close when the bomb is been released and the husband brings her back to Ireland and she has to decide whether she wants to stay with her family or with her job, and that seems to be an easy question; you stay with your family that’s the most important thing, but it’s not always that easy and that’s what we’re going to see in the film.

Did you have any input in the character or the script at all?

o That’s for sure because basically the story, the film, is based on me and my wife and my two kids. I turned myself into a female character, the one who are out there in the world, to be able to show the topic, the dilemma, to be a mother of two small kids but to go out there in the world and tell the story of other small kids in war zones. So I’ve been working with the script for 2 and a half years before we start shooting to be able to find someone of course, a female, who looked like me, as beautiful as I am, I needed to find the most beautiful one of them all, Juliette Binoche. This was of course a joke, but in the very end, that’s the one who is playing the part as me. So the next question is…

What were the greatest challenges on set?

o Well technically, it was hard to do the film in all aspects but still that’s what it always is. The most hardest thing was actually being able to film in Kabul, in Afghanistan, which is a quite hard place to be, just to be there. Another place where we also filmed was The Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya on the border of Uganda in South Sudan. So both of these places they had a lot of security and lot of other infrastructure problems of course, but for the rest really, to be able to work with such actors, both professional and amateurs has been just like a thrill and if anyone would ask me if I would do it again, I would always do it exactly the same way, boringly enough, I really would.

What do you think the message of the film is?

o Well… I hate to explain the film for the audience, I would like them to see it themselves, but there is some issues I’m raising, the fact that there are people out there doing these jobs is because we really need them to be out there. Journalists and photographers are more important than ever, professional photographers and journalists. And I’ve been wanting to show for you, the audience, as well, the price those people are paying, and more than those actually, the price that the people around them are paying. There is a high price to pay to have this passion and to be out there and so I wanted to show for you, who these people are and their story.

So, what’s next for you?

o Well, I can’t tell you the whole story, but basically I’m starting shooting in February next year, a story, a big big huge epic story, which I also want to make strong and personal with strong strong characters that is based on the true story of King Haakon which was the Norwegian King the night the Germans attacked Norway in the Second World War. We are telling his story, the true story, which is an extremely dramatic, intense story, as he is trying to escape from the Germans and how everything around him is falling apart, the government, the parliament, every politician is sort of without ability to do what they should do so we follow how he’s fighting to be able to survive the Germans and how he has to be pushed to be a political person, as the King shouldn’t be a political person, he has to take the responsibility. It’s a really dramatic story. It takes places in Norway and we’re going to film it in February, March, April next year.

Anything you want to get off your chest right now?

o There is a lot, please, anyone out there help me, the list is long long long, I will probably start with one thing, and that is to find the time, space, to be more with my kids and my wife who have been waiting for me for several, several years. And as soon as I’m done with one film I’m starting with the next one so I need someone who can produce time and I’ll buy it.

A Thousand Times Goodnight is released on Friday

Facebook

Google

Twitter

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.