00:00Both Eliza and I are by nature private people, but what happened was so public that it kind
00:08of just blew that apart, you know, and suddenly everything was out there.
00:13And then in a way we wanted to shape the narrative ourselves, we wanted to tell the story in
00:18our own way.
00:19And that's what ended up with Alex's talent and Eliza's footage and me.
00:27That's how it all came together.
00:30When did you start thinking about making this documentary?
00:34Were you still writing your memoir at the time that this came up or what?
00:37Yes, the two things overlapped.
00:40How did you see what you were saying in the memoir versus what the potential was to say
00:46things in the documentary?
00:47Well, we had made all this footage, you know, and we wanted to think about how best to present
00:53that and Eliza's footage.
00:58And initially we had five minutes thought we might make the film by ourselves, but then
01:04became clear to both of us that we needed another creative mind to look at the material and to
01:11think what to do with it and what kind of shape to make.
01:14And that's when we talked to Alex.
01:17Did you know each other beforehand or that?
01:20No, but we got to know each other quite well.
01:23Were you looking for something new to do at the time or were you open?
01:28Yeah, because he doesn't do it.
01:29I know.
01:30Because he's listening to five films.
01:32Yeah.
01:32I mean, you know, it's like that line from Jerry Maguire that, you know, they had me at Salmon.
01:41So, I mean, I was, I had watched with horror like everybody else when Salmon was attacked.
01:51But then to hear and understand that Eliza had been videotaping the recovery from day five onward,
02:01it suddenly seems to me what a great opportunity it would be to really make a film about recovery.
02:08And, and then I saw the, I saw some of the footage and we started talking about it and decided to go forward.
02:17When you were making, when you were taking, and it was on just your phone, right?
02:21At the beginning of the hospital, you, so what was your decision to sort of realize like, okay, I'm,
02:26I want to actually start taking some footage and this, something could come out of this, essentially.
02:32I think we wanted to kind of make a documentation or make it on the record.
02:38When we first started doing the videos and things, it was kind of for ourselves and a kind of really space of trauma
02:45that we would have this, these conversations, kind of a video diary, portraits of Salmon.
02:53I don't think we were in the trauma ward and I shot for maybe a year afterwards, like a whole year.
03:00It was never like, this is going to be a movie right away.
03:02It's, we want to still have a voice.
03:06We're in this situation and we can use the camera as a storyteller to witness us.
03:13So I think that's kind of how it began.
03:16And once we got home and Salmon was much more like himself.
03:21I said, you know, are you ready to look at this footage?
03:23And when we looked at it together, it then moved into, we need to get this out there.
03:29We need to find someone.
03:30As Salmon mentioned, we couldn't do ourselves.
03:32We're just way too close to it.
03:35But immediately when we met Alex, I was just like, he's the one, you know, it was instant.
03:41So that's kind of the story.
03:44Was it an easy answer when she said, do you want to look at the footage, Salmon?
03:47Was it, yeah, was it?
03:49Impressing to look at it for some time.
03:50Yeah.
03:51She wasn't allowing me to look at it.
03:55I mean, until I was really well on the way to recovery, the home from the hospital, you know,
04:01et cetera, I wasn't permitted to see it because I think because she thought I'd be upset by how
04:07awful I looked because I don't look very good.
04:10But eventually she did show it to me and I actually, I think because I was feeling better
04:20by the time I saw it, it didn't upset me as much as it might have.
04:24So I think actually she was right not to show it to me earlier.
04:27Because when I was in a very weakened state, it would have been very upsetting to see.
04:31Obviously, you're someone where with authors and famous authors, we all feel like a bit like
04:37we know you or know about you or things like that, but you've been, it seems like you've spoken
04:42about valuing your privacy and things like that.
04:45Was that a discussion on your end with writing the book or, because you're kind of being thrust
04:51into this?
04:51We both, both Eliza and I, by nature, private people.
04:56But what happened was so public that it's kind of just blew that apart,
05:02you know, and suddenly everything was out there.
05:04And then, in a way, we wanted to shape the narrative of ourselves.
05:09We wanted to tell the story in our own way.
05:12And that's what, that's what ended up with, with Alex.
05:15Alex is, Alex's talent and Eliza's footage and me.
05:21That's how it all came together.
05:23I should also say that some of the most powerful footage in the film is actually Eliza speaking
05:28directly to the camera by herself because, you know, I, I, I wasn't there, but I, I would imagine,
05:36I know from what talking to Eliza, she had to put a great face on everything for, for Salman.
05:42Yeah, she wouldn't, she wouldn't allow her, me to see her broken.
05:47And she was always strong and there.
05:51And these, this other material was shot when I wasn't there.
05:54Right.
05:54You know, and then she could let her feelings up.
05:57It's very, very powerful.
06:00Have, what was it like watching it, watching the documentary for the first time in full?
06:05Well, we've seen it twice.
06:07We saw, we saw a rough assembly some time ago, and then we saw the finished film last week.
06:11And, well, you know, it's two things.
06:14On the one hand, my kind of film buff head says, this is a really well-made film.
06:19And personally, it's kind of hard to watch.
06:23Yeah, I'm sure.
06:24I feel like a lot of your work in documentaries, especially, can have sort of not an activism
06:30that comes out of it, but there's sort of like a, a thing that people watch and people
06:34change their minds about something, or there's becomes a movement or things like that.
06:37But with, with this, did you start to form something that you,
06:41specific that you wanted the audience to take from it, perseverance or like, yeah, what?
06:46It's a hard question to answer because you don't want to boil a film down to like,
06:50you should take away this.
06:51Here's the message.
06:52But at the same time, I, I was really very much intrigued and drawn to this idea that
07:01Solomon expresses in the memoir of going from an, you know, an act of hate to a place of love.
07:07And that idea of recovery, while at the same time, staying true to your principles,
07:12it seems to me, it's a very personal, but meaningful story for all of us in this difficult
07:18time that we're trying to live through.
07:20Not to give up our humanity and indeed to embrace the love around us, but at the same time,
07:26to be rigorous about staying true to our principles.
07:28So that was rattling around in my head as I was trying to make the film.
07:32And I figured that would be resonant for people.
07:35This is sort of a, a wide spanning question, but do you think, what's your take, Salman,
07:40on whether it is harder or easier to remain true to our principles now versus 10, like, you know,
07:45as you've kind of watched the world this whole time, are we, is it, are we, are we worth off or?
07:52Staying through to your principles, to choose your principles is a choice.
07:55You know, you either do or you don't. And, um, some of us don't, but I, I've tried to.
08:04From the experience of, of doing this film and, and writing the book, do you feel like you're,
08:09have you said, like, have you gotten sort of everything you wanted to
08:13say about what happened? And is it, is the chapter closed for you in that sense?
08:17Well, I think the, I, who knows if the chapter is closed, but, but what I think is that I've
08:23been able to deal with it to my satisfaction, you know, by, in these two projects, I think,
08:30okay, yes, you're quite right. I have, I have no more to say on the subject.
08:33You know, whatever I have to say is in the book and it's in the film and that's it, you know.
08:38Was it hard to write others about other things while you were in the thick of writing the memoir?
08:42I couldn't write about anything else.
08:44Now can you?
08:45No, now I can.
08:46Yeah.
08:46Yeah.
08:47But it needed these, these, this work to be done first.
08:50And you, your, um, memoir that just came out, were you, did you sort of need to close any of
08:56these chapters too, before you could work on that? Or was this kind of all coming out at the same time?
09:00I think the, for me, um, there was, it took me longer to write and process all of the things that
09:10happened. I don't really have closure. It's like there's immediate part of the grief and the
09:15trauma that the writing can help with. And then there's the kind of returning to normal life,
09:21quote unquote, dealing with, you know, PTSD and different things. And so the art always helps.
09:27And so it keeps, it keeps us all humanized in a way that I think is really important. So the writing
09:32helped me feel really humanized and connected, but I also, you know, don't find myself returning to
09:39this. I think it will always be in me, but it won't be something that's so close where I don't,
09:44you know, I couldn't write anything else, but this, but I didn't want to write about this because
09:49then I had to accept that this was part of my life story, which I do now. Yet I, at first I just
09:55couldn't.
09:55Do you have a film or material you've worked on that has affected you most critically?
10:02It's always hard to answer that question. Like what is the best or the most? I mean,
10:08you know, the films I work on, I work on them because they affect me strongly. And, and part of
10:14making the film is to reckon with that. So that's the, that, that's both the joy and,
10:19and sometimes the pain of working on those films.
10:22Is there anything that you thought differently about or changed your mind about in the process
10:26of working on this film?
10:27I was, I was just really impressed, um, by, um, the love that Salman and Eliza have for each other,
10:35but also the way that they were able to be brave enough to sort of expose what happened to them,
10:41uh, to the world. And as a way of, of kind of bringing us all into a moment that's both personal
10:47and universal, like that was really inspiring to me. Um, so, so that, that was, you know, something I
10:54felt like, um, I was given a great gift to be able to be part of this story.
10:59Hmm. Do you think that what you're writing now,
11:03is there anything that you feel that does, I know you're done talking about this topic,
11:06but do you see it still affecting the things you want to write or to talk about? Or are you kind of?
11:11Well, I, I don't want to write about this episode directly,
11:15but it's certainly the stories collection of stories I wrote immediately after
11:19is concerned with issues of mortality, you know, and that's because I had a pretty good look at
11:26mortality. So you have a pretty good look at something you want to write about it.
11:31Mm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you guys for coming in and chatting. I appreciate it.
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