00:21so mr peg thank you very much for agreeing to speak to us and especially for this film
00:26um what first of all was it that attracted you to the project was it the was it alex gibney's
00:32presence or was it a more personal relationship that you had with with with george orwell in his
00:38works well in fact it it came in in as a big huge gift from universal who approached alex gibney
00:48to inquire if you would be producing such a film around orwell and alex called me and and i asked
00:59him if i would have basically uh you know the the freedom to do the film i want and he
01:06assured me
01:06that yes that was the case and and of course i say yes because that's not something you get every
01:12day
01:12to have access to the totality of an such an author a body of work you know and and orwell
01:21being uh that
01:23recognized figure in the whole world you know you know to become an adjective so that's not um you
01:31know an offer that you can refuse the very concept of objective truth is fading out of this world i'm
01:39going to set down what i dare not say aloud to anyone and what was it about orwell and going
01:46through these archives that that made you i don't know anything that touched you personally because
01:51i mean i imagine because you you fled haiti at a very young age you were familiar with the language
01:57of totalitarianism well not only that i grew up uh with what we call new speak you know the use
02:05of
02:05language in order to uh hide your real intention i mean that's uh that's an approach that you have
02:12in economy in in uh business in in all sort of of uh part of life and i grew up
02:20indeed uh coming from
02:22haiti you recognize very early on that words could have two meanings when some government are talking
02:29about democracy and uh everywhere else and then in your country they are supporting the dictatorship
02:36you know that i i learned very early on uh the uh duvalier dictatorship who stayed more than 35 years
02:44it was only with the support of the uh usa yeah and and part of european government so
02:52uh on one side you are talking about democracy on the other side you are making deals with
02:59uh government or authoritarian regime who are uh you know uh keeping their people down so that
03:07contradiction uh i was aware of it very early early on in my life i was wondering because there's a
03:14quote that stood out for me in the film it's when orwell talks about animal farm and he says that
03:18is the first time that he fuses his political intent with his artistic intent and i have to admit
03:25when i heard that quote i thought this sounds a lot like what your approach to filmmaking could be
03:31is that is that the case well it is uh you know when i started uh in cinema even before
03:36uh you know it
03:38was like you couldn't mix any uh political uh ambition with art you know art was supposed to be
03:45something special something uh pure uh the same thing with entertainment everything became
03:52entertainment even news became entertainment so but i never believed that uh it's not because it's
03:59entertainment that you can't put uh you know more weight uh in in terms of uh the content uh and
04:07and you
04:08will find a form to make it you know cinema in my case and and i always believed that for
04:14me
04:14filmmaking is a political uh um i would say um i had always a political intention
04:23uh in making my film so uh and i was uh glad that uh it was also orwell's intention from
04:33the start
04:34because you know what he basically says is that you know the attitude to say well i am neutral
04:41or i don't take position is actually a political position you know there is not such a saying that
04:48you know i i don't have an opinion or i i don't i can't act about what is happening in
04:55the place i
04:56live no it's you're a citizen you know democracy means that you are an informed and educated citizen
05:03that takes part in the affair of your city or the society the words democracy freedom justice have
05:15each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another
05:26political language is designed to make lies sound truthful
05:30the love in the air i've never seen anything like it and murder respectable
05:37now we see how rapidly the degradation of democracy could happen even in the most important
05:47beacon of democracy that the united states was and it's not anymore so um i always believe in
05:57in the value of fighting for freedom of speech freedom to be able to vote uh it's it's a luxury
06:05in most
06:06part of the world and but here in europe we leave it as it's uh you know perfectly natural and
06:13it it
06:14will grow by itself and you have to do nothing to defend it no you have to work on it
06:19every day
06:20one thing that i and and you mentioned you you it is only orwell that speaks and one thing that
06:26i
06:26really much enjoyed about the documentary was how personal it was and i found the beginning and the
06:32end rather eerie because it's that photo of a baby orwell with his indian nanny but it's also the uh
06:38de coq bacteria uh which which just it and it lends the beginning of the film specifically a quite
06:46haunting sort of atmosphere can you tell me more about that choice yes it's it's one of the many
06:52layers that you have to find to make the film also emotionally uh you know close to you you know
07:00i i
07:00i don't think i would like to make a film that is essentially intellectual you know it's it's about
07:07cinema cinema is about emotion uh and i and it's one of the tools that i use i use everything
07:13music
07:14images graphic to make sure that uh you know you are not only in the presence of just thoughts but
07:24also of emotion of thinking of exchanges of a collective community it's much more than politics
07:33it's also life itself you know when you you use the the the subject of uh i can't breathe you
07:41know
07:41the analogy with actually people who can breathe in their society because they just not uh accepted
07:48or they not uh considered like normal human being so all those layers uh give uh uh in its totality
07:57a really strong emotional bound to to what is said in in the in the content itself obviously we we
08:07see
08:07trump we see putin but one thing to to show its breadth we also see an enormous amount of uh
08:12european
08:13leaders we see maloney we see uh victor orban bush bush as well but and also eric zemmour at one
08:19point
08:20as well how do you in in your opinion view europe's reaction to the rise of totalitarianism compared to
08:28the u.s for example well well that's the thing a european sometimes not you know it's always
08:35bad to say european as if there is one unity but in in most countries you can see that there
08:42is still
08:43a denial you know there is a denial that can never happen here but we forgot how many years of
08:51bellisconi that we had you know it's it's a typical other example of how it can happen in europe
08:58so people make fun of donald trump but i i don't see i i just see it as a exaggeration
09:06of behavior that i've seen in europe you know the same kind of uh you know use of language to
09:15destroy people is being used it's just a little bit more polite a little bit more intellectual
09:20sometimes you know with more general culture you know but the words mean what they means
09:28so um and you could see a lot of things that happened in the u.s at some point you
09:35know five
09:35or ten years later they happen in europe yeah you know that have been my experience so we you know
09:41it's the same thing with i am not your negro you know i remember the first uh discussion i had
09:48in in france and some other european they would say wow the the bad american they are so racist
09:56and as if you know there is no racist in europe yeah and so the denial is sometimes very deep
10:04because it's it's hard to face reality it's hard to hear what other people are telling you
10:10even though you are living side by side with them and and by the way that's why i did then
10:17exterminate
10:18all the boots you know i went to the bottom of that story and showed that it's it's linked in
10:25european history and that was transported that same racism was transported in the united states they
10:34didn't start it europe started and it was important when you lose your connection with history and and
10:41and that's one of the problem the ignorance is really incredible even though we had the the
10:47facilities and the the instrument to gather world you know history basically
10:54do you begin to see them
10:58what kind of world we are creating
11:04what struck me the first time i saw the film um was also the audience reaction and when there's
11:10news speak when when you give the definitions and what they actually mean like the the audience i
11:16could hear very uncomfortable laughter and i was actually very surprised because at one point
11:20especially for anti-semitism 2024 there there was applause there was like you know it felt like
11:27this very cathartic almost moment in the audience where people needed to see that on screen
11:34was it important to include that one uh well i was surprised myself about the the the response that
11:41was uh overwhelming in that uh audience uh and i had uh you know one particular good friend of mine
11:50uh
11:51who is from a jewish religion uh even though she's not a follower uh she she interpreted differently
11:59and i can understand why but i understood that the reaction was the fact that many people felt that they
12:06were
12:07not able to criticize a right-wing government uh basically making a genocide in gaza that that was the the
12:19response i felt because
12:21each time you touch the subject you're immediately accused of anti-semitism and uh but i know that
12:29if you want to attack me on that you know just watch all my film i'm probably one of the
12:35people who work
12:36a lot on the shoah and on on uh um genocide and not only uh in germany but everywhere yeah
12:46so i can make the
12:49distinction between the use of a word and the propaganda that it's used for yeah and if i have to
12:57say that
12:58netanyahu should be in prison i will say it and that's the reality his own justice system
13:07have been trying to arrest him for many years and the war is also a result of that because he
13:15doesn't
13:15want to go to jail so if you cannot say those words this is called uh there is no freedom
13:23of speech
13:24there is no democracy if you can't even talk about this publicly and very very lastly you towards the
13:33end of the film there's one segment that stuck with me which was edward snowden because i i remember at
13:40the time citizen four came out i remember interviewing laura poitras and and it was all over the news and
13:45he
13:46says at one point that his greatest fear is that nothing will change and sadly he has been proven
13:53right to a certain degree is that do you share that same fear absolutely absolutely and it's heartbreaking
14:00because i see this young man in his 20s who sacrificed everything to tell us the truth
14:08and now he's somewhere in exile in in the soviet union in in russia he took the risk to to
14:16tell us
14:17what was going on and what he saw was absolutely a nightmare and that nightmare is already there you
14:25know we we lost that that war long time ago you know and now those potentially dangerous tools
14:34are in the hands of people who don't care but about themselves you know they're not looking forward
14:42and they don't care what happened to america and the rest of the world after that and they think they
14:48can get away with it they won't get away with it you know that's the sheer reality and i and
14:55i hope
14:56that american will not accept that their election will be taking away from them that's my whole hope
15:05even though that have been seen in other countries on that note mr peck thank you very much for your
15:11time
15:12thank you very much thank you
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