00:25This is Tim Wadsworth from Best Trek Uncertain TV.
00:28I'm here in New York City for the Tribeca Film Festival.
00:31The story begins with my own roots.
00:34My parents are Maltese.
00:36I was born and raised in the U.S.
00:38I've actually been living in Malta for the past five years, but when I left New York City
00:44five years ago, there was a period of time where I wasn't quite sure where I lived.
00:49And for the first time in my life, I started to feel a hunger to have a home, or at
00:56least
00:56to find a sense of one.
00:58And I guess those questions about where to be and how to find belonging nowadays filtered
01:04into the script.
01:05And it just happened to be that at the same time, I became fascinated with Malta's folk
01:09music tradition, which is depicted in this film, a tradition called Anna.
01:14And doing my research into this world, I found that there was a way to explore these questions
01:21of home, identity, memory, and belonging through this very particular folk music tradition that
01:29so few people knew about.
01:30That, for me, was just amazing, full of characters and life and warmth.
01:35And to put that on screen seemed like an amazing opportunity.
01:38What was so amazing for me to learn about Anna, and specifically the tradition of spiritu prompt,
01:47which is one of the forms of Anna that we feature in the film, it's an improvisational
01:54way of singing, and because a song is improvised, it'll never exist twice.
02:02And that means you have to let go of an idea that it could be perfected, that it could ever
02:08be repeated.
02:09And I thought that that would be something really powerful for a person like the character
02:14Mar to come in contact with, someone whose life has been structured in a way around expectations
02:22that she never chose, and that she was always aiming for some kind of perfection that she
02:28might come to realize would have been impossible to attain because it doesn't exist in this world,
02:33and that this music could help her on that path.
02:36And I love that it was a way for her to channel who she's always been.
02:41The music doesn't transform her as much as it gives her a way to express the person who
02:45she's been deep down, and when she finds it in her own country, in a corner, maybe that
02:50she wouldn't have discovered herself, had it not been for this chance encounter with
02:55Nanu, the amazing musician who we meet in the film.
03:02I had the draw for her comunque.
03:04Somebody pulls her up in the shirt.
03:06Okay, sorry!
03:14Hey, my mac, what did she know?
03:18She's got her feet at me.
03:21She's never saw her back in front of me.
03:22Since then, she's coming down from me.
03:24And when you saw me, you saw me before her.
03:30I don't think I had enough money to help you.
03:32I'm going to get into it.
03:35What happened?
03:38How did you get into it?
03:41I don't know.
03:42I'm going to get into it.
03:42I've got a lot of money.
03:47I'm going to get into it.
03:48I have to get into it.
03:50I'm going to get into it.
03:51I'm going to get into it and get into it.
03:59When I read the script for the first time, I felt very drawn to Mara and I think it's
04:09coming from a very small place where perhaps opportunity can feel limited and there's only
04:19so many places you can go and so many people you can meet, the want for something more and
04:25the want to be somewhere that can offer you more, where you can really explore yourself
04:33and figure out who you are, that's something I felt and I think it's something a lot of
04:39people from small places feel.
04:43Where did you grow up just now?
04:44Malta.
04:45Oh, you did grow up?
04:46Yes, yes, yes.
04:46She's the real thing.
04:49Was she full?
04:50Did you really feel that for her?
04:51Yes.
04:52And Mara set up a life for herself that she wasn't happy with and she kind of destroyed
05:01everything and hoped to leave and start again and completely reinvent herself, which is great
05:12and noble, but I think what the film asks is, can you, you know, if you leave, are you really
05:22leaving?
05:23Are you really changing?
05:25Can you really become someone new?
05:27Yeah.
05:28You know, and I think that's what Mara is after and then then she finds this space where she
05:41can mess up.
05:42And she can be angry and she can be upset and she can, you know, and I think that's what
05:50that's what she finds ultimately in the honor.
05:54What's the thing about her?
05:56I think she's been a little girl.
06:05She's been a little girl.
06:13I don't know.
06:15I'm sorry.
06:16We have to fight.
06:17I'm sorry.
06:19What are you doing?
06:20What's the most?
06:20What are you doing?
06:20What are you doing?
06:20TABATAL!
06:25He doesn't have a good life.
06:29He's going to have a bad life.
06:31He's a hidden person.
06:33He's a bad guy.
06:34I'm not a bad guy.
06:37He's in trouble.
06:38He's going to have a good job.
06:40You've got to have a good job?
06:41You can do it.
06:43TABATAL!
06:52You find the humor and the irony in their relationship, but also the honesty, and that's difficult to do sometimes
06:59because you don't want it to be two-pointed, but you also want it to be edgy enough in terms
07:05of what's being talked about.
07:06Well, something that we should say is that the character of Nanu is played by a real guy named Nanu.
07:11He's making his screen debut at the age of 82. This is the first time he's acted, and I love
07:20this process of bringing non-actors, non-traditional performers into a fictional world, but one that's really based on reality.
07:29It starts in my research, and the research often leads me to find real people to develop into performers, and
07:36the trick with writing these kinds of stories, then, is you have to tap into the DNA of the real
07:42person. It has to be there in reality.
07:46What about trust with him?
07:48Oh, yeah. You need trust. He needs to trust me. He needs to trust Michaela, our whole team. It makes
07:57choosing the crew, everyone has to be keyed into a different kind of sensitivity on set.
08:05You know, a non-actor will just have a different process than someone with a lot of training like Michaela.
08:13And, you know, what we were really able to find only once Nanu had been cast was the humor and
08:19the tone of the film, because a lot of that comes from that character.
08:23His cheekiness and his wits. I mean, that's all the real guy. I wish I could say I wrote the
08:29best lines in the film, but, you know, Nanu was really that person on and off set.
08:35And you meet him and you fall in love with him. That's how I felt when I met him in
08:38a cafe all those years ago, and I just, you know, he charmed my pants off and I thought he'd
08:43do the same to an audience.
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