American Golden Picture
International Film Festival
AN INTERVIEW WITH Yared Teame, DIRECTOR
As a filmmaker, please introduce yourself.
Starting from my teenage years, an unknown and uncontrollable natural power from my inside pushed me
again and again to write the things that came to my mind and later I found myself as a movie maker.
Later when I matured, I realised that movies are one of the few universal instruments that interconnects
all humans from one part of the world to the other end. On the top of this, I consider myself as a
bystander writer who lives on the outskirts of the world and closely observes the majority of human activities
and our planet earth. For this reason I document each and every wild nature of humans that I have observed,
especially those activities that interest humans more.
Why did you become a filmmaker as a director and producer?
I am an immigrant who passes through different types of life experiences like good, bad,
common and unusual life incidents. Such life experience plus my hobby and passion for movie making
forces me to stick to the film industry.
At this time I am sacrificing all that I have to fulfil my dream and live it.
Give us some more information about yourself and the films you have made so far,
about your experience?
I played a versatile role in most of my previous movies as a main actor, director and script writer.
In 2014 I made my first short Tigrinya movie " Lewti kabana" (ለውጢ ካባና) in Ethiopia.
Then after I had to immigrate to Europe to find a peaceful and better life.
When I luckily arrived in Italy it didn't take me long to make a short movie while I was in a refugee camp.
With some group of immigrants I made a short movie called "the new world".
After that I relocated to Finland, started a new life and joined media school.
While i was studying i made some short movies in my native language in tigrinya like
Hbush: (writer, director and main actor)
Zban single:(writer, director and main actor)
Hilna: (writer, director and main actor)
Frdi kab gize :writer, director and main actor)
After making this movie in my native language with some friends. There was a script writing competition in Finnish language with my classmates for a school project. Fortunately my script " Miksi ei aina voi olla viikonloppu " has won the contest and my school has made my short movie and I played as the main character.
After finishing school I have learned and experienced that getting a job is impossible in Finland due to hate , racism, generalisation and all forms of negative perspectives on immigrants. I have decided to sacrifice all that my brother has to produce the movie The Bystander path to show how much me and every immigrant faces unreasonable challenges and difficulties to live his or her life in Finland. But above all I wanted to remind a crucial message to all humans about life.
What are the films or people that had impacts on you and deeply inspired you to become a filmmaker?
My inspiration to be a filmmaker may be different from other filmmakers. My main inspiration is my huge life experience, observation and stories that haven't got enough attention from other filmmakers.
You have made "The Bystanders Path" which got an honorable award in the "American Golden Picture International Film Festival".
As a filmmaker, why did you decide to make it?
As an immigrant, life didn't come normal for me. Everywhere I went I had to suffer. When I arrived in Europe I thought my life journey will be smooth and I will build a good life. However, again challenges, difficulties, hurdles emerged with some other new challenges like discrimination, racism, segregation here in the developed world. For a while I tried to get some solutions to end suffering. But when things became unsolvable and learned that the problem was deliberately planned and imposed. I ended up over-thinking and became a bystander to find the main source of my problems. I researched beyond the normal thing and in the end I made this movie.
What were some of the challenges you faced in making this specific film?
There were plenty of challenges from pre production until the post production time.
The only good thing was Luckily I had good friends in Stockholm which made things a bit easy
during the filming in Sweden. Apart from that I have to suffer the whole 9 months to finish my movie alone.
Let us know more about your experience in this film?
I learned a lot, gained great experience and I built self confidence. I was only a writer, director and actor
before but now I can edit my project as well as do some other stuff.
These days I am able to prepare the rough cut version of my movie.
The crew members in your film support the subject in a very effective way.
What was it like to work with them?
I gave the script to the Crew in advance which helped us to ease the unwanted load
and to collaborate effectively during filming time.
For you, what was the biggest lesson you had to learn after making this film?
There were many lessons I learned once I made this movie. The first and most challenging was racism
accompanied by bureaucracy and a centralised working system in the movie industry.
Here in Finland I have applied for a script grant from those responsible film foundations but
they rejected my script. Once I finished the movie I tried to connect with the producers and they never cared.
But now after my movie started winning in some film festivals they seem to be trying to know something
about me even though their racist behaviour and wrong image is still on and unchanged.
What keeps you inspired to continue filmmaking?
These days I see almost everything from an art perspective. As our world is the home of uncountable
incidents and activities I draw things from an artistic angle.
The most important part is distributing the film.
What did you do to distribute your film "The Bystanders Path"?
This could be the most challenging part for me. I am trying to contact some distributors here in Finland.
Still things are uncertain. You would be so welcomed if you have any hints or ideas.
What are your filmmaking goals?
With my movie I want to make an impact to achieve significant results in changing people's life to those
who are in need of it. Generally contributing something useful to our world.
What is your next project?
Feature length drama " Beyond the limit"
Thank you and Good Luck Yared,
Yared Website:
https://teameyared10.wixsite.com/yared1
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100073685269934
