Interview with Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel

July 19, 2017

Born in Bolzano, Italy in 1971, Tizza Covi lived in Paris and Berlin before studying photography in Vienna. Rainer Frimmel, born in Vienna in 1971, also studied photography in Vienna. Since 1996 they work together on films, theatre, photography. In 2002 they founded their own film production company Vento Film. They won several awards for their documentaries, including the Wolfgang Staudte Award at the Berlinale for Babooska. La Pivellina, their first feature, was awarded the Europa Cinemas Label at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes and was Austria`s offical entry for the Oscars 2011. Their second feature film The Shine of Day premiered in the international competition in Locarno 2012 and won the Silver Leopard for Best Actor. Their third feature film Mister Universo was also premiered in Locarno in 2016 and won several prices, among others the Europa Cinema Label and the Fipresci Award. Currently, they are working on a documentary movie.

For information on the screening event of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel's film Mister Universo, please click here.

1. In your latest film Mister Universo, you accompany a young lion tamer names Tairo on his journey to find his lost talisman. You have worked with Tairo in previous films. What made you want to revisit with Tairo and make him the lead figure in Mister Universo? How did you approach him and what was his initial reaction on working with you (again)?

We had already greatly benefited from Tairo and his character during the shoot for La Pivellina, even though he only had a minor role in that film and was only thirteen years old at that time. He has the great gift of doing the wrong thing at exactly the right time and that marks him as a very authentic and human protagonist. When we completed La Pivellina we promised Tairo that we would work together again once he turned 18, and we were very pleased to keep our promise. 

2. Given that Tairo and the other characters in this film are not trained actors, was the process of building trust and a relationship and working together with them different from working with professional actors? Would you say that Tairo’s job as a circus performer prepared him for on-camera appearances?

Of course, working together with amateur actors is different from working with professionals, because they have to identify with their role and we have to make it possible for them to settle into the story. This is one of the reasons we always film chronologically as it enables us to capture the unique emotions, which emerge on such a cinematic journey, with the camera.

As a circus artist, Tairo is used to presenting himself to an audience. Still, at the beginning it was not easy at all for him or Wendy to stand in front of the camera because they lacked the immediate reaction of an audience. 

3. What can you tell us about Arthur Robin, who of course is the real Mister Universo 1957. How did you meet, and when did you decide to cast him in the pivotal role for Mister Universo?

We met Arthur Robin in 1997. Back then, he worked in a great circus as a strong man. He broke chains and bent iron, one of which he gave us as a gift. Ever since that first encounter we couldn’t get Arthur or his wife Lilli out of our heads. We visited them every now and then, and it took many years until we were able to make this film together.

4. Your previous project La Pivellina also features characters from the circus. What fascinates you most about the circus culture, and why do you keep returning to it in your work?

First of all, we are fascinated by the different personalities that we met in the many circuses we’ve visited, and they kept pulling us back into their world. Furthermore, we consider the gradual fading away of small traveling circuses to be a metaphor for the ongoing struggle of small versus big, regardless of whether it is small shops, craftsmen, or analogue film: slowly, an entire culture is slowly disappearing and the sad thing is that almost no one is bothered by this.

5. Your films are classified as docu-fiction. Could you tell us a little more about this genre? Which aspects of your films are fictional and which documentary?

I think what makes our work process special is that we meet our actors first, and then write and structure the script around them. This way we can work everything we have learned about the individual person into our story – their lifestyle, their family, and their surroundings. This creates a very documentary-like impression. However, everything that happens in the movie happens because we wrote it that way, so it’s completely fictional. 

6. Could you tell us a little bit about the filmmaking process? Working with a very small team, how do you divide the work? How do you write the script, and how much collaboration is there with your characters? How long did it take for you to film and complete this movie?

We really are a very small team. Rainer is in charge of the camera, I do the sound. That’s it. No assistants, no lightning technicians, nothing at all. Therefore we highly rely on the participation of the actors. The shoot for Mister Universo took exactly six weeks. After a short break, we started editing. It took a little over half a year to finish the final edit.

7. Finally, may we ask if you already have plans for your next project, and if so, would you be willing to share some details?

We are currently working on a documentary, which is set in the fading world of the old “Wienerlied.” Just like in Mister Universo, we have found remarkable characters whose stories simply have to be told.