March 7, 2024 • 27 mins
Welcome to a new episode of the Student Pages Podcast where our host, Grace Sanders, with guest host Shamoon Saeed, engages in an enlightening conversation with award-winning film and television producer, Luke Schiller. Listeners get to witness a compelling narrative of Luke's fascinating journey in the film industry, his love for cinema, and his experience of taking a film idea from conception to screening. This episode particularly discusses his involvement in the award-winning film series 'The Souvenir' and its production challenges and triumphs.
Additionally, Luke opens up about the emotional connection he felt with the film 'One Life' that depicts the story of Nicholas Winton, a man who saved children's lives, including Luke's father, during WWII. This particular discussion is not just a reflection of his family's experiences but a testament to cinema's power to narrate compelling, historical narratives and evoke deep emotions.
Dig deeper into the various projects Luke is working on that highlight social issues. A noteworthy project is a film illuminating his father's experience as a Jewish refugee in the UK, offering a unique historical perspective. A seasoned mentor, Luke also shares with eager novices in filmmaking crucial advice and insight. This episode is not just a journey through Luke’s career but an inspirational guide for anyone aspiring to break into the world of moviemaking.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Student Pages podcast. Once again,
as no surprise, I am here. It's your host, me, Grace Sanders.
I am joined by my fellow Student Pages podcast host, Shamoon.
Hello, Shamoon. How are you doing today?
I'm great to be here. I'm excited to get into this interview with you.
I know you're the resident host, so we got a duo ship today.
(00:22):
It's going to be fun speaking to Luke. So speaking of, not only do we have you
on the podcast today, we also have an award winning film and television producer.
They're massively talented.
Luke Schiller. Hello, Luke. How are you doing this evening?
Yeah, I'm very well. Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me.
It's great to be here and have a chance to chat.
I guess we can launch straight into this. You have so much incredible information to talk about today.
(00:47):
So I just wanted to hark back to the fact that you are an award winning film
and television producer.
Producer so for our listeners at home can you tell us a little bit
more about your background into film as well
as how you got involved in the tv industry in the first place
sure well given that i'm so incredibly old this
could be a very very long story but i'll try and keep it
(01:07):
short and funny if at all possible
which is what i always aim for but i came
to film having studied languages and literature
at university so i'm a linguist if you like
by training i did german italian at
Sussex University in the early 80s and
left with an arts degree which is a wonderful thing
(01:29):
but you do end up thinking shit what am I going to
do with this I better get a job what what where does this take me
I sort of came straight out of school I didn't take a gap year
I just somewhat steamrolled into keeping my
education going for various reasons you know I didn't have that
a great perspective on on my career it was a bit more kind
of it was the 80s there's a bit more rock and roll I guess
(01:49):
and my background's a bit more this was somewhat eclectic perhaps
so I left university with an arts degree and languages
I've always loved photography I've always loved film and
I've always loved travel and through a friend of mine heard about an agency
that was looking for location scouts oh that sounds like a good laugh photography
travel who knows where that's going to lead maybe I'll do the Bond movie one
(02:12):
day which I sort of got quite close to but massively screwed Yeah.
So I started as a location scout. So I did that for quite a few years.
And it was fun. And I did get some nice exotic trips, traveled around a bit. And that was great fun.
But I was sort of more interested in creating content, really,
rather than being stuck in this niche.
(02:32):
And I had the opportunity to stay in commercials and move up in the commercials
production world. Well, one of my very first jobs was with Ronald McDonald.
Well, it was another commercial. It was a very early commercial of mine.
So there I was. We'd found a village hall to film this commercial in.
I realized that commercials was not for me. The way the operations were ran
(02:52):
with agencies and clients and so many people having so much to say about how
to sell a lump of cheese. I just thought that's not for me.
So I ended up starting a production company with a location manager who I was working with.
And we started making documentaries. So that's how I shifted from location manager
into production managing, which is a sort of more general thing where you have
(03:14):
to bring in the crew and the talent and the cast.
As a location manager, you're very much the location man. No worries.
You're being wonderfully humble as well about meaningful content when you have
a film premiered at Cannes, or Cannes, I'm not posh enough to know the difference,
as well as a Sundance Jury Prize winner.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your film, The Souvenir? Yeah, absolutely.
(03:38):
I mean, this came, I mean, I started working on those films probably in 2016, I guess.
I'd worked with Joanna, who's the director, writer-director,
before in 2011, I think, on a very low budget film called Archipelago, which...
Starred uh as then unknown tom hiddleston
(04:00):
uh it was his first feature actually and joanna has
a great knack for talent spotting and
he went from that to be loki that was
his next gig so we were there were 20 of us
on an island kind of looking after ourselves and next minute
he was off to hang with kenneth branner but joanna and
i worked very well together and some years later
(04:21):
after i i'd moved abroad and done various other things
she asked whether i'd be interested in joining her on putting together
the souvenir which was actually it was a two-part
story souvenir one and two and it's the
story of a young woman who dreams of
becoming a filmmaker it's quite autobiographical for joanna she during part
(04:41):
one she applies to join film school meanwhile she's in love with an older guy
who's kind of mysterious and never quite sure what he to he claims to work for
mi5 but but seems to also have a drug habit,
which he claims is all part of his undercover routine,
having worked for my five, as you would. You're a great cover star.
(05:01):
Yeah. I used to work in Afghanistan. I have to be a junkie. It's part of my cover.
So it's a very kind of intense and minutely observed relationship drama about
a young woman who falls in love with an older Roman who kind of throws her life
and career off track. And they...
(05:22):
Get get embroiled in a very toxic codependency that
she struggles to escape from which she does
in the end and then this part two which
we shot immediately afterwards is is how she
deals with the aftermath of their relationship without wishing to
give too much of the drama the story away without too
many spoilers but basically she moves on and in part two
(05:44):
she is now a film director and she's trying to
make her way as a film director and the film span maybe
a six-year period and part one
we we were very lucky to get Tilda
Swinton to play the lead one of the lead roles and her
daughter Swinton Byrne plays her daughter so
it's mother and daughter playing mother and daughter they'd never been on screen
(06:06):
by that kind of interaction really you can get at your own daughter and only
so annoying you can be at your own mom that you will get that chemistry on the
screen yeah it was it was an amazing experience and you know So as meta as you get,
because it's mother and daughter playing mother and daughter,
the direct went to school with the mother and is godmother to the daughter.
(06:29):
And we filmed in a studio as close a replica as possible.
So we were filming the whole thing with period, set in the 80s,
period furniture, period music.
So she was kind of recreating where she lived as a student in the 80s.
And yeah the film was remarkable and joanna
(06:49):
is remarkable and we were very lucky enough very lucky
to be invited to sundance and went and won it which was
rather astonishing and having won it and
before even before then it generated a huge
amount of buzz you know great backing from the bfi and from bbc films a24 then
picked up the u.s rights a24 are the kind of the the cool the the coolest distributive
(07:15):
finances in America and having got them on board and one Sundance,
we were immediately funded for part two.
So we were premiering part one and packaging part two at the same time.
So it's a, it was a very hectic period, shall we say?
And yeah, that's kind of a quick summary of the Genesis and souvenir.
(07:38):
Yeah. Gotta say congratulations. It's a bit late from our end,
but that's like astonishing what you've done
with that and you know like you said to have a24 on board and they are you know
one of the best in the industry right now i think also especially with indie
you know that genre is produced so well by them i'm just curious luke with like
(07:59):
with you know you said you began your film career in 1998.
Oh, ATM, my bad. I think it's interesting, your path into the industry.
So what was it about the industry that you just felt it was so,
like you said, location managing to producing? What was it about producing you really liked?
(08:20):
Well, to be honest, I never thought I'm going to be a producer,
but it turned out that I have a fairly broad skill set.
I've done sound recording. I have done camera work. I have done some directing as well.
I've attempted editing, and I'm absolutely terrible at it.
Yeah in a way i i think perhaps i'm what you might call an amateur in the original
sense which with the meaning of the word is a lover of many things that's how
(08:44):
the word came about and i love being able to work with all the different departments and,
going on on the on a journey of product of filmmaking whether it's documentary
or film you know coming up with an idea or working with a director on an idea
and then killing developing it and then trying to find the finance and then
bringing the crew together,
(09:06):
the locations together and bringing in different crew members and all their different,
especially on features, all the incredibly finely honed skills,
whether it's camera or lighting or design or costume, and of course the actors.
So as a producer, you kind of, you sit beside the director and you get to enjoy
all this incredible talent pulling together in.
(09:28):
What is no doubt the most collaborative art form on earth
with all all the all the pluses and minuses that
goes with that and then taking taking an idea to a cinema and you end up in
a screen in a screening with a cinema full of you know in canada hundreds and
hundreds i think 500 600 is a huge cinema and you show you show your work and
(09:50):
you think oh that's what all the fuss was about,
and it's a kind of it's a kind of physical thing it's all very sort of intangible
in a way and until it's on the screen and you have a room full of people living
the story that you've spent many years often putting together.
And I mean, I love cinema. I love story. You know, the moment when the lights
go down in a cinema and you just say, take me, where are we going to go?
(10:14):
It's just a magical moment. And to be somewhat, to be on the part of the team
that's really putting that together and take it from initial spark of conversation
to a premiere and showing it to an audience.
It's a magical, impossible, mysterious journey.
Just speaking a little bit more about how your life has been influenced by film
(10:35):
and how film has actually influenced your life.
Your father, Peter Schiller, had his story immortalised by Warner Brothers in the story One Life.
Can you tell us a little bit about how your family actually got involved in the making of that film?
Well, I need to correct you a little bit there. We weren't involved in the making
of that film as such. My father's, the film One Life is about a man called Nicholas Winton.
(11:01):
Nicholas Winton was a remarkable man who was a stockbroker of Jewish descent
who'd sort of anglicized.
And before war broke out,
a friend of his asked him whether he'd come to Prague to help deal with a refugee
problem that was primarily Jewish refugees that were being kind of pounded out
(11:22):
of the Sudetenland initially and were kind of.
Conglomerating around the Prague area and had nowhere to go.
And the Germans were sort of getting ready to march in.
And my father comes from a Jewish family, and his parents realized that if they
don't get him out of the country, he'll probably be murdered,
(11:43):
which is what happened to a great number of my relatives.
And my grandparents, fortunately, were a kid from a wealthy,
quite wealthy people. had a big business in Prague, so they were able to pay
because the British were basically selling visas to refugees.
You had to put up something like 4,000 pounds as a bond, a sponsor family in the UK.
(12:10):
And Nicholas Winton was instrumental in kind of connecting refugees.
Potential refugees, G's with host families
in the UK and the film
was about the two timelines which play
both in 1938 39 and this
(12:30):
now quite famous tv session that
old tv show called that's life that someone called
Esther Ranson used to host and she
did this rather remarkable thing she got Nicholas Winton
into a the studio because he'd never talked about this
his experience he was a very very humble man and
(12:50):
he was very engaged in charitable work but didn't like to brag and
he he was invited to a
studio tv studio and and i don't know if it was live she probably wasn't live
but on air was confronted by a now an older woman who he whose life he'd saved
he'd never really spoken about this so suddenly he was out as as a kind of savior
(13:12):
and then they did another show a couple of weeks.
The whole audience was filled with children and descendants of children who
he was instrumental in rescuing.
My father and my uncle were two of those children.
They weren't in the audience, but they got out on the last Kindertransport,
which is what Nicholas Winton had been arranging together with his partners
(13:36):
in the Czech Republic and in the UK, of course, as well.
They were very lucky. They got out on the last train out of town and managed
to make a life in the UK and were very lucky.
And even more remarkably, my grandparents also got out when they arrived in the UK late 1940s.
(13:56):
So my father came out in May 1939, just before war broke out,
because then the train stopped.
So it was the last train out. and his parents got
out as i said about a year and a half later but we'd never talk about
how they got here so we have no idea how they how they got here because
it was just all too difficult too raw
(14:17):
painful traumatic something we don't
know how they actually got here there was talk of a walking stick
and diamonds and the pyrenees but that's literally
all we know i think that's i think that's every every
story that every um parent tells a child like i
got my parents had had to do that just to go to school damn yeah
that's extraordinary though but like with you know
(14:39):
the one life movie like you know peter's just
to meet him that one life event i remember me and gareth met
you as well briefly luke and we were just saying you know
it's just amazing how you know nicholas winton had
this impact and i was saying how locally there's like
statues at my local train station of him and uh you know when when you saw that
film you know how did it feel watching james hall's like depiction of one life
(15:04):
with the stories that you know you grew up with with peter that told that he
told you about you know the the second world war.
It was a slightly out-of-body experience, to be honest with you.
First of all, because I'm a producer, I make films, but suddenly I was just
there looking after my old man, being red-carpeted in as any other guest.
(15:29):
There were 11 surviving Kindertransportees who attended, and my father was one
of them, and I went with my brother and two of his children.
So we were shepherded into the cinema. mama but you
know red carpet and all of that stuff my
dad was yeah my dad can be a complicated man but
he was behaving very well i think he was slightly stunned we
(15:52):
were all to be honest i think we were all quite nervous about the film because
there's huge potential for doing something very sentimental and schmaltzy but
i'm happy to say that they avoided that temptation and And I think did a very
good job putting the story together.
In terms of what I saw on the screen and what my father told me about,
(16:14):
it was very different, really, because my father was seven when he left.
So his memories are very specific,
almost like snapshots, really, rather than a kind of a narrative structure that
he remembers arriving at the sea in Holland and he'd never seen the sea and
thinking it's so high up I'm going to get drowned because he'd never seen the
(16:37):
sea it's just water piled up in front of him.
He remembers being put on a train with his brother by his father,
and as the train was leaving, a baby being thrown through the window and landing
in his lap, and the nuns who were accompanying him taking this child.
So he has kind of the snapshots that, of course, are his memories.
They're not in the film, so there isn't this sort of narrative structure.
(16:59):
I mean, the parents giving the children things to take on the train.
My father has told me about, you know, he was given a pencil case by his grandmother
so he could learn to write at school and a little kind of brooch that he wore on his neck.
And there's scenes like that in the film. One of the extraordinary moments in
(17:20):
the film was when the Germans,
the Nazis, are invading Prague and the refugee office that's coordinating the
rescue of these children realizes that their officers are about to be raided.
They did what most authorities did in this country, which is they burned all the paperwork.
All the public offices in the Czech Republic, in Czechoslovakia as it was,
(17:42):
were basically burning as much as they could, so the Germans wouldn't have records
of who is where and especially who was Jewish.
So there was a lot of burning of documents and there's a scene in the film and
I was sitting next to my dad,
and next to him on the other side was a member of the Association of Jewish
Refugees who we've been in touch with, who are helping on various issues,
(18:03):
including acquiring Czech nationality, which is quite an interesting subject.
But as the building is being raided, or they're about to be raided,
they're throwing documents out the window and burning them.
One of the documents that flutters big across the screen, has my father and my uncle's name on it.
So it's actually a facsimile of the original transport documents or the list
(18:25):
that Nicholas Winton had compiled.
And there's my father's name.
Burning coming down the screen and that was just sort
of yeah i wasn't expecting that i think i'm telling you
that it's pretty emotional moment for sure
and you know this story is it is a very emotional
one especially i mean when i was
there at that event with gareth we were just overwhelmed with the
(18:47):
emotion of just seeing you know 12 the original children
on the the kinder transport and then you know the family ties
you had with your own father being one of them and you
know him him you know that that sense of emotion
that you must have had like it coming full circle i
mean did you ever think there was going to be a a story made on the big screen
(19:08):
about specifically you know these like these children and also it being your
father because you know it is obviously such a an important story to tell like
you said there's not a lot you know about it you just know.
We know what nicholas winton did but we never like you said he was a humble
man it was was not something that was out there until a certain point.
(19:29):
There have, in fact, been other productions that tell this story, but they're Czech.
And one of them, I think it's called Into the Arms of Strangers, that won an Emmy.
It was a documentary, but there's a guy called Matej Minac, I think he's called.
He's a Czech director who told this story for TV without Hollywood behind it
(19:52):
and Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins.
So those films have not really been, they haven't really traveled.
And I myself, I'm working on a story as well.
So, you know, I've been working with my father and a writer.
Finding a way of telling the story as well. It's a very, very different version of it.
It doesn't have the sort of Esther Anson hook, which is a very clever way into
(20:13):
the story, but not one that, well, A, my father wasn't there.
And B, it's not necessarily the way I'd i'd like
to go into the story so you know there's the story has
been told it's just people this is the first time
it's getting really big exposure of course because of right so
you saw a huge producer and anthony hopkins
is anthony hopkins yeah and amazing he
(20:34):
is too and and johnny flinn i was fantastic in
this film as well i thought it was really amazing it's so wonderful to
hear you speak with so much emotion about film
and obviously how film can impact our
own emotions as well and you just spoke give a
little tidbit about possibly some future work that you
have coming up as well so i just wanted to take this
(20:54):
moment to ask a little bit more about if you have any upcoming development over
atlas films too yeah of course i've got a number of projects in development
i've got a sort of high-end television drama that's set in africa actually it's
about a photojournalist who goes back home and.
(21:15):
She's from the Sahel region and she gets embroiled in a whole lot of political
complications, corruption and it's it's a,
very thrilling dramatic dangerous and
sort of in an environmental thriller to some extent
as a tv series i've been working on for some years and
(21:38):
as i as i mentioned i'm also working on a film
that's kind of about my father and his family that
switches which which plays in pre-war so
the time when his family and families like his had a very comfortable stable
life they were were climatized they were germans because my grandfather was
(21:59):
a decorated war hero on the german side from world war one and not a lot of
people know about that kind of stuff i mean.
Austro-hungarian empire he fought in world war
one you know he spoke german that was
his first language you know they were they were they were assimilated jews they
did go to the synagogue occasionally but they were not really practicing at
(22:19):
all so there's a cultural jews if you like rather than practicing so it's about
the times before the war the good times and then there are there is part of
of course the story coming to the uk is also told but then it's about.
Him setting up becoming a family man in
the 60s in the uk and it kind of plays mainly between the 30s
and the 60s which is quite a different way into this story that sounds incredible
(22:43):
since this is the student pages podcast we always like to close the podcast
with a question about if you you have any advice or any tidbits or just any
words of wisdom or truth for any students out there who, like yourself,
are looking to capture film and capture TV to tell the important stories within their life?
(23:04):
My best advice would be be open to chance.
What do they say? The lucky person is the one who takes their chances.
So it's good to have a plan, but it's
good to be open to things that come your way because say
yes to as much as possible you don't know where it's going to
lead who you're going to meet and you know one thing
(23:24):
leads to another it's not a very
structured industry i mean i think it's it's more structured now
because you know when i when i entered the industry very very few people had
studied film people started as runners really and worked their way up which
is still the case but they didn't come with mas in in filmmaking or editing
(23:44):
or directing it was more kind of hands-on so you learned from from the old hands,
but which is which is how i learned to do what i i do but i think be open to.
Chance and all all experience even
the ones that might be terrible at the time and be
helpful and informative and it's it's it's
(24:04):
a it's a roller coaster ride of a of an industry and
a friend of mine once a director friend of mine said we are like we are like
semen in this industry you know we you get on a boat which is the production
you're on you don't know necessarily where it's going to go and how long it's
going to take you might find itself for three months in a jungle or or four
weeks in New York, or done wilder films,
(24:26):
had five months in a jungle in Costa Rica.
Be open to things. If that's what you want, I mean, there is a life of adventure
in that, which is one of the things I have relished most.
And you get to work with all sorts of people, and yeah, be open to things.
And you might think that if someone offers you a gig as a second camera,
(24:46):
or doing some sound work, do it. You never know.
You might suddenly find that that's actually what you want to do most of all,
or it'll take you down a path to something remarkable it's a journey it's an
adventurous journey so luke you mentioned about you doing tutoring and you're
a mentor i'd love for you to elaborate on that what you do with that exactly.
(25:09):
Yeah, it's something I've been doing for quite a few years now.
I've worked at the LFS quite a lot, and I've also worked on various sort of
pan-European training programs,
which have taken me to Italy and Hungary and Paris and all around the place.
It's great fun working with young talent.
(25:30):
One sometimes gets quite jaded in this industry.
So I think there's an interesting kind of mutual flow you can get where you
feel the energy and the passion of young people who have yet to have their fingers burnt in some ways.
But also to be able to kind of bring my experience to bear and help them look
(25:51):
at something that they're developing.
Developing so the kind of tutoring i've been done a lot of
script developing but also i've done straight producer training
so talking you know pitch to premiere where
you talk about the process from taking an idea to a
premiere so what what does that mean what is that journey the producer's journey
which for people who want to get into the business is
(26:13):
obviously quite an interesting thing to hear and i think quite helpful
and can perhaps save them a lot of pain grief
and money along the the way so that's something i'm quite passionate about
doing as well and yeah i've done quite a
lot of that in the past and i'm still doing mentoring sort of one-to-one
mentoring on occasion so that's just one one of one of
the things i do whilst developing projects as well
(26:33):
and obviously producing and running my own
small production company here in london fantastic thank you
ever so much for taking the time to speak with us today luke it's been so interesting
to hear you talk about film and thank you ever so much for joining me today
shimoon and thank you you ever so much for listening student pages podcast listeners
at home i'll be back with you very very shortly with another student pages podcast
(26:54):
but in the meantime it's been lovely to have you goodbye goodbye shimoon and
goodbye everyone at home.
Hello and welcome back to the Student Pages podcast. Once again,
as no surprise, I am here. It's your host, me, Grace Sanders.
I am joined by my fellow Student Pages podcast host, Shamoon.
Hello, Shamoon. How are you doing today?
I'm great to be here. I'm excited to get into this interview with you.
I know you're the resident host, so we got a duo ship today.
(00:22):
It's going to be fun speaking to Luke. So speaking of, not only do we have you
on the podcast today, we also have an award winning film and television producer.
They're massively talented.
Luke Schiller. Hello, Luke. How are you doing this evening?
Yeah, I'm very well. Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me.
It's great to be here and have a chance to chat.
I guess we can launch straight into this. You have so much incredible information to talk about today.
(00:47):
So I just wanted to hark back to the fact that you are an award winning film
and television producer.
Producer so for our listeners at home can you tell us a little bit
more about your background into film as well
as how you got involved in the tv industry in the first place
sure well given that i'm so incredibly old this
could be a very very long story but i'll try and keep it
(01:07):
short and funny if at all possible
which is what i always aim for but i came
to film having studied languages and literature
at university so i'm a linguist if you like
by training i did german italian at
Sussex University in the early 80s and
left with an arts degree which is a wonderful thing
(01:29):
but you do end up thinking shit what am I going to
do with this I better get a job what what where does this take me
I sort of came straight out of school I didn't take a gap year
I just somewhat steamrolled into keeping my
education going for various reasons you know I didn't have that
a great perspective on on my career it was a bit more kind
of it was the 80s there's a bit more rock and roll I guess
(01:49):
and my background's a bit more this was somewhat eclectic perhaps
so I left university with an arts degree and languages
I've always loved photography I've always loved film and
I've always loved travel and through a friend of mine heard about an agency
that was looking for location scouts oh that sounds like a good laugh photography
travel who knows where that's going to lead maybe I'll do the Bond movie one
(02:12):
day which I sort of got quite close to but massively screwed Yeah.
So I started as a location scout. So I did that for quite a few years.
And it was fun. And I did get some nice exotic trips, traveled around a bit. And that was great fun.
But I was sort of more interested in creating content, really,
rather than being stuck in this niche.
(02:32):
And I had the opportunity to stay in commercials and move up in the commercials
production world. Well, one of my very first jobs was with Ronald McDonald.
Well, it was another commercial. It was a very early commercial of mine.
So there I was. We'd found a village hall to film this commercial in.
I realized that commercials was not for me. The way the operations were ran
(02:52):
with agencies and clients and so many people having so much to say about how
to sell a lump of cheese. I just thought that's not for me.
So I ended up starting a production company with a location manager who I was working with.
And we started making documentaries. So that's how I shifted from location manager
into production managing, which is a sort of more general thing where you have
(03:14):
to bring in the crew and the talent and the cast.
As a location manager, you're very much the location man. No worries.
You're being wonderfully humble as well about meaningful content when you have
a film premiered at Cannes, or Cannes, I'm not posh enough to know the difference,
as well as a Sundance Jury Prize winner.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your film, The Souvenir? Yeah, absolutely.
(03:38):
I mean, this came, I mean, I started working on those films probably in 2016, I guess.
I'd worked with Joanna, who's the director, writer-director,
before in 2011, I think, on a very low budget film called Archipelago, which...
Starred uh as then unknown tom hiddleston
(04:00):
uh it was his first feature actually and joanna has
a great knack for talent spotting and
he went from that to be loki that was
his next gig so we were there were 20 of us
on an island kind of looking after ourselves and next minute
he was off to hang with kenneth branner but joanna and
i worked very well together and some years later
(04:21):
after i i'd moved abroad and done various other things
she asked whether i'd be interested in joining her on putting together
the souvenir which was actually it was a two-part
story souvenir one and two and it's the
story of a young woman who dreams of
becoming a filmmaker it's quite autobiographical for joanna she during part
(04:41):
one she applies to join film school meanwhile she's in love with an older guy
who's kind of mysterious and never quite sure what he to he claims to work for
mi5 but but seems to also have a drug habit,
which he claims is all part of his undercover routine,
having worked for my five, as you would. You're a great cover star.
(05:01):
Yeah. I used to work in Afghanistan. I have to be a junkie. It's part of my cover.
So it's a very kind of intense and minutely observed relationship drama about
a young woman who falls in love with an older Roman who kind of throws her life
and career off track. And they...
(05:22):
Get get embroiled in a very toxic codependency that
she struggles to escape from which she does
in the end and then this part two which
we shot immediately afterwards is is how she
deals with the aftermath of their relationship without wishing to
give too much of the drama the story away without too
many spoilers but basically she moves on and in part two
(05:44):
she is now a film director and she's trying to
make her way as a film director and the film span maybe
a six-year period and part one
we we were very lucky to get Tilda
Swinton to play the lead one of the lead roles and her
daughter Swinton Byrne plays her daughter so
it's mother and daughter playing mother and daughter they'd never been on screen
(06:06):
by that kind of interaction really you can get at your own daughter and only
so annoying you can be at your own mom that you will get that chemistry on the
screen yeah it was it was an amazing experience and you know So as meta as you get,
because it's mother and daughter playing mother and daughter,
the direct went to school with the mother and is godmother to the daughter.
(06:29):
And we filmed in a studio as close a replica as possible.
So we were filming the whole thing with period, set in the 80s,
period furniture, period music.
So she was kind of recreating where she lived as a student in the 80s.
And yeah the film was remarkable and joanna
(06:49):
is remarkable and we were very lucky enough very lucky
to be invited to sundance and went and won it which was
rather astonishing and having won it and
before even before then it generated a huge
amount of buzz you know great backing from the bfi and from bbc films a24 then
picked up the u.s rights a24 are the kind of the the cool the the coolest distributive
(07:15):
finances in America and having got them on board and one Sundance,
we were immediately funded for part two.
So we were premiering part one and packaging part two at the same time.
So it's a, it was a very hectic period, shall we say?
And yeah, that's kind of a quick summary of the Genesis and souvenir.
(07:38):
Yeah. Gotta say congratulations. It's a bit late from our end,
but that's like astonishing what you've done
with that and you know like you said to have a24 on board and they are you know
one of the best in the industry right now i think also especially with indie
you know that genre is produced so well by them i'm just curious luke with like
(07:59):
with you know you said you began your film career in 1998.
Oh, ATM, my bad. I think it's interesting, your path into the industry.
So what was it about the industry that you just felt it was so,
like you said, location managing to producing? What was it about producing you really liked?
(08:20):
Well, to be honest, I never thought I'm going to be a producer,
but it turned out that I have a fairly broad skill set.
I've done sound recording. I have done camera work. I have done some directing as well.
I've attempted editing, and I'm absolutely terrible at it.
Yeah in a way i i think perhaps i'm what you might call an amateur in the original
sense which with the meaning of the word is a lover of many things that's how
(08:44):
the word came about and i love being able to work with all the different departments and,
going on on the on a journey of product of filmmaking whether it's documentary
or film you know coming up with an idea or working with a director on an idea
and then killing developing it and then trying to find the finance and then
bringing the crew together,
(09:06):
the locations together and bringing in different crew members and all their different,
especially on features, all the incredibly finely honed skills,
whether it's camera or lighting or design or costume, and of course the actors.
So as a producer, you kind of, you sit beside the director and you get to enjoy
all this incredible talent pulling together in.
(09:28):
What is no doubt the most collaborative art form on earth
with all all the all the pluses and minuses that
goes with that and then taking taking an idea to a cinema and you end up in
a screen in a screening with a cinema full of you know in canada hundreds and
hundreds i think 500 600 is a huge cinema and you show you show your work and
(09:50):
you think oh that's what all the fuss was about,
and it's a kind of it's a kind of physical thing it's all very sort of intangible
in a way and until it's on the screen and you have a room full of people living
the story that you've spent many years often putting together.
And I mean, I love cinema. I love story. You know, the moment when the lights
go down in a cinema and you just say, take me, where are we going to go?
(10:14):
It's just a magical moment. And to be somewhat, to be on the part of the team
that's really putting that together and take it from initial spark of conversation
to a premiere and showing it to an audience.
It's a magical, impossible, mysterious journey.
Just speaking a little bit more about how your life has been influenced by film
(10:35):
and how film has actually influenced your life.
Your father, Peter Schiller, had his story immortalised by Warner Brothers in the story One Life.
Can you tell us a little bit about how your family actually got involved in the making of that film?
Well, I need to correct you a little bit there. We weren't involved in the making
of that film as such. My father's, the film One Life is about a man called Nicholas Winton.
(11:01):
Nicholas Winton was a remarkable man who was a stockbroker of Jewish descent
who'd sort of anglicized.
And before war broke out,
a friend of his asked him whether he'd come to Prague to help deal with a refugee
problem that was primarily Jewish refugees that were being kind of pounded out
(11:22):
of the Sudetenland initially and were kind of.
Conglomerating around the Prague area and had nowhere to go.
And the Germans were sort of getting ready to march in.
And my father comes from a Jewish family, and his parents realized that if they
don't get him out of the country, he'll probably be murdered,
(11:43):
which is what happened to a great number of my relatives.
And my grandparents, fortunately, were a kid from a wealthy,
quite wealthy people. had a big business in Prague, so they were able to pay
because the British were basically selling visas to refugees.
You had to put up something like 4,000 pounds as a bond, a sponsor family in the UK.
(12:10):
And Nicholas Winton was instrumental in kind of connecting refugees.
Potential refugees, G's with host families
in the UK and the film
was about the two timelines which play
both in 1938 39 and this
(12:30):
now quite famous tv session that
old tv show called that's life that someone called
Esther Ranson used to host and she
did this rather remarkable thing she got Nicholas Winton
into a the studio because he'd never talked about this
his experience he was a very very humble man and
(12:50):
he was very engaged in charitable work but didn't like to brag and
he he was invited to a
studio tv studio and and i don't know if it was live she probably wasn't live
but on air was confronted by a now an older woman who he whose life he'd saved
he'd never really spoken about this so suddenly he was out as as a kind of savior
(13:12):
and then they did another show a couple of weeks.
The whole audience was filled with children and descendants of children who
he was instrumental in rescuing.
My father and my uncle were two of those children.
They weren't in the audience, but they got out on the last Kindertransport,
which is what Nicholas Winton had been arranging together with his partners
(13:36):
in the Czech Republic and in the UK, of course, as well.
They were very lucky. They got out on the last train out of town and managed
to make a life in the UK and were very lucky.
And even more remarkably, my grandparents also got out when they arrived in the UK late 1940s.
(13:56):
So my father came out in May 1939, just before war broke out,
because then the train stopped.
So it was the last train out. and his parents got
out as i said about a year and a half later but we'd never talk about
how they got here so we have no idea how they how they got here because
it was just all too difficult too raw
(14:17):
painful traumatic something we don't
know how they actually got here there was talk of a walking stick
and diamonds and the pyrenees but that's literally
all we know i think that's i think that's every every
story that every um parent tells a child like i
got my parents had had to do that just to go to school damn yeah
that's extraordinary though but like with you know
(14:39):
the one life movie like you know peter's just
to meet him that one life event i remember me and gareth met
you as well briefly luke and we were just saying you know
it's just amazing how you know nicholas winton had
this impact and i was saying how locally there's like
statues at my local train station of him and uh you know when when you saw that
film you know how did it feel watching james hall's like depiction of one life
(15:04):
with the stories that you know you grew up with with peter that told that he
told you about you know the the second world war.
It was a slightly out-of-body experience, to be honest with you.
First of all, because I'm a producer, I make films, but suddenly I was just
there looking after my old man, being red-carpeted in as any other guest.
(15:29):
There were 11 surviving Kindertransportees who attended, and my father was one
of them, and I went with my brother and two of his children.
So we were shepherded into the cinema. mama but you
know red carpet and all of that stuff my
dad was yeah my dad can be a complicated man but
he was behaving very well i think he was slightly stunned we
(15:52):
were all to be honest i think we were all quite nervous about the film because
there's huge potential for doing something very sentimental and schmaltzy but
i'm happy to say that they avoided that temptation and And I think did a very
good job putting the story together.
In terms of what I saw on the screen and what my father told me about,
(16:14):
it was very different, really, because my father was seven when he left.
So his memories are very specific,
almost like snapshots, really, rather than a kind of a narrative structure that
he remembers arriving at the sea in Holland and he'd never seen the sea and
thinking it's so high up I'm going to get drowned because he'd never seen the
(16:37):
sea it's just water piled up in front of him.
He remembers being put on a train with his brother by his father,
and as the train was leaving, a baby being thrown through the window and landing
in his lap, and the nuns who were accompanying him taking this child.
So he has kind of the snapshots that, of course, are his memories.
They're not in the film, so there isn't this sort of narrative structure.
(16:59):
I mean, the parents giving the children things to take on the train.
My father has told me about, you know, he was given a pencil case by his grandmother
so he could learn to write at school and a little kind of brooch that he wore on his neck.
And there's scenes like that in the film. One of the extraordinary moments in
(17:20):
the film was when the Germans,
the Nazis, are invading Prague and the refugee office that's coordinating the
rescue of these children realizes that their officers are about to be raided.
They did what most authorities did in this country, which is they burned all the paperwork.
All the public offices in the Czech Republic, in Czechoslovakia as it was,
(17:42):
were basically burning as much as they could, so the Germans wouldn't have records
of who is where and especially who was Jewish.
So there was a lot of burning of documents and there's a scene in the film and
I was sitting next to my dad,
and next to him on the other side was a member of the Association of Jewish
Refugees who we've been in touch with, who are helping on various issues,
(18:03):
including acquiring Czech nationality, which is quite an interesting subject.
But as the building is being raided, or they're about to be raided,
they're throwing documents out the window and burning them.
One of the documents that flutters big across the screen, has my father and my uncle's name on it.
So it's actually a facsimile of the original transport documents or the list
(18:25):
that Nicholas Winton had compiled.
And there's my father's name.
Burning coming down the screen and that was just sort
of yeah i wasn't expecting that i think i'm telling you
that it's pretty emotional moment for sure
and you know this story is it is a very emotional
one especially i mean when i was
there at that event with gareth we were just overwhelmed with the
(18:47):
emotion of just seeing you know 12 the original children
on the the kinder transport and then you know the family ties
you had with your own father being one of them and you
know him him you know that that sense of emotion
that you must have had like it coming full circle i
mean did you ever think there was going to be a a story made on the big screen
(19:08):
about specifically you know these like these children and also it being your
father because you know it is obviously such a an important story to tell like
you said there's not a lot you know about it you just know.
We know what nicholas winton did but we never like you said he was a humble
man it was was not something that was out there until a certain point.
(19:29):
There have, in fact, been other productions that tell this story, but they're Czech.
And one of them, I think it's called Into the Arms of Strangers, that won an Emmy.
It was a documentary, but there's a guy called Matej Minac, I think he's called.
He's a Czech director who told this story for TV without Hollywood behind it
(19:52):
and Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins.
So those films have not really been, they haven't really traveled.
And I myself, I'm working on a story as well.
So, you know, I've been working with my father and a writer.
Finding a way of telling the story as well. It's a very, very different version of it.
It doesn't have the sort of Esther Anson hook, which is a very clever way into
(20:13):
the story, but not one that, well, A, my father wasn't there.
And B, it's not necessarily the way I'd i'd like
to go into the story so you know there's the story has
been told it's just people this is the first time
it's getting really big exposure of course because of right so
you saw a huge producer and anthony hopkins
is anthony hopkins yeah and amazing he
(20:34):
is too and and johnny flinn i was fantastic in
this film as well i thought it was really amazing it's so wonderful to
hear you speak with so much emotion about film
and obviously how film can impact our
own emotions as well and you just spoke give a
little tidbit about possibly some future work that you
have coming up as well so i just wanted to take this
(20:54):
moment to ask a little bit more about if you have any upcoming development over
atlas films too yeah of course i've got a number of projects in development
i've got a sort of high-end television drama that's set in africa actually it's
about a photojournalist who goes back home and.
(21:15):
She's from the Sahel region and she gets embroiled in a whole lot of political
complications, corruption and it's it's a,
very thrilling dramatic dangerous and
sort of in an environmental thriller to some extent
as a tv series i've been working on for some years and
(21:38):
as i as i mentioned i'm also working on a film
that's kind of about my father and his family that
switches which which plays in pre-war so
the time when his family and families like his had a very comfortable stable
life they were were climatized they were germans because my grandfather was
(21:59):
a decorated war hero on the german side from world war one and not a lot of
people know about that kind of stuff i mean.
Austro-hungarian empire he fought in world war
one you know he spoke german that was
his first language you know they were they were they were assimilated jews they
did go to the synagogue occasionally but they were not really practicing at
(22:19):
all so there's a cultural jews if you like rather than practicing so it's about
the times before the war the good times and then there are there is part of
of course the story coming to the uk is also told but then it's about.
Him setting up becoming a family man in
the 60s in the uk and it kind of plays mainly between the 30s
and the 60s which is quite a different way into this story that sounds incredible
(22:43):
since this is the student pages podcast we always like to close the podcast
with a question about if you you have any advice or any tidbits or just any
words of wisdom or truth for any students out there who, like yourself,
are looking to capture film and capture TV to tell the important stories within their life?
(23:04):
My best advice would be be open to chance.
What do they say? The lucky person is the one who takes their chances.
So it's good to have a plan, but it's
good to be open to things that come your way because say
yes to as much as possible you don't know where it's going to
lead who you're going to meet and you know one thing
(23:24):
leads to another it's not a very
structured industry i mean i think it's it's more structured now
because you know when i when i entered the industry very very few people had
studied film people started as runners really and worked their way up which
is still the case but they didn't come with mas in in filmmaking or editing
(23:44):
or directing it was more kind of hands-on so you learned from from the old hands,
but which is which is how i learned to do what i i do but i think be open to.
Chance and all all experience even
the ones that might be terrible at the time and be
helpful and informative and it's it's it's
(24:04):
a it's a roller coaster ride of a of an industry and
a friend of mine once a director friend of mine said we are like we are like
semen in this industry you know we you get on a boat which is the production
you're on you don't know necessarily where it's going to go and how long it's
going to take you might find itself for three months in a jungle or or four
weeks in New York, or done wilder films,
(24:26):
had five months in a jungle in Costa Rica.
Be open to things. If that's what you want, I mean, there is a life of adventure
in that, which is one of the things I have relished most.
And you get to work with all sorts of people, and yeah, be open to things.
And you might think that if someone offers you a gig as a second camera,
(24:46):
or doing some sound work, do it. You never know.
You might suddenly find that that's actually what you want to do most of all,
or it'll take you down a path to something remarkable it's a journey it's an
adventurous journey so luke you mentioned about you doing tutoring and you're
a mentor i'd love for you to elaborate on that what you do with that exactly.
(25:09):
Yeah, it's something I've been doing for quite a few years now.
I've worked at the LFS quite a lot, and I've also worked on various sort of
pan-European training programs,
which have taken me to Italy and Hungary and Paris and all around the place.
It's great fun working with young talent.
(25:30):
One sometimes gets quite jaded in this industry.
So I think there's an interesting kind of mutual flow you can get where you
feel the energy and the passion of young people who have yet to have their fingers burnt in some ways.
But also to be able to kind of bring my experience to bear and help them look
(25:51):
at something that they're developing.
Developing so the kind of tutoring i've been done a lot of
script developing but also i've done straight producer training
so talking you know pitch to premiere where
you talk about the process from taking an idea to a
premiere so what what does that mean what is that journey the producer's journey
which for people who want to get into the business is
(26:13):
obviously quite an interesting thing to hear and i think quite helpful
and can perhaps save them a lot of pain grief
and money along the the way so that's something i'm quite passionate about
doing as well and yeah i've done quite a
lot of that in the past and i'm still doing mentoring sort of one-to-one
mentoring on occasion so that's just one one of one of
the things i do whilst developing projects as well
(26:33):
and obviously producing and running my own
small production company here in london fantastic thank you
ever so much for taking the time to speak with us today luke it's been so interesting
to hear you talk about film and thank you ever so much for joining me today
shimoon and thank you you ever so much for listening student pages podcast listeners
at home i'll be back with you very very shortly with another student pages podcast
(26:54):
but in the meantime it's been lovely to have you goodbye goodbye shimoon and
goodbye everyone at home.
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