Chiara Clemente has a unique way of approaching the camera. As an artist in constant conversation with other artists, all her work, from the documentary Our City Dreams to the series of short-films Beginnings, seems to rotate on the quest of
"I grew up surrounded by images. My father [renowned artist Francesco Clemente] has never painted photo-like portraits, quite the opposite: just by looking at the artwork, you can feel the person and sense their mood. So in a way, I do that too: what interests me the most is giving a voice to the artists and telling their story through their own eyes.
More than an art history background, you can say I might have an art history life, which spins a curiosity that clearly comes from something I lived. Up to the age of ten I lived where my father was actually working, where his studio was. I was so lucky to have such an experience, and it certainly influenced my view: it’s probably for this reason that in my movies I want to recreate a situation where it feels like we’re walking in between artists, in their lives, in their home. The viewer is never a stranger: he’s already inside. When I interview people, in what I like to call a ‘conversation’, sometimes I get so drawn in it that I even forget I’m in front of a camera and that I’m actually interviewing. I hope that by doing this the viewer feels like he’s sitting next to a friend, who’s talking about himself in a much more personal way than by saying "I am this, I do this, because of this". Therefore I always try to create a certain intimacy with the artists; with Our City Dreams I had two years to do it, as for Beginnings I had something from 40 minutes to max two hours, so it had to be a faster process. When I was little my grandfather would always tell me stories that were a mix between fairy tales, war narrations and memories. I started creating my own stories when I was twelve, first by telling them, then writing them down. Ultimately the words alone were not enough and I needed a visual support, so I started filming. Since then I never asked myself what I wanted to do in life, which is a bit scary: if I’d stop I wouldn’t really know what to do in life.
From how I do the editing to how I pick the music, my creative process is instinctual. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like a strong feeling that something needs to be in a way more than the other. So I think and hope that this means being an artist, because there is no rule I follow. Of course, it’s also a learning process hence my work is constant evolution, but since it’s all about a connection or a particular association, the character is extremely important."
Chiara Clemente has a unique way of approaching the camera. As an artist in constant conversation with other artists, all her work, from the documentary Our City Dreams to the series of short-films Beginnings, seems to rotate on the quest of understanding how, when and where the big-bang of human creativity happened. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in NYC the filmmaker explained to AnOther what fuels her investigation, how she started creating and how the artistic environment she was raised in influenced her vision.
Text by Giovanna Maselli
