The film that changed Tilda Swinton's life

Special envoy to BerlinWhen she was eight years old, Tilda Swinton (London, 1960) saw a film that "changed her life." In fact, at that moment she thought "it was a dream, not a movie." It is the first version of Powers of ten, a scientific short by Charles and Ray Eames that lasts only 10 minutes and begins with an everyday, almost bucolic sequence: a family having a picnic, with their basket full of food and a tablecloth on the grass. Then, the camera moves away 10 meters, 100 meters, 1,000 meters... "After a while you see the United States, the Earth, the galaxy, and then it comes back to the picnic and the camera enters the man's hand and you see the bloodstream, the nervous system, which I have with Mark Cousins"because it is a film that makes you fall in love with cinema and makes you realise that cinema has no borders," he explained.

Swinton recalled the beginnings of her relationship with cinema this Friday in Berlin, where on Thursday she received the honorary Golden Bear at the opening of the Berlinale, and above all with the greatest filmmaker of her career: Derek Jarman, with whom she worked for ten years on seven films until the filmmaker's death in 1994. "Forty years ago I made Caravaggio “I was in a relationship with Derek and I’ve always worked in a collective way ever since,” the actress said. “I learned a lot from Derek, and not just because I was young, but because he was a great teacher. Above all, he taught us to be very determined – to care about our work and bring it to the project. And he also taught me that everyone who works on a film is a filmmaker: from the person holding the microphone to the actors. We all contribute to making the film and we’re all indispensable.”

Swinton’s advice to younger artists, meanwhile, is to form a collective: “Find your community and don’t let it go, because in your community you’ll be more relaxed, you’ll have more to say and you’ll be able to say more to yourself and you’ll have a better time, and because you’ll be able to be more and you’ll have a better time.” Find your family and work with them." The actress's family has, of course, been extensive, and includes filmmakers such as Sally Potter, Jim Jarmusch, Béla Tarr, Pedro Almodóvar... "What unites them? The desire to establish a dialogue and creative conversation," Swinton explained. "I choose the films I make based on the people I work with. I also learned this from Derek, who was a painter and worked alone but preferred to make films collectively. I began my creative life as a writer, I know how to work alone, but I make films for the company."