Interview: Britte van Meurs

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRITTE VAN MEURS

by Claudia Sanchez Jimenez and Michiel Ubels

Hello Britte! Can you start by introducing yourself?

My name is Britte van Meurs, I am 24 years old and I am mostly into documentary filmmaking, although this year I'll be experimenting with some fiction as well. 

At the moment, I am a film student. This year I'm taking some courses at LUCA in Brussels. Besides, in my free time, I do a lot of rock climbing, for the despair of my parents when I tell them about my holidays.

Right now I am mostly making documentaries. In general, I'm really interested in daily life in its different forms. Daily life might not be so interesting in itself but, at the same time, it contains all the drama and the anecdotes that are interesting for a film.

For example, I really like Virginia Woolf and I am a great fan of her books, because she is very good at this. She describes very mundane moments and you can see how within these moments there are entire lives taking place, with all the drama and all the small things.

And apart from Virginia Woolf, do you have a filmmaker that you find inspiring?

If I had to name one, I would say Chris Marker. La Jetée is my favourite film. There's something when you watch his films... I don't really understand what's going on, but still, it seems to touch me somewhere very deep. There’s something poetic in his work that I really like. 

You just finished your film The Yellow Submarine. Can you tell us a bit about the original idea and how it came to be.

I used to do a lot of hitchhiking. Now a bit less but there were years that I would always hitchhike to wherever I went, and I would make very long journeys. There I met a lot of truck drivers and I would have a lot of difficulties on Sundays, because I found out quite soon that they wouldn’t drive on Sundays. I  remember the first time that a truck driver told me that they couldn't drive on Sundays. I was quite surprised to discover that these people were spending their whole weekend on a parking lot. And then I thought, “Well, this is actually quite an interesting world to dive into”. Also because it’s something that we see but in a way most people don’t know anything about.

But your original idea was also a bit different. What did you want to do at first?

In the beginning, I was mostly interested in this weekend in which you would stay on a parking lot with nothing to do. That's something I wanted to focus on and I also had this idea of letting truck drivers talk about their imagined future, as if they were already living on it. Because for a lot of drivers these long rides are sort of a life on hold. They are away from home for several months, in order to earn a lot of money so they can spend a few months at home. So, there's a sense of real life not really taking place inside the truck, while at the same time, it is. Visually, I had a hard time imagining a film, but I was quite sure I wanted to make something with observational images. And also something that would communicate the feeling of being inside a truck; to make people place themselves in the position of being in a truck for a long time. I wanted to make something quite sensorial.

And how did you prepare for the production?

Well, the film was part of my master's thesis and was also part of an ethnographic research. I spent a lot of time inside trucks with different truck drivers, sleeping inside the truck, traveling for several days with different people and talking to them before I started shooting, to get an idea of what I would be making a film about. I think in total, I spent 21 days and nights on the road.

But the shooting wasn’t so easy. Because for the filming I was in touch with one company, mostly with the owner of the company. Every time I would go on a trip, I would talk to him about where I would be picked up and then with whom I would be driving. But it was always changing last minute, sometimes I would have arranged with him that a certain driver would be picking me up and then I would arrive at the parking lot and someone else who had never heard about the film would be waiting for me. And I would be: “hey, do you mind if I film you?” *laughs*

At the end, the result was a bit different from your expectations. Why did you decide to change plans?

Yes. The performative idea of the drivers imagining their future and talking about it turned out to be very complicated because most of the drivers didn't speak any English or German and I don't speak any Polish, Russian or Ukrainian. So it was not really possible to do those exercises. 

It was quite a search to find what the film would turn out to be. I was afraid that it wouldn't be interesting enough, if it was just an observation of someone's daily life.

But somewhere in that process, I was quite happy. I ended up focusing on this daily life and not searching for something more exciting. In retrospect, I think that the idea of having them talk about their imagined futures may have been an artificial thing glued upon the film in order to make it something more. I think there is a value in showing  someone’s daily life which is not very exciting in itself, but which gives an insight into a different world.

Looking back, what would you have done different?

Next time, if I made a similar film, I would try to work with someone with whom I can communicate better. It would have required more time and a different way of working with the driver, in order to go deeper.

Here I feel that the film stays on the superficial level, which reflects the relationship that we had. I stayed in the outside and I would have liked to get more insight. 

And, what were you most proud of during the shooting?

Well, I was shooting every day and some days it just didn't work. The images I made weren’t working or weren’t good enough. But then, there were other days where I was like: “Wow!”. I shot really good images and it flowed really well.

I think most of the footage I used were shot in two or three days and yes, those were the days that I was proud of myself.

Who would you like to see the film?

I would really like it to be shown in the transport sector. Because I am in a peculiar position, being Dutch and doing research into and making a film about Ukrainian and Polish truck drivers. It is an odd thing because we are in this sort of international Europe and there are so many truck drivers from all over Europe, mostly from Central Eastern Europe who drive in Western European countries. But in the Dutch transport sector there is a lot of hatred and unkindness towards other drivers. It might be nice to show a film in which it becomes clear that also truck drivers that are not Dutch are also human beings. 

To end with, are you working in any project? What are your future plans?

I would like to make another film about someone's daily life. But maybe this time I would organize a casting to find someone who is willing to do go deep into who they are and what they dream and fantasize about. And then write a script based on those dreams and fantasies and play them out. But this is a very rough idea that I am slowly developing.

Thank you for this interview and good luck with your future projects!

Watch the trailer of The Yellow Submarine right here: