Peter Hośták’s Cold and Dark is filled with evocative imagery and ideas. Set in a Slovak forest, the thirty-minute film observes draft horse logging, yet seems to be conceived from a darkly poetic and mythical place.
Artistic Director Alexander Back spoke with Peter about his lyrical approach to the film, 19th-century landscape photography, cinematic experiences, and much more.
Congratulations on Cold and Dark, Peter. I found it beautiful. You approached the film as Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Sound designer, and Music Composer. Can you talk to us about that? Is there a filmmaker who inspired you to occupy all these roles?
Peter Hošták: Thank you very much. I always appreciate it when someone reacts to my film with the word ”beautiful”. I believe the beauty is under the skin of the film. It means you were able to experience it rather than just watch it. It’s a great compliment.
Originally, I did not plan to fill all the crew roles but this film became very loose and open minded process. It was about collecting of moving images and sounds and treating them more like a sculptor treats a material. Also, I studied filmmaking in Montreal, Canada at Concordia University where this kind of one person filmmaking practise has a long tradition. So I guess something sticked to me.
Peter Hošták
The film is somewhere between a documentary and a poem: it’s a mix of the real and the mythological. How did you relate this blend between reality and fiction?
Peter Hošták: I am definitely interested in poetry in non-fiction or documentary form.
My film does not aspire to do some form of in-depth analysis of draft horse logging and is not a portrait of the protagonists. Rather, it is a personal statement about the experiences of this environment expressed in images and sounds. Nevertheless, between the lines I point out at the socio-political issues and the impact of the energy crisis through the community of people who trade in firewood. But for me it is mainly documentary poetry.
Basically, I try to get closer to the form of “cinema” rather than categorizing myself as a documentary filmmaker or fiction director. The word “cinema” is difficult to explain. I am still learning myself what it actually is. However, I can name exactly when this phenomenon occurs. It’s like some kind of metaphysical reaction. When one experiences it, one becomes obsessed with it. Seeking out experiences that can be called “cinematic” requires a certain lifestyle. They are not everywhere. For me, this phenomenon takes place outside my own comfort zone. That’s why I look for discomfort and intensely experience embarrassing situations. It is both a social and a self-experiment at the same time.
Can you take us through the process of composing the film’s look? You are capturing moments that can’t be precisely planned on camera, yet every shot looks beautiful and precise. Can you also discuss your reason for shooting it in black and white?
Peter Hošták: Thank you very much. I am an obsessive observer and always look for nuances which are not seen on the first sight. No matter what topic I work on I always have to give it a very specific angle. My own angle. I put emphasis on visible signature and authorship in film.
The black and white helped me to achieve more dreamy and poetic effect. Also I wanted to create a film that becomes a tangible experience so I believe that monochrome has this cabilitility to translate two dimensions into shapes and textures.
You’ve talked about exploring the relationship between man, machine, and nature – in the film they’re combined in the most basic and potent way. Did you begin this story thinking about certain concepts and themes, or were you drawn in by something else? In the same way, did you find yourself exploring new territories and themes that weren’t a part of your earlier versions?
Peter Hošták: I like to leave the audience with more questions than answers. For me, it’s more about experience than illustration or representation. It is a portrait of a certain geographical location and its culture during a specific era. Basically, I worked like a landscape photographer from the beginning of the 19th century, who captures faces, jargon, sounds of nature, rotten trees, scars, hooves or genitals of a horse to the complex portrait of the landscape in addition to the hills and forests. Everything that forms the natural wholeness of the place as I feel and see it. I combine images that I capture intuitively, but I think about them a lot. The film is about energy. It’s an energy between people, humans and animal, creating energy and last but least energetical crisis which is a global issue. At the same time, it is an anatomically fantastic portrait of everything and nothing through a view of this transformative process of a horse becoming as a mythological creature.
You studied film in Montreal, Canada, where you now live. The rural Canadian landscape is wild and cold, in the same way that the Slovak winter is wild and cold. What is it about this landscape that you are drawn to, and was there anything specific about rural Slovakian life that you wished to convey in the film?
Peter Hošták: You can definitely find draft horse jobs in Canada, but I never really thought about it, because it was natural to film in Slovakia. The gray gloomy and misty winters are very inspiring and my idea was that it should look like that in the movie. On the other hand, the longer I am away from Slovakia, the more it attracts me back. And above all, I’m starting to realize that I don’t know my own country and myself. So I’m learning where I’m from and who I am.
Cold and Dark screens at Classic Cinemas, on Sunday, 20 October.