The Violin Case slideshow

Chasing Obsessions

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We have probably all had the experience of leaving something behind in a taxi and the sinking feeling of panic that accompanies the situation… maybe a wallet or a mobile phone. But how about a violin with a valuable artwork painted on it?  This is the real life experience of artist Konstantin Bessmertny, that has now served as inspiration for his son, filmmaker Max Bessmertny, who is basing his first full-length feature film on this very incident. 
 
“The idea came to me during the first Covid lockdown. I was watching the movie After Hours and what really struck me was just the pace of the film and how much you see the city of New York while you’re watching it and all of the characters peppered throughout. It’s really kind of farcical – a useless man versus a simple goal type of storytelling. And then I remembered when my dad lost his painting in Hong Kong, and I was like, “That's it! That's the one!” Everything just clicked,” Max explains.
 
Six years ago, Konstantin left a piece of art, painted on a violin in the back of a taxi in Hong Kong and went through quite an ordeal to try to get it back, but ultimately to no avail.  And in his new screenplay The Violin Case, Max tells the story of Theo, a struggling foreign painter living in Macau who faces a similar situation. 
 
“I wrote the original treatment, eight or nine pages, in literally two days,” says Max. “The character would start in a studio in Taipa village or Coloane village, then he goes to the pub like OTT, then the factory area in the north of the city… all of these little dots were connecting and I quickly created a whole feature 90-minute plot. Everything was fluid.”
 
After running the idea past his father and getting his blessing, Max continued to work on the screenplay with friend Jorge Cordeiro dos Santos, before reaching out to another contact, Virginia Ho, who became both co-writer and producer for the project. 
 
“When Max first approached me for the role, he told me the story briefly and eventually sent me a script, and I read it and right away I could feel the character. This is the beauty of a director who is also writing,” comments Virginia.  “I could sense this layer of obsession in the protagonist. It’s not really just a thriller. It’s not an art heist movie, but it deals with much deeper inner emotions. We all have something that we just cannot let go of. It goes beyond the financial value of the item and ties into you emotionally.”
 
“Eventually, Virginia and I developed the story further story into themes of obsession and about not letting go, as well as self-worth and our place in this world. The character is also inspired by Theo Van Gogh, the rich brother of Vincent Van Gogh,” adds Max.
 
The writing partnership spent a number of months going over the screenplay line by line until they were finally happy with it. 
 
“We actually deconstructed it and put it all back together,” says Virginia. “It’s relatively easy to create a story that’s interesting and exciting, but audiences require more than that.  Our goal is to make the audience feel the characters, to resonate with them and believe in the story.”
 
“We spent about three months, six to eight hours a day. It hurt my soul,” laughs Max. “But I can’t stress enough the importance of doing this.  The script is king, it’s really what drives everything.” 
Once the script was done, it was time to get the crew together, cast the main characters and scout for locations. 
 
“We have a lot of great talented people in the crew and everyone is doing things for the first time,” says Max. “For example, this is the first feature film for our director of photography and also for our art director.  But it’s exciting. When you trust in people and give them freedom, they get excited and creative, and we want to grow together and be entrepreneurs as well, because filmmaking is really entrepreneurial.”
 
 
“We see the talent in everyone, and the key thing is that they really care about the project. It’s not just a job for them. They want to make a movie, but not just any movie. They want to make this movie,” adds Virginia.
 
The cast and crew are of course nearly all local, but the duo are also exploring to see if there is any interest to be involved from those outside of Macau.
 
“We are reaching out to some veterans in the industry to see if they want to be executive producers, and also to international actors as well. We try all these ways because you never know when someone might read the script and say “hey, I love this’”, says Max. 
 
Of course, no production is possible without financing, and like most independent filmmakers, this factor has been a major challenge. 
 
“There are no government subsidies or loans for cultural products at the moment. We have had one bigger company that helped us out a generous amount, but it’s not enough to cover the entire budget, so we still need to find the rest,” comments Max.
 
“I really admire Max,” notes Virginia, “He basically spent two years soliciting and asking and begging and whatever he had to do to get the budget to start pre-production. We’ve actually been shooting little clips to really explain to people why making a film is so expensive. Imagine you have 80 people on set and you have to feed them three meals a day for 30 days, and then salaries, renting vehicles and locations, and the costumes, materials and equipment.”
 
The total production is expected to cost around MOP8 million and the team have launched a Kickstarter campaign to try to raise some of this, but it hasn’t been easy.  Nonetheless, they did win an award for their campaign.
 
“Kickstarter awards projects that show creativity and originality with a badge of Project We Love. Statistically, only around 10 percent of all active Kickstarter projects receive this award and The Violin Case is one of these,” notes Max proudly. 
 
With everything almost ready to go and lockdown restrictions easing, principal photography is aimed to start in the final week of August for 28 days. The project will then enter the post-production stage for about three months, with the film ready to be submitted to major international film festivals in early 2023.
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