"SIX DEGREES" - INTERVIEW WITH BARTOSZ DOMBROWSKI

"Six degrees" is inspired by Milgram's 'Six degrees of separation' theory with its assumption that every person in the world can be reached through 6 personal connections. The crew tries to explore the chain of connections between two randomly drawn protagonists: a young punk-rock musician from Warsaw, Poland and a farmer from little village in Mexico. Below we present the interview with Bartosz Dombrowski, the director of the documentary film "Six Degrees." The interview was conducted by Michał Kucharczyk.

Michał Kucharczyk: You were born in Greece, you studied in Germany, how did you find yourself in the world of Polish film?

Bartosz Dombrowski: I was born in Athens, I grew up in Germany, I lived there until I was 24 years old. I did not have anything in common with film then, I studied something totally different, political science, psychology, I even dabbled in medicine. Spontaneously I decided to study in Katowice, but was passing my exams there already as a Pole because earlier I spent a year as a trainee in Lodz Film School.

Did your "cosmopolitanism" had some influence on the shape of the film "Six Degrees," a film about how people from various parts of the world are somehow connected?

Definitely yes. The film is the result of reflections which follow me during my journey. I met very different people and I noticed that there is something which connects them. Always there is someone who is jealous, someone loves someone, emotions are always very similar, only their form changes. The main idea behind this film was that everyone has an interesting story and you have to be open to every human being. I also wanted to enable the viewer to identify with this situation. Usually, the viewer watches a documentary film from the safe position of an observer. We wanted to show the viewer: we can also come to you, spend two weeks with you and tell an equally interesting story about you.

You said: two weeks. The protagonists share fragments of their lives with you, often very personal fragments. How did it happen that you managed to gain their trust in such a short time and made them pour their hearts out to you?

Firstly, we had a very small crew, only three people. Secondly, we did not interfere in their lives, we only became a part of their lives. We were their friends, every day we spend a couple of hours together, we also talked about our problems. Thirdly, each of them had their appropriate "frame," appropriate point of view, designed just for him or her. Fourth, and most important thing is that at the beginning I always talked to each of them, alone, with no cameras, for 5-6 hours. I got acquainted with the story of the protagonist and adjusted the script to it.

Were there moments of hesitation during your journey? When you thought that maybe you would not reach Marco Antonio?

Rather not, anyway, the film is not only about this. The theory of six degrees of separation is for us rather a frame within which we wanted to tell a story about people entangled in some kinds of relationship. Starting from macro-theory, we wanted to reach the micro-relation.

I am curious about the impression you had when at last you met Marco Antonio, the person for whom you were looking for several months, and who was for you only a point on the map, a face in the photograph.

He was an abstraction for us, and suddenly we sat down next to a living man, it was incredible. When we reached him, we were already very tired. We were weighed down with the film matter. Sometimes we were even overwhelmed by the personal stories of our protagonists. Neither they nor we were ready for such an emotional clash. When we saw Marco Antonio, we were shocked, we had imagined this meeting in a totally different way. We breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he smiled. It allowed us to relax and thanks to it we spent the last days in a great atmosphere. As far as Marco Antonio himself is concerned, we added some kind of observation scenes, though not all of them were finally included in the film, as it were, to confront them with what he says about himself and his family. Notice how much he emphasises that they are happy, that they do not lack anything, even though they are poor. In reality, I sometimes had the impression that they try to make themselves believe that they are happy. This is also a way of coping with life and it should not be subjected to evaluation as either good or bad. Everything is relative. We wanted to depict the relativity of every situation. The same problem may be huge for you, whereas it is unnoticeable for another person.

So, what connects Martyna Załoga with Marco Antonio?

Hmm... it is a very interesting question. I think it may be some kind of essence, which connects not only them, but all protagonists of my film and people in general. The desire to live, to find your place in the world. Everyone looks for his or her own pigeon-hole, into which they fit.