Nation Building
| Nation Building | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Documentary |
| Directed by | Rasa Ḑeşéy |
| Country of origin | Gylias |
| Original language(s) | |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Release | |
| Original network | GTV3 |
| Original release | 1 September – 8 September 1999 |
Nation Building is a Gylian documentary which aired on GTV3 in 1999. Directed by Rasa Ḑeşéy, it explores the Golden Revolution, including extensive interviews with participants.
Production
GTV3 looked to commission a documentary series about the Golden Revolution for 1998, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Liberation War's end. The producers were impressed by Rasa Ḑeşéy's showreel and intrigued by her background working on Popworld, and she was hired to direct. She decided on a direct cinema approach for the film, and stated in an interview: "I'd been aware of A New Kingdom, the DBS thing, but it was still a bit traditionalist for my taste. I used it to make a list of things I didn't want to have: no narration, no soundtrack, avoid rostrum camera as much as possible…"
Rasa worked on the series with a smaller crew than would later become her norm. She did a great deal of research herself, retrieving materials from the National Archives. She credited the ongoing digital preservation works of the National Archives with speeding up production, particularly the existence of transcripts with precise timings for archived footage.
Most of the production was taken up by filming interviews, both of people directly involved in the Golden Revolution and those who had experienced it. She often filmed interviews at participants' homes to ensure they were relaxed and comfortable. Interviews were used both in themselves and as voiceover audio over other footage. Several further interviews were added as participants became available, and post-production and editing further pushed back the release date. Rasa informed GTV3 the series wouldn't be ready for 1998, and it eventually aired in 1999.
Eight episodes were completed, covering a wide range of topics from the antecedents of the Golden Revolution, its varied impacts on Gylian society and especially popular culture, the ways it fell short of some participants' expectations (mainly anarchists), and why its legacy endures. Rasa acknowledged that "we couldn't cover everything in just a few episodes", reflected in the series' editing "loose ends" and cutaways. She felt happy with the series when it was completed, as it achieved its intended goals: "it was cheeky and it threw enough material at viewers to give them all kinds of possible topics to explore by themselves."
Notable interviewees
Those interviewed for the series included:
- Living former members of the Darnan Cyras government
- The ferroses
- Gianna Calderara and Giovanna Calderara, spouse and sister-in-law of ex-Prime Minister Darnan Cyras
- Tomoko Tōsaka, inaugural Chair of the Arts Council
- Raira Sano, commander-in-chief of the People's Army and "mother of the nation"
- Audrey Epstein, the "queen of Gylias' entertainment industry"
- The Beaties, musicians
- The Watts, musicians
- France Gall, singer
- Maija Džeriņa, director
- Rauna Næsve, actress
- Violeta Andyriaḑe, actress
- Silvana Perriello, actress, director, and musician
- Annemarie Beaulieu, artist and filmmaker
- Estelle Parker and Cecilia Parker, inaugural Head of Programming of Gylian Television
- Sima Daián, model, actress, and activist
- Ser Şanorin, model and activist
- Jane Russell and Jana Friedman, founders of Sibylla
- Amanda Leloup, model, musician, and ex-Governor of Nezyál
- Françoise Chatelain, founder of OMFLG
- Carmen Dell'Orefice, founder of The Travelling Companion
- Isabel Longstowe, the "face of the Golden Revolution"
- Margot Fontaine, ballerina, philosopher, and politician
- Ludmila Canaşvili, ballerina and polymath
- Alisa Marková, ballerina
- Seisa Neve, inaugural Speaker of Gylian Senate
- Márgit Varnaþ, former queen of the Nerveiík Kingdom
- Eleanor Henderson, prime minister of Allamunnika
- Esua Nadel, columnist
- Denise Sarrault, columnist
- Ranyi Sesyk, criminal
Many others who were either unavailable for interviews or dead were included in the film using clips from older interviews and home movies donated by family members. Makiko Nishida, then a minister in the Mathilde Vieira government, also appeared in place of her dead father, former transport minister Kōichi Nishida. Máiréad Ní Conmara declined to be interviewed entirely so as to allow audiences to remember her as she was in her prime, a decision Rasa respected.
Highlights included:
- Silvana Perriello breaking character to emotionally discuss her unorthodox career path.
- Isabel Longstowe being interviewed while wearing an enormous picture hat with a "curtain" veil that hid her face.
- Jane Russell chattering happily at a table in Sibylla while Jana Friedman warmly looked on.
- Márgit Varnaþ symbolically integrating the Nerveiík Kingdom into Gylias' story as an honourable adversary.
- Seisa Neve raucously recounting her war stories.
- Sweetie Letise being interviewed at home, surrounded by her collection of firearms.
- Estelle Parker giving her interview while covering her sister's mouth, only for Cecilia Parker to do likewise for her interview, parodying their family dynamics.
- Penelope Morris' stirring conclusion to the final episode, being filmed playing "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" on piano while audio of her musings on elegance and the passage of time were overlaid.
Violeta Andyriaḑe's interview yielded so much material that Rasa compiled an additional documentary, Flaming Redhead, for Proton.
Reception
Nation Building was a critical success upon airing, and became one of GTV3's highest-viewed programmes. It was praised for its cinéma vérité style and its heavyweight cast of interviewees.
The series began to be uploaded to Proton TV during its run, and was released on DVD shortly after it finished airing.
Gylias Review wrote that "In her quest to battle stodgy documentary formula, Rasa's cheeky and lively Nation Building inadvertently became one of the definitive accounts of the Golden Revolution, and perhaps one of the most appropriate to the task."