Following a host of international awards for his hard hitting documentary VIRUNGA, as well as Oscar and BAFTA nominations this year, we grabbed five minutes with writer and director Orlando von Einsiedel at Watersprite – The Cambridge International Student Film Festival.
Faye Gentile: Orlando, it’s a pleasure to have you here in sunny Cambridge. Now, tell us what brought you to documentaries? How did you get started?
Orlando von Einsiedel: I took a strange route into filmmaking. I was actually a professional snowboarder and the way you made money was by being sponsored by companies so the more you were featured in magazines and videos the more money you’d make. So I started out by making snowboarding movies but ultimately, I wanted to make films about issues I cared about.
Once I had learned the craft I started out making investigative films that tended to be about negative subjects. While I was making them I came across some incredible and inspiring people whose stories I would never have come across back home. Recently I’ve tried to focus on more positive stories from places like the Sub-Sahara and Africa to Asia.
FG: So where is home for you, and does that affect your career?
OV: Home for me is London, [but] I do spend an enormous amount of time away from home. It’s tough, but I’m very fortunate that I have a job where I can tell stories about some really inspiring people all over the world.
FG: Before the success of VIRUNGA and the Oscar and BAFTA nomination, did you expect it to be received so positively?
OV: We realised very early on that this film could be a tool to help the Park (Virunga National Park, Congo) and we had a multiple strategy approach to actually use the film as a tool. One strategy was actually just shouting from the rooftops and getting it seen by as wide an audience as possible.
Being nominated for an Oscar brought this enormous spotlight on the film and the issues at its heart. It also brought on a lot of attention from the media. We had coverage from The New York Times, the BBC and CNN, but what the Oscars brought was the entertainment press, so we had this second round of media interest. The Oscars was an incredible platform to magnify all of the issues in the documentary.
FG: So what’s next for you?
OV: This really has been a full time job for the last three years: I spent two and a half years making it and then promoting it after that so I’m not working on anything else at the moment. There are a few things I’m interested in at the moment so let’s see…ask me again in six months!
FG: We will! Have you got any advice for aspiring documentary filmmakers?
OV: You have to work really hard. You have to try and find subjects that you’re really passionate about, because if you’re going to follow a story for months on end it becomes your life, so you need to do it about the things you care about.
VIRUNGA is available to stream on Netflix now. To find out more about the cause, visit virungamovie.com.
httpvh://youtu.be/wxXf2Vxj_EU