QUESTIONS FROM JONATAN TO CHRISTINA
My first question is the same one I asked you on our first day of editing: What is the film about? Try to answer in one word or a short sentence.
The film explores the question: Who is the human being?
How do you come up with ideas for a scene, and how do these ideas change during the filmmaking process?
It is less about the realization of a specific scene than it is about researching and exploring a theme. Situations, experiences, images, and moods accumulate around this theme. In collaborative rehearsals, we develop material from which scenes emerge and evolve. Each work involves different processes and scenes, for example those based on drawings or interviews. But these are always open processes with an open outcome. This method works through trust, time, and a form of freedom that each performer perceives and creates a physical space for exploration.
What is the connection between filmmaking and cooking?
It is also an open process, involving sensual ingredients, sharp knives, music, storytelling, cutting, and eating together at a table.
What is your preferred method of working with an editor, and why?
The method changes slightly depending on the material, but I always draw a kind of score. Maps that include timing, rhythm, structures, and emotional amplitudes. A multi-layered drawing sheet that contains all the elements and information. I study this topographical map together with the editor, combined with a poem that describes the mood, tone, and emotional depth of a scene. I usually write this poem in the early hours of the morning, immediately before encountering the scene in question. The poem is also a kind of compass, and I read it aloud. We communicate with each other about the dimensions, and then I prefer to leave the editor alone. I don’t want to sit next to him while he is creating. That seems restrictive to me. I want to be surprised. In the afternoon of the same day, we meet again, watch the scene, critique it, and make corrections. That’s how we knit our sweater, which was in the image we used in our work (with Jonatan on DUMP).
How do you usually choose the people you work with? What is most important to you in a collaboration?
I really enjoy working with people over a long period of time. With people who are independent, empathetic, and strong-minded. Who are totally dedicated to the subject and walk on tiptoes when the actors are working. People who have respect and humility for the seriousness of this work. But who can also cook together, play table tennis, swim, and share stories. Our team is a very unique, wild, highly focused, cheerful, and committed family of very distinct characters, explorers, and artists who are passionate about exploring content and form.
Do you integrate personal memories into your work, and if yes, how?
Yes, throughout. Memories are part of my thinking, my body, which is also part of a collective memory. The connection and intertwining of historical spaces is part of my consciousness. Biography and topography are Bound together.
What does East Germany mean to you, and what can you say about the people who live there?
I cannot leave this country entirely; the east is also part of my memory. I feel close to the people, even if some of them make me feel uneasy and others feel familiar. I have known this feeling since growing up in this country. A relationship of closeness, but also incomprehension towards a mentality that is suspicious of strangers and uncaring about history.
Once I understood the core of the film, the only essential thing for me was the tonality, the emotional color of each scene. If I know that, I can guide everything in a way that leads to the essence of the film.
János Jonatán Lőrincz
QUESTIONS FROM CHRISTINA TO JONATAN
How would you describe the process, the “technique” used in the editing process for the film DUMP?
I think the editing process for this film was quite unique because we didn’t work in a usual setting. Most of the editing happened in a small village in Germany, so we were completely focused on the work. We also took long walks in the nature around us and had amazing food. In this setting, we developed a special routine. Almost every morning Christina made a small drawing or wrote a poem about the scene I was going to work on. She explained what she was looking for in that scene, and then I spent the rest of the day editing on my own, making decisions about takes, structure, and music. At the end of the day, Christina came in and we watched the scene together, talked about it, and discussed possible adjustments.
Overall, it was a very free process for me, one where I could really live out the art of editing, or how Tarkovsky calls it: sculpting in time.
What information was essential for you, or what aesthetic strategies did you work on for DUMP?
Once I understood the core of the film, the only essential thing for me was the tonality, the emotional color of each scene. If I know that, I can guide everything in a way that leads to the essence of the film.
Can you say something about the internal and external speed of your work, or how the rhythm of your editing comes about?
The rhythm of my editing usually comes from the internal rhythm of the footage itself. I tend to edit too slowly, so after a rough cut I sometimes need to speed things up. In this film in particular, the editing could be very fast, but living in 2025, I think our brains can easily manage that, haha.
Is there a connection between editing and your scooter artistry?
Scootering is, in a way, like dancing, and editing is the recreation of rhythm through sound and images. In my mind the two things are quite different, but deep down I’m sure there’s some kind of connection.
What was special about the work process and what were the biggest challenges?
Being in a remote village made the process very special, but also challenging, because I’m really a city person. At some point I remember hearing the word “cinema” on the radio and thinking: oh right, back in the day that used to exist: cinema. I missed my friends and the vibrant city life in Berlin.
What must be in your Romanian mici recipe?
Garlic… and way more than you think.
Which films/aesthetics/traditions do you feel close to?
Coming from Eastern Europe, my strongest influence is probably Tarkovsky. I like how he creates a meeting point between art and spirituality. Other important figures for me are Béla Tarr, since I’m Hungarian, and of course the whole Romanian New Wave. It’s simply who I am and what I like about cinema: turning everyday moments into big drama.
Why did you become an editor as the son of a priest, and not a priest yourself?
Honestly, I just wanted to have a private life, to walk up some stairs and close the door. As a priest, that’s very difficult.
What are your most important qualities as an editor?
Patience and the ability to make decisions quickly.
Editing Compositions © Christina Friedrich
