Live to Love
Directed by Adi Halfin
Let’s be honest. It doesn’t feel like a great time to be a human right now. Thankfully though, we do get reminders of the beauty and joy that we are also capable of bringing into this world. Today we’d like to share with you the latest work by director Adi Halfin and cinematographer Si Wachsmann - partners in life, but also a fantastic filmmaking duo.
Their latest work Live to Love is a much needed celebration of love, an intimate insight into those moments that make being alive worth living. Let’s hear what inspired Halfin and Wachsmann into bringing their short film to life.
Celebrating love and freedom, this is the premise of Live to Love. This theme resonated with us, as times feel particularly bleak at present, and there’s a need to be reminded of the beauty that is part of our world. What led you and Si to work on this project?
Exactly for the reasons you’ve mentioned. All of us have experienced harsh times in the past two years. People have lost their jobs, friends from the Ukraine have lost their homes and families and some of us are experiencing anxieties from the unknown future. We all feel on the edge, not knowing what lies around the corner. So we felt like doing something to lift our spirits – both in creating something optimistic and in sharing the love, with hope that it’ll be contagious (sorry, not a good choice of words, is it?)
You and cinematographer Si Wachsmann are a life-couple. How easy is it to maintain a work-life balance when you work, as well as live with your partner? And how much would you say that this level of closeness has helped you in the delicate portrayal of intimacy in Live to Love?
It’s actually pretty easy, since we understand and trust each other very much. We are very much involved in each other’s projects even when we don’t work together, so it’s very natural for us. I feel that we complement each other. Si has an eye for details and aesthetics, and I am more chaotic and emotional. I feel that there are less borders when we work together – less definitions of who does what. Si was very much involved in the edit, which is something that cinematographers don’t get to do, but we really made this together and every aspect of the creation was discussed.
You mention that you “decided to break the rigid barriers of film planning and set out to shoot an intuitive film”. Can you expand on what you mean by intuitive film?
We created this film very spontaneously. We’ve both been working in commercials, where everything is so meticulously planned. So, we felt like doing something freer and more spontaneous. We gathered some friends and just made it up as we went along. Nothing was really planned. It was more about capturing beautiful moments of life together and creating authenticity. You don’t get to do that in film, but I love working this way. It’s so much more fun.
We can truly feel the love in Live to Love. Did you work with couples only? And what was the casting process like? What were you looking for?
There’s actually only one life-couple in the film! We were looking for people who have a strong charismatic presence and a good connection – people with internal beauty that radiates. It was important for us that everyone on set will enjoy the shoot and that their personalities and uniqueness will project on screen.
I love working with movement, so it was important for me to cast people who love dancing – none of them are professional dancers, but there’s a lot of movement in the film. I love the idea of finding connection between people through movement. I’m also such an admirer of roller skaters. It’s my second time working with skaters and I just want to do more of it. It was really all about having fun together and loving what we do.
“I love the idea of finding connection between people through movement”
Obviously the choice of Somewhere Over the Rainbow works on many levels. What other options did you have in mind? And what was the key factor that made you decide?
Since this was shot in Berlin, I initially thought of old German songs, namely by Marlene Dietrich. There was one song I was listening to repeatedly at the time, which totally captured the state I was in – Where Have All the Flowers Gone? It worked beautifully with the footage, but it’s a song about war. I kept listening to it and crying, but it wasn’t meant for this film. The message had to be optimistic. When we tried Over the Rainbow it worked like magic. I’m a huge fan of Rufus Wainwright and every song he performs is just so captivating and expressive.
What are you working on next?
Si and I are actually working on another project together – a short documentary we shot in the US, about motherhood and anxieties – also, very much connected to these unfathomable times we’re living in. And I’m writing a feature film about women in Ukraine during the war. Can’t tell you more about it at the moment, but I really have to get back to writing. There’s a deadline breathing down my neck!
Director: Adi Halfin
Cinemtographer: Si Wachsmann
Colour Grading: Nadia Khairat
Graphic Design: Samuel Cochrane
Cast: Andrea, Michelle Felix Escalante, Muso, Julian Hemelberg, Andrea Rojas, José Rojas, David Bitter