Ludo was leading the first part of the workshop, helping to make costumes and explaining to kids what character in the film was. We will need to work a little bit more on that, as just as we started filming kids became aware of other people (their family or friends) looking at them and they refused to wear masks... becoming someone else. Initially I felt a bit frustrated, we had equipment and camera operators organised... When I think about it now, there was something interesting in their refusal to were masks, to become 'the spirit of the estate'...or any other character that they had created. Younger kinds, when asked about who their character was, would reply that it was themselves. Musharraf made another Musharraf and etc...
I need to be careful of how much I want to push my own vision of the film... as it was always supposed to be the film made with... not about... if it is ever possible to avoid the 'about' aspect completely...
I think Ludo made an interesting observation saying that we need time to build characters, to make children understand that once they perform in the film they can become whoever they want... and that being a Devil in the film doesn't mean that Ashraff is a bad guy... (He created the Devil, but then was afraid to go outside in the mask, because he thought that other people will perceive him as someone bad)
The overall energy was great this time. A massive THANK YOU to Ludo, Federico, Annalisa and Andre, as each of them brought amazing energy with them. Federico was fantastic, explaining to kids how to make music...and they seemed to enjoy it a lot!