Reality, what is reality? Isn’t it the way, we see the world? The way we feel – what everything is based on?
“Reality always wears a mask” says Jon Bang Carlsen
, he is a filmmaker, author and actor. Carlsen made more than 40 documentary and feature films and is one of the most important Danish filmmakers. He believes in the subjective reality and ONLY in this. And this is how his movies are narrated, they show HIS personal reality.
In his film “How to invent Reality” Carlsen is searching for a story, he wants to tell. Then he takes people, who, potentially, could have experienced the same. He writes a scenario and picks a location, which is compatible with the story.
Like in a feature film Jon Bang Carlsen is shooting scene after scene. But he always underlines the difference: In his documentaries his protagonists aren’t actors. They just play a scene, which could also be their real life.
Carlsen is walking a thin line between fiction and reality, but he’s not trying to hide this fact. This special way of making films is termed an own name: “Staged Documentary”.
Jon Bang Carlsen uses this way of making documentaries since he visited the film academy in Denmark. Shortly before he finished the academy, he made a film about a woman and realized that she was changing, every time the camera was on. Carlsen was not able to picture the reality and authenticity. Since then he trys to tell a real story with fictional people.
We met Jon Bang Carlsen and talked with him about “Staged Documentary” and his films.