Katarina Türler (2/5)

Filmexplorer's Editing Collection | Season 1 (2/5)

The episode has been produced in collaboration with the Solothurner Filmtage

Editing, cutting, montage – it is one of the most important tasks in the creation of moving images. Both technical and artistic skills are required for the editor, whose role has often been neglected, while the theory of montage has been largely celebrated.

Filmexplorer hereby consecrates a series of online episodes to the work of editing, in order to stress the practical challenges of the job of editor and the artistic need for emancipation from any dogmatic rules.

The first five episodes highlight several aspects of the editing process through discussion with the makers: the editors.

Professional editors like Tania Stöcklin and Katarina Türler bear witness to the importance for the editors to be experts but not specialists. Thanks also to the experience in creating documentary films, they show the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to editing, which should start in the educational phase and continue through the collaborations with the film team.

Profession and artistic craft go hand in hand; this is stressed in the discussion with Beatrice Gibson who uses the strength of editing at its best in her own filmic works. The discussions with Philippe Ciompi and Fabrice Aragno not only confirm the interdisciplinary and artistic approaches, but also allow us to consider two specific perspectives on montage, respectively: on sound editing, and on multi-screen editing within an exhibition space.

Discussion with Katarina Türler

If the work of the editor can be considered akin to the one of midwives then Katarina Türler would be the best example of the art of maieutics. For the Swiss-Dutch editor the relationship with the director and the ability to listen to them is probably the fundamental skill for an editor. There are plenty of ways to tell a story and the task of the editing process is to find the best possible one for the vision of the director. However, the work of the editor is not just a subordinate to the one of the director but is highly creative – a living and organic process where the fingers feel around, accepting not to know where they are going and exploring new territories. The editor should be able to seek solutions at the margins – she says.

HEAR THE PODCAST:

This article contains a third-party video. If you would like to watch the video, please adjust your settings.

open cookie settings

More specific aspects of the discussion:

The methodology to start an editing project
The issue of the so-called “rough cut depression”
The question of how the accepted works can shape the career of an editor and create their expertise
Detailed insights on the special works on films like Gioia (Laura Stek, 2019), Berg (Joke Olthaar, 2022), and Matthew’s Laws (Marc Schmidt, 2012)

Sound excerpts from Matthew’s Laws, by Marc Schmidt (2012); Farewell Paradise, by Sonja Wyss (2020); Berg, by Joke Olthaar (2022)