Hotdocs: No Hay Camino by Heddy Honigmann
“So what is this new film you’re making?” Heddy Honigmann is asked near the start of her documentary No Hay Camino - There is No Path (a world premiere at Hot Docs). She is not quite sure how to answer. “I’ve never known this little about what I am doing with a film,” Honigmann confesses. For once, she is the protagonist as well as the director. Late in her career, suffering from a terminal illness, she has turned her camera on herself.
The film touches on her family, her work, her difficult relationship with her over-protective father, a concentration camp survivor, and on her Peruvian roots.
“I always liked to work with her because she is tough but witty. You can always have a good laugh with her,” Van Huystee says of Honigmann. Ask what he likes about her films and he replies how, “they are normally very warm. She is always looking at the good side of somebody. But she is also tough on herself.”
Another of her qualities is how (as she herself puts it in No Hay Camino), she “doesn’t do interviews. She does conversations.” She always engages with her subjects and makes them feel at ease.
Honigmann surrounds herself with excellent technicians, many of whom have worked with her for 20 years or more. She also has excellent and “very human” ideas for documentaries - and she always tells universal stories.
“It started like a sentimental journey to be honest,” Van Huystee says of No Hay Camino. “It is always nice to have memories together and tell stories.”
Once they began work, the producer was very focused “on going forward” and on making sure the project had momentum. Shooting started in Peru. “That was before Covid,” he notes. “During Covid, of course, it was very difficult [but] we did a few shooting days.”
Honigmann, though, was surrounded by trusted collaborators devoted to helping her realise her vision. This included filmmaker Jose Luis who we see interviewing Heddy after she asked him to give her a present in the form of a short film.
Years ago, whenever they used to meet for lunch or dinner, Honigmann and Van Huystee would play a little game: they would challenge each other to come up with ideas for new films. Now that they are collaborating again, they have resumed the game. A few days ago, when the new documentary was picture locked, she said, “So, Pieter, it’s time to start to do the research for the new film.”
“Old soldiers never die,” Van Huystee quips of Honigmann’s determination to keep on working.
The producer recently hired the main auditorium in the EYE complex for a test screening of No Hay Camino. The crew members were all there as was Honigmann herself. At the end of the screening, Van Huystee asked her if she was happy with what she had seen.
“She said ‘well, that is the first time I’ve really enjoyed my own film!’”
No Hay Camino will be released in the Netherlands by Cinema Delicatessen. After Hotdocs several other festivals are lined up. The Dutch premiere has already been delayed three times but now looks likely to be held at the Netherlands Film Festival in September in Utrecht where there will also be a retrospective of Honigmann’s work.
For more information:
Dutch Line-up at Hotdocs 2021
No Hay Camino – There Is No Path
Pieter van Huystee Film
Ph: +31 20 421 0606
info@pvhfilm.nl
www.pvhfilm.nl