Music, Style & Culture

Interview: Dan Edelstyn - Filmmaker/Vodka Baron

We speak to the man behind new documentary How to Re-establish a Vodka Empire.

With the UK Jewish Film Festival well underway, we bring you one of the more extraordinary stories to be told.

How to Re-establish a Vodka Empire does what it says on the bottle, but Dan Edelstyn's documentary is borne from a need to learn about his grandparents. The filmmaker discovered a journal kept by his grandmother Maroussia, a vivid account of her life in Ukraine during the 1917 Revolution. While researching his Ukrainian roots, Edelstyn learned his grandparents were owners of a successful vodka distillery, and set about reviving the struggling village by rebranding their product and selling it to the UK market.

One man's account of breaking into the business with his Zorokovich 1917 Vodka, the film is intercut with striking re-enactments of Maroussia's extraordinary life, and Edelstyn's connection to his family's traumatic history. Edelstyn's wife Hilary Powell films this journey to Ukraine and back, while portraying Maroussia in beautifully shot vignettes.

After receiving its premiere at last month's London Film Festival, How to Re-establish a Vodka Empire screens on Saturday 12th November at the UK Jewish Film Festival (free vodka alert!). Information and tickets here.

We met up with Edelstyn in London this week to learn more about his highly personal film.

How supportive have the Jewish Film Festival been to your film?
They've been really helpful - Judy Ironside is a Vodka Club member. On our blog myvodkaempire.com, part of the way we funded the film in the early stages was by selling Vodka Club membership. People would buy a bottle of vodka and then get their picture and name on the blog, along with their name on the credits and tickets for when it came out. The festival director is one of those. When I bought a thousand bottles from the Ukraine, I had no money to do it, so I managed to pre-sell cases of vodka to help me to pay for the duty. Judy helped find these patrons. She's been quite supportive. Maybe this vodka will be a hit with the Jewish community, but I don't know how to get in there.

Before this film took over your life, what were you doing?
I had just finished some short films for Channel 4, I had a band, and was probably this Bohemian kid who hadn't grown up really. Still stuck in my teenage years in my mind, despite the fact I was in my twenties. I was beginning to make my mark on television films, so that was really it. I started making films in 1999, and this film I started in 2005, so I had already made about ten short films and documentaries. This was my first opportunity to make a feature film. At first I conceived this film as a pure fiction feature, with my granny's story. I didn't really want to be in it, but that became a necessity as all my contacts at the time were in documentaries. It seemed highly unlikely that someone with my background was going to have a chequebook waved in front of them. The element of research into family history is interesting, so it turned into that too. But I had no idea it was going to turn into this business film.

Was it always conceived as a feature film, or where you aiming for television?
I always wanted it to be cinematic. We shot a trailer for it, and that was more cinematic than it ended up being. Giving a trailer an atmosphere isn't that difficult, but sustaining it over 75 minutes... My aspirations have always been cinematic. Television, I've never been into it hugely, although I watch more of it now I've got a baby. I much prefer to make something with a fresh vision, and I hope Vodka Empire has achieved something towards that. It's early days for me as a filmmaker. I hope I've got many more films where I can hone my vision and get better. Both Hil and I watch the film and think, oh my god, can we change that. It's full of flaws. But we put everything we had into it, and there has to be a cut-off point. In a way, the London Film Festival and this one were a great way of giving us a final deadline. It is what it is.



How did you structure such a huge story into one film?
The production period was one phase, and there was never a clear "principle photoghraphy is finished" or whatever. The structure was the most complex part. I was always quite clear, once I found out about the vodka, that he had to contain the narrative jeopardy of 'does he succeed in setting up the vodka business or not?' That can be the engine of the film if you like. None of the channels we were approaching wanted to hear my granny's story. It was a documentary, so it needed to have a present day story unfolding. I became this character on a mission.

This is not really related to your question, but I feel I opened myself, my wife and my baby up to a lot of scrutiny. It's personal stuff, and while I was making it, I didn't really think of the effect on my family. I don't mind revealing it in the film, but I hadn't thought of it getting into the hands of bloggers and the YouTube generation. People who comment on things through the veil of the internet, who never reveal themselves, and have no responsibility to editors. Had I thought about that, maybe I would've made a less personal film.

In the edit phase, I became lost in the woods. The film had become a fragmented morass; four hours long, unwatchable, impenetrable, incomprehensible. I just kep editing and editing, and my heart was drawn to mirroring my family in a way. All the things that happened to my granny and my dad, and all the things that were happening to my wife, and the baby - those parallels were great. The film was ultimately about time and family relationships, and what the purpose of life is. I became less interested at that point about whether the vodka stuff worked. But of course, to show my baby being born, and my row with Hilary, is to lay my family bare in that sense. In a way, that's quite irresponsible of me. My baby couldn't have a choice in that. Hil wasn't that keen on those scenes being in there, and I said it would be okay. Now some of the bloggers are saying it's set up, and it's forced. Well, it really wasn't! It was made with a lot of care, trying to get the film and business running. I thought people would get that, and it's probably a failure on my part. Filmmaking takes on a slightly over-formal aesthetic - you bring in outsiders and they interpret it formally. It becomes a professional enterprise, and important stylistic things get lost. I wonder if we lost a bit of the personal aesthetic.

Was it strange re-enacting your grandparents in the film?
It was strange, but a lot of those animations were shot over two weekends. I remember living the entire journey of my grandfather, and Hil my granny, within this short space of time. These incredibly oppressive, extreme moments of their lives, we inhabited for a couple of days. It was odd and quite moving. It was sad, because in the process I connected with my granny - we were born on the same day of the year - I felt a weird communion with her, like I was exorcising her ghost in a weird way. There was a sadness; I was playing a role, there was the edit, and then it was done. There was a disconnection from that most intense period of empathy.

Is this a story you didn't know at all?
My father died when I was three, so he never spoke to me about his background, but he never went back to Ukraine. The legacy of growing up without a father, and my family never really spoke about Maroussia and Max in detail. It takes a special kind of grandson with a weird psychological trauma about his father to go and make a documentary about his grandparents. It was to do with the ongoing mourning of my father.



Could you have done this film without your wife Hilary?
I couldn't. Hilary should really be on there as co-director. What can I say? She acted as my granny, she made all the models for the animations, she did the cinematography in the documentary parts. She was my sparring partner, she kept licking me into shape when I was down. I think it's one of the great sadnesses on the production itself that Hilary's not asked into the interviews, she's not recognised as the co-filmmaker, and lurks in the shadows of the publicity. It's sad for me and her, as I can't feel comfortable with the spotlight on me when I owe such a huge debt to her. The reason why [there's no co-director credit] is that it's a personal story and personal investigation. It was instigated by me, so that's why she's down as producer, but hasn't got that one. I got a credit at the beginning: A Film by Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell. The way the film's gone it's better with me as director, because it's personal. It just works. I wish there was a way for her contribution to be recognised, so thank you for noticing.

It was interesting that you had the Jewish lecturer who was quite dismissive of you using your family's background as a marketing ploy.
I liked him. When I first met him, he was like my great antagonist - every idea I had, he had the opposite thing to say. You know how wonderful it is - films thrive on conflict, having antagonists and villains who halt the hero. I realised Francoise could be the antagonist in the film, and he was happy with that! I wish we had a villain in there. There were dark elements, but there was no Moriarty, no one to sabotage me.

How was the London Film Festival for you?
It was a huge honour to be selected to be in there, and it's a world-renowned festival, so we couldn't have wished for a better launch. The reality of the festival was that we were taken care of, and they were extremely kind to us, and had great experiences. The screenings were sold out, and the audiences responded really warmly, with applause and laughter. I got involved with Think-Shoot-Distribute, which is part of the BFI. I was chosen as an upcoming, emerging filmmaker two years ago, with this project. It's all the filmmakers the festival thinks are one to watch. I went back there as someone to be interviewed, and that was a real honour, to be able to share my advice. I always think there's no real advice anyaway - it all boils down to credit cards and debt, and tolerance of stress. If you have all those things, and don't believe all the bollocks you hear when you go to high-powered meetings and they don't deliver on the money... that's a terribly negative thing, and when I say that to other producers they get depressed and disappear off into their shell. It's probably best not to unleash me onto those kind of people! Funnily enough, Think-Shoot-Distribute were more interested in people who had just finished fiction feature films, as documentary isn't as good as fiction in their eyes! Nonetheless, I was wheeled out and given my five minutes of indulgence.

What's next for you, film-wise?
I'll never let go of the fact I want to make films, and I have a real urge to improve. I'd like to make theatrical, fiction features, and I'm wondering what the first one will be. I can't really focus on it at the moment, as I'm so busy with the vodka, and I have to give it my all.

What are your film tastes?
I'm a huge fan of early Woody Allen. I love the madness - the fact that all his films straddle all the genres. I love that he takes from Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, and his films are crackpot, dark, screwball comedies. I love them so much. That's the kind of film I really like. His films are always about the universe, and why we're here, and where's the world going. They ask huge questions, but the stories themselves are quite whimsical, and they're available to all of us. I also love Darren Aronofsky, particularly his film Pi. I lived in New York in 2000, and made a film that was inspired by it, and I've always fantasised about turning that short into a longer film, although I may have missed the boat on that. I want to make films that are bold and take risks, because I'm not really interested in films that are entertainment as such. I love Nouvelle Vague films as well, but every new filmmaker loves those! I think I've outgrown the pretentious years, where every film has to be black and white.