12 Questions with Christian Neuman

Christian Neuman is a winner of several Films awards featured in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE02, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj about his film production THE END OF EVERYTHING AS YOU KNEW IT.

Christian Neuman is a Luxembourg born artist and filmmaker. He is best known for his work in the fashion industry as the creative director behind several brands and campaigns. Trained at London Film School, his shorts and fashion films have been screened at festivals worldwide.

Christian Neuman’s art reveals a tumultuous world either in mid-formation or on the verge of destruction. Neuman’s pieces appear otherworldly, like anthropological relics from a former world glorified in distorted compositions. Amongst their abstract and destructive nature, they point towards an undercurrent of opportunity, of optimism for a new world that is being rendered, with the artist capturing the perfect moment between the destruction of an old, and creation of a new world.

Christian Neuman, you are a writer, director, and producer. Through your production company “Focusart”, you specialize in producing award-winning experimental films, art film, and art-house cinema. Please tell us more about this artistic background.

What I like about the film is that it brings so many aspects together and challenges you on many levels at the same time. You cannot make a film alone and bringing together the right people at the right moment for a specific project is an important part of the whole process. You need to channel different artistic energies into the same and best possible direction. This is very challenging, but an exciting part of making movies.

My first love was painting, so I believe that's why I always start from visual ideas. A single image or still, that triggers further interest to call for a world and characters around it. The story and plot then fall in place too. For me, it is foremost the closed, unique world and atmosphere that remain from movies. The story is of course very important too, but the story and especially the plotline can be consumed and digested more directly. What I strive for is to try and give the audience a point of view experience; some sort of thinking pattern. I strive for this quality in the painting too. It's important to me, to create some sort of coherence in approach and expression, that becomes recognizable throughout different media.

I am more interested in art house cinema, as more commercial productions often put a heavy focus on plot and allow less artistic freedom.

Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?

Throughout my years of making art, I realized that my intentions changed. As the time of artistic expression and activity is limited, one must make a choice. I strongly believe that each artist just has one main topic. The first big challenge is to find your topic. Once found it seems obvious. I understood that my ultimate topic is death or more precisely the cracks or breaking points in the human attempt to cover up the absurdity of the human condition and culturally adopted value systems. It is that breaking point, where I like to take my movie characters to, and this is precisely that edge where my paintings start and dwell around. Paintings are different though for me, as for me contemporary painting always refers to itself historically, and must be evaluated and seen from that perspective.

Can you talk a little about your formative years as an artist?

Studying is an important part of growing. When it comes to painting, I am less interested in the craft side of the art, but more in the intellectual and conceptual part. Art School can give you both, and gives you that exact freedom and time to find your topic and voice. After my undergraduate studies, I was hesitating between further studying painting or cinema. I decided for the latter, but continued painting throughout the years. There are this raw quality and energy that I can only find in painting. Then again, working on this kind of approach and expression helped me to build my ideas for creating cinematographic worlds and writing scripts. For me, both art forms are very much linked to each other. They feed each other.

 Sometimes as filmmakers we make sense of things in our own lives through our work. What is the central point between your artistic perception and your close interest in dark drama, elevated horror, and experimental art films?

I am more interested in the shadows that we throw standing in the sunlight. It is a choice and an approach. In painting, I constantly try to define these aesthetics. In movies, I constantly try to break my characters. I strive for simplicity and sharpness. Romanticism is the big enemy, although I still sometimes fall into the trap.

You are a winner of several awards (Winner Best Director Berlin ARFF Intl. Film Festival 2016, Winner Best Fantasy Short Film Los Angeles Independent Movie Awards 2015, Winner Honorable Mention "Experimental Forum" Film Festival Los Angeles 2016 and much more…). How did that very particular background and winning awards prepare you for your latest works?

Awards are nothing special but in the cinema, they can help you finance projects. I admire people that put their energy in bringing together art and make it available to an audience. Once work is done, I often lose interest in it and move on to the next one. I'd very much like to change that habit, but maybe it is just a part of my process. That is why it is so important to have professionals taking care of the work and make sure that people see it.

Where did you get your imagery from (What, If any, sources did you use)?

From everywhere and nowhere. I collect all the time. I used to feel very challenged by visiting museums because it made me feel so itchy to create work myself, that I could hardly enjoy the greatness of some works on display. With films, I have this far less. Very few films keep on exciting me. I try not to draw from films when creating own work. That is, of course, impossible, but I still try. Life itself can give you much, but then again you cannot force it and it also takes a lot of energy. Living fully is in itself an art. I cannot do that. I need my energy to create artworks. I also believe that by now my inner image library is well filled and heavily conditioned by my sociocultural upbringing and past. I am aware that it is hard to break out of this defined image library to draw from. I am also Ok with that fact.

What are you working on next?

I am currently working on my first feature film project. It is a psychological thriller and stars Udo Kier, Amber Anderson and Jefferson Hall. The release is planned for 2019.

Do you have any upcoming shows or collaborations?

I will be showing some work at Luxembourg art week in November 2018. I also have an upcoming exhibition planned at the MobART gallery in Luxembourg city in February 2019.