‘Grandpa Ernest Speaks’
Madeleine Bazil (MA 2018) describes her path from studying English Literature at St Andrews to writing and directing ‘Grandpa Ernest Speaks’ – a documentary about her great-grandfather Ernest’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague to the US as a Jewish refugee during the Holocaust.
Why St Andrews?
I was initially interested in applying to St Andrews because I knew what I wanted to study (English) and what I didn’t (anything to do with maths) and so was disinclined toward the American academic system that required students to take modules across a wide range of subjects.
When I visited the University it was on a dismal, rainy Open Day, but I fell in love regardless and immediately felt at home. All the things I wanted were here: a charming and walkable town, an excellent School of English and a vibrant student life.
From English Literature to documentary storytelling
After I graduated, I moved to Cape Town, South Africa to begin creating digital content for a pan-African media startup. At the time, Cape Town was experiencing a severe drought and I started to take photographs documenting the water crisis and the political response to it. This made me realise that I wanted to pursue documentary storytelling as a career, so I enrolled in a Masters in Documentary Arts at the University of Cape Town.
During this time I also began to work on my film – Grandpa Ernest Speaks – the story of my great-grandfather’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague to the US via London during the Holocaust. Grandpa Ernest Speaks documents the three years that I spent collating audio memoirs, archival family photographs and contemporary footage and testimonies to bridge the gap between past and present. Conversations about the ripple effects of trauma; the intergenerational transfer of memory; the ways we construct and negotiate definitions of identity, home and belonging and the way these things may be self-determined or foisted upon us are rarely reflected or represented onscreen in the way I’ve experienced them, which is why I particularly wanted my family’s story to engage with them.
I submitted the most recent iteration of Grandpa Ernest Speaks as my Masters thesis. The documentary had its world premiere in the Prague International Indie Film Festival and has since screened in Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and South Africa. In October 2022 it was released on the high-profile UK-based film platform Girls in Film and had its German premiere at the 2022 Refugees Welcome Film Festival at Berlin’s historic Babylon Cinema.
St Andrews’ contribution to this career path
Since graduating and completing Grandpa Ernest Speaks, I’ve carved out a full-time career creating films and videos and taking photographs as well as writing and editing for a variety of NGOs, publishers, film productions and small businesses. I credit St Andrews for so much of this.
I vividly recall the Old English module I took in third year: I found it incredibly difficult, and my flatmate and I spent many evenings labouring over translations, but that window into the etymology of language on a granular level has stuck with me as a writer.
I signed up for as many poets’ classes as possible. I loved John Burnside’s ‘Literature and Ecology’ module – my first introduction to ecocriticism and nature writing and now a significant part of my work. I took a poetry class with Don Paterson which was seminal for me. He offered so many gems: I remember him once saying that a poem is only a poem, rather than a fragment, if it has a sense of movement – if it transports you somewhere. I think about that all the time – I think it holds true for stories of all sorts.
In fourth year, I wrote my dissertation on the poetry of Jack Gilbert and the ‘inadequacy of language’ – how the essential condition of poetry is that of an inherently flawed attempt to convey a felt experience. I’m still interested today in how mutable and subjective we are when we recall and transmit memories and stories – a big theme in Grandpa Ernest Speaks – and people have often described Grandpa Ernest Speaks as a ‘poetic’ film in its scope and sensibility. The things I studied in St Andrews continue to inform my creative choices, thematic preoccupations and understanding of how to craft a narrative.
I was also a photographer with Lightbox St Andrews throughout my four years here, which enabled me to connect with a group of likeminded, creative collaborators who ultimately became friends. If I look at how I organised my days in St Andrews – poring over books, meeting people from all over the world, finding an artistic community and identity (and of course swimming in the sea and walking on the coastal path) – it’s remarkably similar to how I spend my days now. St Andrews provided me with a blueprint for what fulfils me both intellectually and personally, and I’ll always be grateful for that.
What’s next …
I’m looking forward to sending Grandpa Ernest Speaks to more film festivals over the coming months, and I’m also beginning to brainstorm and research potential ideas for my next film. I believe that the climate crisis should be at the core of all contemporary stories since it intersects with and implicates everything else, so the next thing I direct will be environmentally focused, and impact-driven.
In the meantime, I’m also working as a writer, photographer and video editor with a focus on gender and environmental issues. And I want to write more poetry, too!
Watch this space…
Watch Grandpa Ernest Speaks on Girls in Film. For more information, email Madeleine Bazil ([email protected]) or visit madeleinebazil.com/ges