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“I don’t think progress goes in one direction. Th
e world is pretty complicated forever and literature and art has a role in trying to understand those complexities… in some way you can say the world has changed but Shakespeare and Proust are still relevant. That’s because there are some essential questions of human nature and desire that don’t get resolved.” This leads us on to him to showing me some of his Notes which include a Vimeo list of movies he needs to have constant access to as touchstone reference points and also an extensive list of movies he has watched with his children Felix and Viva who he has coparented with his husband Borris Torres and director Kirsten Johnson and her wife. “I began with Loony Tunes and then introduced genre. You begin to realise kids can watch anything which is actually the inverse of what popular culture is doing which is dumbing down what adults are seeing. I consider the Scorsese direction in terms of ‘what did he see as a kid?’ (He has shared this list with us and we promise to feature it in the magazine or online in the near future). When the credits role thanks is given to his long-term friends and supporters with some familiar names such as Andrew Haigh, François Ozon, Kelly Reichardt and Rachel Cusk cropping up. On these connections Sachs says, “the only way to survive is to create trusting relationships with other people who are trying to do things similar to you. I’ve created a non-profit called Queer Art which was this idea that if the apparatus existed, then possibly the artist can sustain their practice. Without relationships, I wouldn’t know where to find strength or comfort.” And when we get round to the hustler skills Sachs has developed to get his singular adult woman’ and I was like, ‘it’s going to be hot,’ and I think that’s because identity was so important to establish for my generation because it was so denied. When I made the film with a generation younger than myself that question of identity just disappeared.” Sachs is also an ardent cinephile and is at great ease discussing what informs and influences his work. “There’s always a possibility there’s a movie I’ve never seen will change my life and I exist in that expectation. That encourages you to voraciously consume. I saw a movie with Barbara Stanwyck called Remember the Night with my kids. In it there’s a scene where a family gathers together and a man sings A Perfect Day. In that moment I have an image and a feeling which the movie has given me which becomes nourishment and content.” He ended up having Carrie Jacobs-Bond’s parlour song from 1909 sung in a country house scene in Passages. dramas made, he values his independence, “I exist in a range where what you are seeing is a hand-made act, a piece of art made by somebody that whether you like it or not it is mine and I share it with you hoping you will find pleasure from it. That is what independence is. It is not an industry, it is how much you can preserve the individual voice.” And we circle back to the central thread of Passages when it comes to the true spoils of his craft. “The richest reward is the experience of intimacy with my collaborators and an intimacy I hope for with an audience. It’s about wanting to be connected.” Films which recently excited Ira: No Bears, Saints Omer, Zola, Zero Fucks Given Ira is currently reading Anthony Trollope, “everything is about money, every character is defined by their position and relationship to class” Passages is released by MUBI and in cinemas from September 1. Read our review in Cinema on page 51. queer-art.org 51