You are All Wrong, I am Right

My greatest wish for people is that their thoughts and actions are in harmony. Because, to me, that is the most precious thing in our lives. At the same time, this is exactly what doesn’t pay off in everyday life: No matter what we do, we always have to compromise, to equivocate. Humankind is very prone to that. Naturally, this is a personal matter; no one’s inconsistencies should concern anyone else. But what if your environment, the people, the industry, whatever you want to call it, almost systematically pressures you to change your mind, to compromise?

People praise innovation, creativity, and art, but when you actually take action in that direction, those same people resist you. Isn’t that ironic? Most people around us act as our enemies in this respect. If you want to do something new, they ask who will watch it; if you want to stick to your principles and vision, they tell you not to bother. They transform you into something you don’t want to be, and then everyone complains about art being corrupted.

The Anti-Creative System

If you look closely, the film industry has somehow turned into the most anti-creative field in the arts. Making a film today is like thousands of people whispering in your ear and judging your choices. We live in an era of hyper-superficial criticism. A piece of art that took years of sweat and blood is reduced to a star rating on database platforms and on social media.

Before you even pick up a camera, you have to obey unwritten rules. There are rigid expectations about exactly how long a film should be. There are invisible laws about how it must be paced, how it must be structured, and how it must be edited. And if you somehow survive the rules, you meet the gatekeepers. The funding boards that are looking for safe projects. The prestigious festivals that are seeking to fill this year’s political or aesthetic quota. You have to apologize for having a different taste if you don’t fit the trend.

As a filmmaker, you are taken in two dangerous directions: the haters who want to tear you down, and the fans who love you but only want you to repeat your past works. Both are traps that will distract you from what you actually need to be doing. Even the people who support your art and creative freedom will resist you the moment you are actually free. The second you step outside their expectations of what an “independent or artistic film” should look like, they turn their backs. Freedom, the real one, terrifies people.

A Tomato is a Fruit, But It’s not an Apple

Yes, cinema is art, but it’s not like writing poetry. When you write a poem, you are totally free. You can play with words all day; it costs zero money. Making a film is a fight. At every single step, somebody is trying to tell you how to do your job, especially when they have the money or guard the gates. You fight the rules, or you accept them and censor yourself before you even start. Film is a massive investment. Nobody wants to lose their money, so they stick to the safe way. Just because of this, filmmakers who actually take risks are super rare. But we don’t even appreciate them. They get pushed to the edges, even at those fancy film festivals we all praise. Most of them have just become safe markets for formulaic fake art films.

Now imagine this: You don’t start just now. You have gone through introspection and gained insights. You have criticized yourself and received reasonable, rational, and radical, all kinds of feedback from colleagues whose judgment you trust. In short, you know what you are doing. But people who are completely ignorant of this whole process bully your work and your stance. Perhaps you try to explain yourself to them. It’s useless. Those who understand will understand, and those who don’t won’t, until you hit the bullseye. If you are somehow very successful, even your stupid ideas could be valued, because success justifies anything.

But, my friends, art isn’t like a sport where the best wins, or like science, where you can objectively verify the work. It’s a completely gray area, where the human mind and soul can’t exactly decide what they will or won’t like, and what they are or aren’t ready for. Of course, we apply technical knowledge and analytical thinking when creating a work, which I value. But the resulting piece is a matter of opinions, feelings, and beliefs, in which no one (absolutely no one) has the competence or the right to pass judgment on it. At the same time, just one individual’s idea might be enough to define what art is. At its core, the experience of discovering and enjoying art is a personal matter.

It’s a Paradox

Yes, there is a paradox here: while no single authority can judge art, a personal definition can be sufficient for the individual. We typically resolve this tension by building context around it. Artworks always exist within a context; they are presented to the public with labels like classical, modern, or avant-garde, which are actually collective constructs. And to make a clear collective judgment, we mostly drag art into other arenas; we look at it through socio-political, economic, and academic frameworks, which leads us to corrupt it and kill the sense of personal curiosity and discovery.

To me, the most authentic context could be one that emerges from unpredictable circumstances. That’s still a construct, but it is not meant to be produced in laboratories; it is something that develops organically within cultures, just as nature does. And there are great works that manage to survive from that chaos without any certain formulas. But the main problem today is that formulas are imposed upon us as if such a recipe actually existed. Cinema, and art in a broader sense, is trapped within frameworks on all sides. They are eliminated or ignored without being allowed to create their own habitat; in other words, their unpredictable context.

As artists, the ground beneath us seems so unstable that we need forces that can anchor us a bit. So, my friends, sometimes, instead of being afraid to look arrogant or censoring ourselves, when it comes to our work, we just need to stand up and say: You are all wrong, I am right.