Valletta is the city in which to film a version of Romeo and Juliet set in a different time period, according to Oscar-nominated director Roland Joffé.

“As I walk around through the streets in Malta, I’m constantly thinking that I could tell this or that story. There are so many stories that you can take and set here and find interesting ways of making them look,” he said.

Speaking to Times of Malta, the erudite and articulate director is brimming with ideas about how the island could develop a thriving film industry.

Universally praised for films such as The Killing Fields and The Mission, Mr Joffé is heading the international jury of the first edition of the Valletta Film Festival, which runs until Sunday.

Asked for some tips for successful filmmaking, he believes having a great story is key.

A film can be visually beautiful and well-acted, but if the story is not gripping, it will not hold the audience.

The next most important thing is acting, because people engaged with the real emotions of others.

“The strange thing with films is that when there are close-ups, we are closer to the actor than to the people we really meet, except for our husbands and wives,” he points out. “Then there’s the way the visual images combine to tell a story. That works together with music. Film is like a kaleidoscope: the slightest twist and the whole thing can take on a different shape.”

Picture perfect: A typical Valletta balcony scene.Picture perfect: A typical Valletta balcony scene.

The first thing that struck him when he was poring over the 300-page screenplay of The Killing Fields through the night was that it was based primarily on the story of a friendship between two journalists in a devastated Cambodia.

“The stronger the friendship between them, the more the story became about human beings and less about politics, which is very important. Movies don’t do well when they’re about politics; they do well when they’re about human relations.”

Before working on the 1984 film, which is based on the experiences of two actual journalists, Mr Joffé admits he initially knew nothing about Cambodia.

“Of course, I knew that the country existed. I knew about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge but in a kind of vague way. We couldn’t get into Cambodia at the time of the filming. The Khmer Rouge had just finished but the Vietnamese were there. The country was very destabilised.”

He visited the country in the mid-1980s with Sydney Schanberg, the American journalist featured in The Killing Fields. The two went for a walk in the capital.

There are so many stories that you can take and set here and find interesting ways of making them look

“Sydney had spent time in Phnom Penh but I’d never actually been there. But I had studied that map so thoroughly that I knew how to get from the hotel we were in to the French Embassy. I had the map all in my head,” he recalls, smiling.

In Cambodia, Mr Joffé was made aware of the harsh landmine situation.

Many people were moving around on wooden legs.

Having asked why the legs were made of wood, he was told that the organisation that was fitting them believed it should not give people things that went beyond what they had the technology to make.

Mr Joffé believed that better limbs could be fashioned with the tremendous amount of skill the Cambodians had. Together with other patrons, he helped set up the Cambodia Trust, which fits artificial limbs and has a school of prosthetics.

“What it did in a wonderful way was it turned a tragedy into a possibility – now Cambodia has one of the best schools of prosthetics and attracts people from all over the world.”

Mr Joffé admits it is difficult for any country to develop a film industry outside America. France has done best because it understands the fact that filmmaking is a mode of cultural expression and is blessed with very strong government engagement.

“French films can sometimes do well outside France but can survive in France. Malta is not going to work like that. You can’t make culturally Maltese films.”

Malta needs to develop crew skills such as carpentry, set-building and cinema design, which could be acquired through government-run courses.

“Many cruise ships come here; I don’t know why you don’t have a light show, which could be extraordinarily well done and based on the history of Malta. It would be presented in one of the forts accompanied by music, sets and acting – almost like the Oberammergau plays.”

One needs to think subject matter. International stories could be created and shot here or even funded in Malta and promoted abroad.

Alliances could be built through, for instance, having an international film school set up in Malta.

“It’s a matter of ambition. We must think holistically. If I were living in Malta – which I’d like to do – it’s one of the things I’d be doing. I’d be saying: Let’s get all this going, let’s cross-fertilise everything.”

What’s in the pipeline for Roland Joffé?

Once again, he is brimming with ideas. A version of Mata Hari, called Seeking Paradise, a film set in South Africa about peace and reconciliation with actor Forest Whitaker and a new version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame called Ugly – which very possibly could be filmed in Malta, he adds.

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