Chutzpah. Something about Modesty by Monica Stambrini was one of the most daring films I saw at DocLisboa 2023.

At its core, the film tackles the theme of the fragility of identity. The filmmaker is trying to piece together her old identity with her need for change. In the process she reviews her multiple roles as a daughter, as a mother, as a partner. The ambition to become a filmmaker is left aside early in life or postponed for later. We become privy to her everyday life, the obstacles she encounters. The opening scene also talks about the fragility of cinema itself, the camera being threatened from the very beginning: “Mum, turn the camera off or I’ll smash it”. And these two fragilities come together in an interesting way in the film.

The concept itself is extremely intriguing. In the filmmaker’s own words: “In the midst of a personal and work crisis, I begin to film everything obsessively: my parents, grandparents, children, friends and lovers, myself and psychotherapy. Some footage is consensual, some is ‘stolen’. This way my personal-intimate becomes narrative: the recent separation, the pain of my children’s distance, my parents’ separation, my inadequacy as a mother and as a filmmaker.”

The following interview with Monica Stambrini was conducted via Zoom in November 2023. 

Dana Knight: I loved the concept of your film. The title is an oxymoron, Chutzpah means audacity while pudore is translated as modesty but is something more akin to “shyness”. There is a “forward going” movement in Chutzpah and something holding back in pudore. That is an interesting tension and the film seems to be born out of it. Maybe you could tell me more about how this personal film came about …

Monica Stambrini : I was in a very big crisis, mainly the one that’s in the film, a crisis usually happens when several things come together. I was both in a professional crisis and a sentimental one, I wasn’t happy. 

But something that’s not in the film, actually it is in the film, it’s the fact that I was having problems finding work as a film director. The ideas I suggested to agents and producers were not considered, it was a big crisis. At some point, not knowing what to do, I started thinking “I have this footage”, nothing professional, it’s amateur, I filmed these images in the time before Instagram. The film started 10 years ago, that’s when I split up. So I spoke about it to my film editor, we are friends and we always work together. And I started writing down the voice-over and collecting all these images and together we started building the film. And what was funny and exciting is that I started filming everything. So at that point my life became a film. So I was very excited, like any film director, when he gets to shoot a movie, he can kill to get what he wants…

So I had this fantastic energy but also a bit of a moral question: what am I allowed to show regarding other people. I am careless about myself, I don’t care about shame or being naked. It was therapeutical.

There is something very daring about the way you show yourself on screen…

I did quite a bit of thinking about this…there is something about women especially, either Chutzpah or modesty, and you’re right, it’s not the right translation of pudore. Maybe women were taught to keep their private lives private for so long, first of all their sexual desire. Men can go around saying “I like you, I like you”, but women aren’t allowed to do that. Now women are getting their voices out more, and wanting to be naked. I think there is a genre coming out.

There are moments of humour and lightness in the film which could have otherwise become quite heavy. Your kids are very funny. What comes to mind is the counting scene on the loo… 

(Laughing) Also because I’m wrong in all the answers I give him…Symbolic of how parents teach kids the wrong things, we give them the wrong answers.

You filmed one of your therapy sessions by hiding the camera under your coat apparently…and confronted your therapist by saying that therapy is immoral, what happened there?

What happened with the psychotherapist in the film is what happened in life. She put me in front of a decision, “Either we do a therapy or you do your film, the two things can’t go on together”. She didn’t like the idea of me filming the sessions, she didn’t want to be part of the film, she wanted me to go into a deeper therapy. As my father says in the film, the two things couldn’t go together. 

To me it wasn’t immediately obvious: “I’m talking about myself, where is your privacy involved?”But it’s like a rule of therapy, you break a certain law by filming the sessions. So I stopped filming and went into proper Freudian therapy, three times a week. 

Would you like to share something about your experience of psychotherapy that is not in the film?

I could have moved to yoga, meditation, ayahuasca, religion, one can find many alternatives to lean on to when you’re in need. But somehow therapy was my thing, my father is a psychotherapist, I grew up with it so I decided to go into proper Freudian therapy, three times a week. I believe it helped me. Of course it did not solve all my problems.

You had mixed feelings about psychotherapy at the beginning of the film but do you feel you gained some insight through making this film?

Definitely. In real life, I actually went on with my therapy because I decided I wasn’t ready to make this film public. Because at the time I was really suffering. 

When I finished the film, 6 months ago, I had the chance to record my voice with a proper microphone, in a proper studio, but I decided to keep that old recording because I’m not an actress and that voice I had at the time, you can tell I was really feeling it. 

When I was making the film, I wasn’t very objective because I was so involved. But when I watched it again after eight years, when my therapy finished, I started laughing, the whole time. All of a sudden, I thought: ”This girl who’s suffering so much, she isn’t going through anything dramatic really, it’s stuff that everyone goes through, at least once in their life so what’s the drama? Instead I was laughing about myself. And I was benevolent towards myself, finally. The “me” suffering, the “me” separating, the “me” in crisis…I was laughing at myself and this gave me the strength to make it public. 

You saw yourself with detachment …

Yes, and that’s what’s fascinating about human life, at some point you look back and you’re more benevolent.

Psychoanalysis is a lot about the relationship with the parents, that’s probably why they occupy such a big chunk of the film. They are both very interesting figures and complete opposites, a bit like the oxymoron in the title. 

Absolutely. And that is the tragedy of every child with separated parents, your biggest wish is to see them back together. But that’s not possible. You are the sum of those two people. And to be honest I don’t know any couples with kids who are still together after 15 years. So we should probably start asking ourselves…

If marriage is a lifetime endeavour?;)

Yes, what’s it going to be like in 15 years. 

Would you say that psychoanalysis makes you feel like you’re a bit doomed, like in a Greek tragedy?

What I understood after all these years, what Freudian analysis says is that we are all doomed, we all live through traumas that parents probably don’t even remember but for us were terrible events. And those traumas will always be there, there is no way to get over them. 

Actually there is a way to get over them, and it’s to recognise them, to see them, to make peace with them. As long as you don’t leave them unconscious…This is how Freudian therapy can heal you, by looking back at your traumas as an adult, you put them in a different context, they looked enormous but now they are small and not so big anymore. 

It’s like a change in perspective. The traumas are there, just get over it. As to what cognitive behavioural therapy does, instead of drinking, do exercise, instead of smoking, go out for a walk. 

But I like Freudian analysis, I like to go deep to the root and I like the darkness, I am attracted to what is unsaid, unspoken, to what isn’t meant to be shown. 

Before this film I did two porn films. The whole topic of showing what is not supposed to be shown is very dear to me. I like cinema when it provokes. I like chutzpah in films, things that are not easy. 

They were also shown at DocsLisboa a few years ago…

Yes. 

And while on this topic, do you feel you revealed as much as you wanted or you held something back in your new film?

Well, as you could see, there was a masturbation scene and there was some censorship involved, a veil. So I did hold back a bit. But I did film everything at the time, including me having sex with my partners. But I decided not to show that. For my kids more than my parents. I didn’t want to end up doing what I accused my father of in the film: “How could you expose me to your sex life?”. Otherwise I would have ended up doing to my kids what my father did to me…

But in the case of your children, that experience would have been mediated through cinema…which is different than experiencing something directly. 

Absolutely. 

Also, another instance of mediation is a letter your mother wrote to you. 

When I was splitting up from my husband, she wrote me a very passionate letter, putting me in guard, telling me “I understand your decision, I went through this suffering myself so if I can spare you anything…” It was a beautiful letter. Because mainly she shared her experience. But in the end she was happy that I split up. 

And you’re also happy with your decision now.

Yes, I had to do it. I think couples, families, it’s very difficult to change in a couple. It requires a big love and maturity. And I needed to change and wasn’t able to do it within the couple. But a separation is full of sorrow, especially when you have kids. 

It’s a topic we all relate to. We don’t see a lot of your husband in the film though. And definitely not nearly enough of your lovers… 

I was very scared that he would say “No, you can’t do this film”. Due to privacy issues of course.  Because you can’t film someone and stick them in a film without them giving you their approval. That’s why he’s more of a voice in the background. And also the separation wasn’t his fault, it was all about me. And I quite like the fact that the only time you see him, we are always in a car, the metaphor of a family, all stuck together, getting lost. 

Actually he saw the film and he liked it. 

Where will the film travel to next?

In Milan, there is going to be a screening at the end of November, it’s an old independent film festival, it’s going to be the closing night film. 

Possibly at Film Madrid next year. 

And on the platform IndiePix, it’s an independent platform, like Netflix for independent films.