British director Sir Alan Parker, the man behind Midnight Express, Pink Floyd The Wall and The Commitments, and head of the British Film Council, was in town for the 10th Sofia Film Fest.

To date, he has made 14 films over a period of 28 years.

Is it possible to pinpoint the hardest film you’ve worked on and your proudest achievement?
“I did a film called Pink Floyd TheWall, with Pink Floyd which was a really miserable experience. I suppose that was the hardest because I hated every day. I used to wake up in the morning and think: I just don’t want to go to work. We did good work and the film is very good I think because sometimes out of conflict can come good creative work. But I didn’t enjoy it, it wasn’t fun at all. The Commitments was really fun. It was the opposite. I used to wake up and think: I can’t wait to get to work.

So, proudest achievement is a different thing to enjoying it I suppose. Some of the films I’ve done that have not been a success are the ones you love the most because you put as much effort into every one of them.”

Both Pink Floyd The Wall and the Commitments, along with Fame, Midnight Express and Birdy will be shown at the Sofia Film Fest.

Will you be watching the screening of your films? How does it feel to revisit them?
“There hasn’t been time for me to watch them (here). Sometimes, if I’m watching TV late at night, or you’re going through jet lag or insomnia and you put the TV on in the middle of the night and there’s a film on, you go: ‘This looks good,’ then you suddenly think: ‘Oh, actually I made this film!’ You forget sometimes. But I think most directors would prefer not to see their work after all these years [laughs] which is peculiar.”

So there’s nothing you’d like to go back and change, no regrets?
“I don’t think you should really...If you see Picasso in his blue period, he’s not going to look at it 30 years later and say: ‘I’m going to go back and paint everything yellow.’ You make your statement at that period in time and really you should stick by it. It always amazes me when you see these things saying ‘the director’s cut’- you think, well the original should have been the director’s cut.

The films that I put out are the films I wanted to put out and if they don’t work it’s my fault, not some studio’s fault. So, no, I don’t have any regrets - sometimes I regret that I put so much anxiety into the making of it. Some directors I really admire are able to just sail through a film without getting a heart attack or an ulcer. I think I’m the opposite - every moment is so painful to do, day by day, because you’re so concerned and so worried - but that can be good work. A friend of mine, Steven Friers, he has no care in the world - it’s kind of a much better attitude I think!”

This attitude, though, has built Parker a reputation as an independent figure in film making - never subscribing to a single genre and seldom working with the same actors, but still retaining trust from big American studios. But, he says, “it becomes more difficult, I have to say, much more difficult” to remain independent and still getting backing from big studios. “What’s really interesting is that a film like Birdy or Midnight Express - because Midnight Express had nobody known in it, it didn’t cost much money, it was filmed in Europe - that kind of film now, today, would be made as an independent film, but in those days they were studio films. Studios don’t do that kind of film anymore.” Now, he says, the big studios have offshoots, for example 20th Century Fox has Fox Searchlight, which make small films for low budgets, “which is their way of grabbing hold of the independent sector.”

He cites the example of the recent hit Brokeback Mountain, saying that in the past, it would have been made as an independent film, but that now it is made by Focus, an offshoot of Universal.

Do you think this setup encourages creativity?
“That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think it’s good really, it’s good in that the studios acknowledge that there’s another kind of cinema other than their big blockbusters. On the other hand, they bring to that kind of cinema the same kind of disciplines, the same kind of aggression about what it is they want. They’re not great patrons of art; they’re there to make money. But on the other hand, the most debilitating thing, the most depressing thing that film makers go through is not the making of the film, it is trying to find the money to make the film...That process can sap all your energy- it’s not such a terrifically good thing, but once you’ve got your money, you make the film you want and no one’s going to interfere with you, that’s the good side.”

So, you don’t have to make concessions or compromises to get funding?
“There was a time when people said: ‘What is the script? What is the subject? Who is going to direct it? Who is going to be in it?’. Now the questions are: ‘Who’s in it? Who’s in it? Who’s in it?’! They’re not interested in who makes it, they’re interested in: can you get Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt to be in it? That’s all that matters, it’s their only guarantee of any kind of success. It’s the same in the independent sector - it’s not Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, it’s someone not as important - but they still want names that they know.”

My colleague mentions that he spoke last year to Peter Greenaway, a longstanding sparring partner of Alan Parker’s, about the debate concerning new technologies in cinema.

“It doesn’t matter what the technology is  - no one will watch a Peter Greenaway film anyway!” Parker jokes.

 “New technologies mean that anyone can tell a story really, and that’s good because you’re going to get lots of different stories told by lots of different people. But, I have yet to be convinced that to watch a film on an ipod, or even on a computer screen, is as good as watching the experience with an audience in a cinema...How you record it, how you cut it, how you edit it, all those things are helpful, but if it means I’m going to watch it on my phone, that’s not an advance.”

His phone beeps on cue. “Two - nil!”. It would seem, however, that the Islington-born North Londoner does consider it an advance to get the latest Arsenal score by phone. He gives the victory salute as he heads off for this evening’s awards ceremony.

- With thanks to Ivo Filipov.

An exhibition of Sir Alan Parker’s cartoons is on display in the foyer of The British Council until Sunday March 26.

Filmography
The Life of David Gale (2003)
Angela’s Ashes (1999)
Evita (1996)
The Road to Wellville (1994)
The Commitments (1991)
Come See the Paradise (1990)
Mississippi Burning (1988)
Angel Heart (1987)
Birdy (1984)
Pink Floyd The Wall (1982)
Shoot the Moon (1982)
Fame (1980)
Midnight Express (1978)
Bugsy Malone (1976)
The Evacuees (1975) (TV)
Footsteps (1974)
Our Cissy (1974)