From Greece by guest contributor Dimitrios Machairidis
Photo credit: Dimitrios Machairidis
“Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump you probably can guess whom I like. Although both of them are on the right for me, Hillary at least is prepared to become president. On the contrary, everything about Trump is disappointing. He is a big catastrophe. Hillary cares about people. She has spent her life learning about social issues like education and justice. I am optimistic that if Hillary wins she will appoint a good judge in the Supreme Court which will turn it to the left. Personally, I was for Bernie Sanders. He brought everything a little left. He is one of the first Americans to offer hope, real free socialist thinking. Obama did the right thing to help us socially. If he was not blocked so much in the Congress by the Republicans he could do as much as he wanted,”Bobby Roth told Hollywood on the Potomac.
The film director, screenwriter and producer of several extremely popular television series like “Prison Break” and “Lost” was in Athens, Greece for his “A Director Prepares: Bobby Roth’s Master Class” at the Onassis Foundation Cultural Center. He arrived in Athens from Drama, a small cinematographic city in Northern Greece. There, he was the president of the jury of the 22nd International Short Film Festival and guest teacher of the pitching lab of the festival conducted by the director Barbara Dukas.
“Drama is a beautiful city and this festival is really serious about movies. We saw 52 movies in five days. There were many good short films made with little money. Some of them were very innovative and story wise. Watching these films you see that there is hope for the future. This is why I love Europe and Greece specifically,” he added. “People consider art as an important part of life. I wish that both candidates, Hillary and Trump, were concerned about the arts. Neither of them talks about its importance.”
“Today politics are mostly personal oriented and pretty tin. So, apart from some comedies like Jon Steward’s, most of the TV shows are not very interesting politically. People love drama, and TV series are mostly focused on drama characters and specifically on the antihero, the bad guy who sells drugs and lies to everyone. We fall in love with people like Tony Soprano who is a killer. The antihero is an almost new character found in recent years. The public loves characters like those of Matthew Fox or Josh Holloway in ‘Lost’ and follows their adventures every week. In TV series you can develop a character much more than in the movies where everything has to run in hours. As a director, it is fun to help the actors to pursue a surprising character. This is something that I love in television” said Roth.
Altruism is the surprising side of Bobby Roth’s personal character. “Helping other people I become a better person. I wanted to offer something useful for the students in cinematography, because when I was in school I did not know how to work. I prepared the master class ‘A Director Prepares’ composed by ten documentaries. Filming my class I realized that the best part of it was when my friends came in to talk. Immediately I started interviewing more than fifty writers, producers, cinematographers, actors. I never thought that such an incredible diversity of personalities would be included in the same documentary.”
In Los Angeles, Bobby Roth’s work place is a block away from where he was born. But the whole of his life’s journey went through his self-determination. “All of my work is about getting control of the whole life. Coming from a very business- oriented family, I felt I would be in business too. However, in college I was not a good student, I was confused. Those days we had a very strong anti-war movement. We were taking a lot of chances. Women were becoming free of the traditional sexual stereotypes, they took birth control pills. I got involved in politics but finally rock and roll inspired me to become a film maker through its songs and their lyrics, its emotions and idealistic ideas about changing the world.”
This November Bobby Roth will be preparing the show “The Last Ship” based on his own script. “After the International Short Film Festival in Drama I am thinking about making my first short film. I can finance it myself and work together with my friends. It might be a little more risky but it will definitely be very spontaneous.” Friendship matters the most for Bobby Roth.
