The major documentary film festival IDFA is honouring the 82-year-old filmmaker Jørgen Leth for having “inspired generations of filmmakers with his strong auteur voice and fearless perspective on reality.”

His latest work I Walk selected for IDFA’s Feature Length competition programme, is his filmic testimony and a very personal reflection on ageing and the ability to keep walking in life. 

Following the 2020 earthquake that shook Haiti and destroyed his home in Jacmel, Leth tries to recover from the trauma. Filming his every day, with an iPhone and through poetic visions from the past captured by his son Asger Leth and long time collaborator Tómas Gislason, he eventually sets on an epic journey to Laos, on a mission to physically frame a piece of jungle.

The film produced by Danish Documentary has its world premiere on Sunday in Amsterdam. 

How does it feel to be the centre of attention at IDFA and to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award?
Jørgen Leth: It’s wonderful.  IDFA is all the more special as I’ve been coming for years and had previous films in competition. I’m proud that I Walk is also for part this year’s competition programme. 

The idea for the film came from your son Asger Leth who accompanies you on your filmic journey. Was it hard for you to accept to do this introspective film?
JL: I was suffering after the earthquake in Haiti. I had lost my house, directions in life. I’ve always written notes about life, art, so it was natural to start filming how I felt with my iPhone. At the beginning, I did not see this exercise as a film, but Asger did. He said: “go on filming and documenting things”. He was right. It made sense.

I therefore continued to film and felt I was doing something essential. I liked the framing in a crazy and untidy way. It made me feel like I was returning to my original work as an experimental filmmaker.

In its form, the film is very much an ode to life-and death - with sensations, memories floating. Did you approach the making of the film the way you approach poetry? 
JL: Yes it’s very close. For once I was able to use film in a similar way to the way I write poetry. Also the film is close in themes to my recent collection of poetry published earlier this year and in the film, I have direct quotes from it. 

Do you see this film both as a filmic testament, but also as a continuation of your previous works The Perfect Human, Good & Evil, or Motion Picture?
JL: Yes. You can see my work as a whole and as a continuous exploration of how to make films. This is why I’m so pleased to be receiving a Life Achievement Award at IDFA. I feel my work is quite coherent and one person’s perennial exploration of film language. I’m very conscious of this. I Walk shows that I’m literally still walking and exploring life and filmmaking. 

The act of walking is so simple, and again part of the exploration of movement recurrent in your earlier films…
JL: In my previous films such as Good and Evil, I also mention a simple action, observing a human moving in space. It’s an eternal theme. I felt that walking was a gift, but after the earthquake, it’s a new challenge. Even today, I’m struggling with it, although I just had an operation and I feel much better.

Jacmel in Haiti was your home. How was the experience for you to loose everything in the earthquake?
JL: I’ve been fascinated by Haiti since 1981, when I went there for my film The Foreign Correspondent. I went back several times and ultimately decided to settle there in 1991 as I love the country, the people, Haitian art, and have many friends. I was trying to overcome my depression and as soon as I moved there I got a new sense of life. 

On January 12, 2010 when the earthquake hit and destroyed my house, I was there with three friends, working on the editing of Erotic Man. I was upstairs and it was a shocking experience. Somehow in my mind and in my heart, I’m still in my house.  This is why it was so painful to be forced to leave. 

What does home mean to you?
JL: In the film, I say: a house is more than a thing. It’s an atmosphere, a space where you feel at home, where you have daily rituals.

The second part of the film is dedicated to your ’Fitzcarraldo’ grand dream of physically framing a piece of the jungle in Laos. Where did this desire come from?
JL: I’ve always been attracted to rivers and forests. Rivers represent something deep in life, in my imagination. And jungles are the most chaotic and crazy natural elements in the world, and I liked the idea of penetrating it. I’ve been in jungles in Brazil, for my film Moments of Play. So it’s also a kind of coming back to the same elements, part of my filmic testament, the same way that I come back to Ole Ritter [cyclist champion]. I’ve always experimented with film language. I like to go back to the roots, where language comes from, where people and places come from. 

Testimony is also about legacy. What do you feel you are leaving behind as an artist and to your children?
JL: I want to leave a certain sensitivity. I’m proud that all my children are involved in an artistic activity. Hopefully, I have passed to them my thirst for knowledge, my curiosity, the anthropological side of me. 

How was the experience of making this intimate film with your close collaborations editor/cameraman Tómas Gislason, and editor Jacob Thuesen?
JL: Both are amazing. Unlike many filmmakers, I’m not present in the editing room. I just deliver my work so editing is a long and creative process. Tómas and Jacob are secretive, but we exchange ideas. The film was not based on a script; we just found a way to tell the story, in a poetic way. 

What role has filmmaking played in your life?
JL: It’s a difficult question to answer. I’ve always split my time between writing and filming since the 1960s. I never thought I had to choose between poetry and filmmaking. For me these are two sides of the same coin. 

Is art essential to be closer to eternity - to God?
JL:  It’s rare that I express myself about religion, but I do in this film. The idea of moving on, having a space in the world is also about trying to be eternal.

Is there one particular film in your body of work that is your favourite?
JL: I love Motion Picture, about tennis champion Torben Ulrich, one of my early and most meaningful films. I did it with no money at all, with a handheld camera and it was edited in a primitive way. It was a very simple and perhaps the purest way of making a film. I feel it’s perhaps my best film ever.