Sydney Film Festival interview: Natalia Laska on The Piano Tuner

Natalia Laska talks to Something You Said’s Addy Fong about piano tuning, community, and documentary as a way of connecting with others:

I found out that the subject of The Piano Tuner is your partner. Was this access, your relationship with him, the reason you made this documentary?

No. I’m a journalist by profession, so I didn’t even think about it. I mean, it’s convenient to make a film about somebody who is available, you have access but later I discovered it was a bit challenging because it was very difficult to establish boundaries. Your character, your partner tries to get access to more than he should or be entitled to. It is convenient but also it has some challenges as well.

There’s a separation between journalism and documentary, with documentary perhaps that personal relationship it feels subjective compared to journalism which feels objective. Were you aware of that, given your journalistic background?

Yes, absolutely. Not because it’s investigative journalism but because it’s a portrait of the community in Australia. I had always at the back of my head this issue of not really advertising his business. It’s difficult because he’s the main character, but at the same time, I’m showing his profile, showing his work. I was trying hard to focus on community, to have him as an insider to the community of his clients and what I call domestic piano playing. If not for Martin, I wouldn’t gain so many people’s trust to get inside their house and capture it. Like I said, it’s not investigative journalism, it’s a portrait of community in the very much private space. My concern was an advertisement of a business at the time.

I guess, you choose different characters or subjects in your film to paint different chapters, different representations of community?

Yeah, you have a very wide range of clientele. This is also part of Martin’s, the piano tuner’s skill, a skill for anyone who looks at this film as a little manual for piano technicians, that you need to have this set of skills an entertainer, a technician, a social worker, this ability to adjust to different environments because you have a wide spectrum of clients. You’re doing more than, for example, plumber does but there is this intimacy, the bathroom as a place but it doesn’t have the same intimate connection to people’s hearts and mind as acoustic piano does.

Do you see parallels between filmmaking, journalism, and piano tuning? Did you notice this during your filmmaking process?

My background is not in documentary filmmaking but working for print media so it’s a bit different because you have this moment of exploring, researching, then you go home and process data and photographs. In this case, it’s more complex because there’s footage to edit, which I find it quite challenging maintaining some kind of integrity and all sorts of different aspects, like technical aspects of it and being a friend of people, but at the same time being a person who is trying to look at everything from the distance and trying to say, ‘where is the story here?’ Piano tuner work is incredibly repetitive. The reason why it took so long is not because I got obsessed and crazy but because it’s so difficult to make a documentary in Australia about the topic that doesn’t have any celebrity in it, sex, violence or crime.

It’s about what sells, right? Pitching wise?

Yeah. You see what sells is the fact that I was so persistent in actually pitching. I have my own theory about it and I think it’s because the people that actually make it possible from the side of the film industry in Australia belong to a specific generation and they resonate with pianos that maybe generations like yourself don’t.

Probably. I’m not sure. I prefer synthesizers rather than mechanical pianos the documentary spoke about. Maybe it’s cause of the digital age we’re in.

Yeah, exactly. You’re going to have a sentimental bond with keyboards.

Yeah, I love music, I love the piano, but I guess tuning, affordability, it’s an expensive instrument. It’s also not as portable. For me with keyboards, MIDI keyboards, you can manipulate sounds electronically. So it’s similar style, but obviously as the documentary showed, piano tuning is a dying art because a lot of pianos were discarded.

Yeah, exactly. It simply doesn’t fit into our modern lifestyle that we are forced to embrace. We are also more mobile; people are chasing jobs. Going into new locations with the piano, acoustic piano, is a piece of heavy furniture. For the generation who grew up having piano at home, they grew up in the places where there was a family house, sometimes for several generations. The piano was a centrepiece, passed on across generations. For them, they’d open the piano, take the front board and it’s like, wow, because everything smells. It brings memories, it sounds, it’s mechanical. Instead of fiddling with knobs to change volume, you have to apply a different level of pressure on the keys. So, for this generation, that is more complex, more human-like, but each generation is simply defining its own idea of things we find sentimental. People from the industry who enabled the film to be accomplished belong to this generation. For them it’s sentimental. It’s a story about a world that is slowly vanishing.

I wanted to clarify; how long did it take for you to make this film? 

Years, years and years. There was a first version, a short version of this film, broadcast in 2021, on ABC compass. The first guy who discovered this film was a person I knew. At that time, I was living in Hobart and he was a filmmaker, but also person who had a lot in common with making, physically, with craftsmanship. Roger Scholes, he’s not alive anymore but he made a beautiful film in Tasmania called The Tale of Ruby Rose. 

He simply recognized [my film] as a story that he would like to see on screen. He helped me get in touch with people from Sydney, editors that said, ‘we’re going to work on it. Doesn’t matter if you have money or not because we like the story.’ My first editor, a top ranked editor Melanie Stafford is from Sydney. I said, ‘sorry, Melanie, but I don’t have money.’ She said, ‘fuck it, we’ll do it. Don’t worry about the money. You will find the money.’ They sensed this is an important story because of the portrait of the community. They did it out of their hearts more than any kind of calculated decision. So it was years and years of staying in touch with people that can slowly, slowly, slowly pitch to Screen Australia, Screen Tasmania, slowly get a little bit of money here and there. We managed because after Roger died, I found new producers, which is the present one, Julia Overton and Tom Zubritzky. 

I’m not really across documentary but Julia and Tom’s names always come up. I know there’s Documentary Australia, OzDox. I wondered if you had relationships with documentary specific organizations to help?

No. It just happened just step by step, like I said, eight years.

Eight years?! Wow, Oh, my goodness, that’s like a child.

Yeah, it’s a child that can walk and think for itself and persistent. But this is completely unsustainable. This is not a [sustainable] business model.

I wanted to wrap up by asking, what advice would you have for documentary filmmakers regarding persistence and pitching their ideas?

I will simply say if it’s a passion, if documentary filmmaking is the way of exploring the world and learning about the world, then I wouldn’t link it with a business model. I will find some other source of money. I’d learn to, I don’t know, steal, rob the bank, for example, but keep making films as a lifestyle. Like Martin in the film, do things because you don’t have any boundary or strict division between life and work. If you don’t have money, don’t feel like it’s bad because you’re achieving so much in the space of personal satisfaction and the process of learning. So, let’s just rob banks and keep making films.

Rob banks, metaphorically, but not technically, no. Let’s clarify that. I’ll put a little disclaimer.

Metaphorically. Find another source of income because it’s important, of course, otherwise you die. Never ever stop fighting for documentary films as a way of connecting with others, connecting with yourself as well. It’s a great excuse to meet people and explore, you know, their lives and minds. 

The Piano Tuner plays at The Sydney Film Festival on 13th June at the State Library and 14th June, at Palace Norton St. Details here: The Piano Tuner – Sydney Film Festival.

Interview by Addy Fong.