Chris Eska (The Retrieval)

"A couple of years ago, while we were getting closer to the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War and the Proclamation about Emancipation, when Lincoln freed his slaves, there were many stories about that tragedy, pain and hard work that brought us as a society to that point. But I was thinking about what happened the day after, what happened to these people after a week, after a month, a year and many years after. There was actually a long period between slavery and freedom. I thought how I didn’t see that on the film. The seed of the story, the idea, it was about history. But yes, all my films stem from an emotion. While writing the script I thought about difficult decision and about how you don’t really know the people you care about, we all hide stuff from each other. But most importantly, when the audience leaves the theatre, I would like them to reflect about their lives and hopefully ask themselves “Is what I do the right thing for me, for the people I care about, or am I just following the footsteps of someone older, who just told me what to do”. It’s hard thinking about it and it’s even more difficult to correct these things in oneself.”