Roman Polanski at the BFA.

The event began with a promising screening of Polanski’s student films, including “Two Men and a Wardrobe” and “The Fat and the Lean,” the former of which Polanski later attributed to his success in securing funding for his first feature film, the Academy Award-nominated Knife in the Water. The showing of these student films—perhaps a bit unsophisticated by current standards—served as an excellent impetus and inspiration for the BFA students present. Unfortunately, the promising start quickly unravelled. The event suffered from:

1) The poor behavior of the press. A massive number of people in the front snapped pictures of Polanski throughout his interview and during the screening of his film, blinding the man and blocking him from view.

2) The poor behavior of the audience, who embarrassingly stormed the stage at the end, mobbing the elderly Polanski and greedily grabbing at him for autographs and pictures.

3) The idiotic usage of pre-written questions as opposed to audience interaction. The questions were largely read aloud from notes by non-Chinese international students who seemed to be under the impression that their questions were actually letters to Mr. Polanski. The translator could not read the hand-written questions so Mr. Polanski was forced to read the questions, which led to one of the most amusing/embarrassing situations of the afternoon: A “question” began, “Dear Mr. Polanski, not sure if you remember me but I met you last week and gave you a copy of my student film. What do you think of my chances of getting into a film festival?”

Cringeworthy.

The mob descends.

There were a few gems, though. After the diminutive Polanski’s arrival on stage, he attempted to hide behind the comically massive bouquet of flowers placed on the table before him. He also articulately and charismatically responded to questions from the arbitrator. Polanski aimed to inspire the students present, advising them to avoid “chopping your films into fruit salad,” and discussing his rambunctious beginnings as a director in film school: Polanski invited hooligans to a conservative school party to liven up his one and only “documentary,” which almost got him expelled and turned him off of documentaries for life. However, Polanski’s love of film kept the school authorities from expelling him, and it was his education and support at the Polish Film School that led to his momentous success as a director.

There were moments of exasperation—when asked about the film Tess, Polanski irritably recalled the fact that Chinese censors chopped the film from two hours and forty minutes to an hour and a half when it was released in China in the early 80′s. But for the most part the director was patient and elegant, and showed a propensity for telling stories and for providing great sound bites. On the responsibility of the director, he said, “The atmosphere on the set depends on the director. If he knows what he’s doing, the crew immediately respects him. If he has passion, they will follow him. If he has a sense of humor, the crew will laugh. [But] if he is depressed, they will be as well.” With regards to film theory, he scoffed, “What is film theory? Tell the story, and if you don’t have anything to say, shut up! Asking a director about theory is like asking a centipede which leg he moves first.”

Overall, Polanski’s Q&A was a great opportunity which was somewhat wasted. With less bureaucratic planning and a more relaxed Q&A, the session would have been more insightful, and allowed the BFA students to show off its best assets: its students.

The author of this article was a former student of the Beijing Film Academy. The author requested that the article be published anonymously. Any e-mails responding to this post will be forwarded to the author.