Aleš Urbanczik

Fascia is the intricate connective tissue that supports and surrounds every structure in the human body, and it has become a major focus of contemporary medical and scientific research. Yet our film highlights Ida Rolf’s pioneering recognition of fascia’s vital role more than 50 years ago — long before advanced imaging technologies came into common use. Her story serves both to correct the historical record and to inspire those devoted to vocation, discovery, and human potential.

My creative vision was to tell the story of a woman who, at the turn of the 20th century, walked away from the prospect of a brilliant academic career to follow her dream. I also wanted to situate Ida Rolf within a wide intellectual and cultural context, referencing influences spanning science, philosophy, psychology, movement, and yoga — including Nobel laureates Peter Debye and Erwin Schrödinger, philosophers Alfred Korzybski, John Godolphin Bennett and Gaston Bachelard, movement pioneers Pierre Bernard, Moshe Feldenkrais and Amy Cochran, and psychologists Wilhelm Reich and Fritz Perls — tracing how these influences shaped her work into a lasting framework for structural and somatic inquiry.

I believe in giving every member of a team the space to be creative. I see my role as director less as someone who controls and more as someone who coordinates — creating the conditions for others to bring their best.

Creating a biographical film about someone for whom very little visual material from early life exists posed a significant creative challenge. Our team spent over two years researching archives and primary sources, reconstructing Rolf’s life and intellectual development through interviews, documents, and historical materials. To solve the visual gap, we drew from her original writings and interviews to craft a voiceover approach that allows Rolf to, in effect, tell her own story — anchored throughout by her concept of “Find Your Line.”

What still moves me is how comfortable our interviewees became in front of the camera. Every one of them spoke openly and from the heart — that kind of authenticity can’t be scripted, and I’m proud that we created an environment where it could happen naturally.

Nothing significant comes to mind. If anything, I would have allowed certain frames — particularly those featuring historical material that needs to be read — to linger a little longer on screen. Giving the audience more time to absorb written content is something I would be more mindful of next time.

As a first-time filmmaker at the age of 67, I am proud of both films we produced: Finding the Line and Ida Rolf – Mother of Fascia. Making them taught me that it is never too late to pursue a new creative path.

Follow your dream and trust your intuition. It is far more important to develop a mature and genuine vision than to chase industry recognition. Recognition tends to find you once your vision has fully come into its own.

Ida Rolf – Mother of Fascia is a documentary, so our only “actors” were the interviewees. For each one, we created a calm and safe atmosphere and simply let them speak in their own way. The interviews were entirely unscripted — I wanted to hear what people genuinely remembered about Ida Rolf, without leading them with prompts.

I knew Mirjam Skal’s music from her contributions to my son’s metal band Illumishade, and I had an intuitive sense from the start that she was the right person to compose the score. Her ability to move between worlds — intensity and delicacy — felt perfectly suited to Ida Rolf’s story.

The original cut was around 30 minutes longer, and it became clear from early screenings that this exhausted the audience. We took that feedback seriously and made the cuts necessary to improve the film’s pace and hold attention throughout.