Tribeca 2009: School Desk

Picture this: you tell your family and friends that you have an idea for a new movie about a Colombian woman coming to the U.S. with her two children and husband. Two weeks after arrival, he abandons them, she then must struggle as a single mother against all odds: including hunger, homelessness, a home-made abortion. Your friends will probably think this story is too much; not realistic.

Well, you better believe it, because this is the life story of Paola Mendoza, writer, director and leading actor of Entre Nos (2009), who dedicates the film to her mother, who fought and never gave up, envisioning a bright future for Paola and her brother. Gloria La Morte co-wrote and co-directed this film that probably would be impossible to achieve without this double-helmed collaboration, being such a tremendous challenge for Mendoza to embark on all these roles, especially being a personal poignant story.

There is a very interesting and diverse casting: Andrés Munar (TV series Law & Order, Che) plays husband Antonio, first-time actors Sebastián Villada and Laura Montana play children Gabriel and Andrea, and two experienced actors like Anthony Chisholm (TV series Oz) and Sarita Choudhury (TV series Kings, Lady in the Water) play Joe and Preet, integrating amateur and professional performances into a balanced, authentic combination. Multicultural Queens, New York is the scenario for this immigrant chronicle where immigration is not the main theme, it is a given and actually, it is barely addressed. What allows the plot to develop is Mendoza and La Morte’s focus on the whole emotional journey of struggling to survive beyond a visa status. Mendoza plays Mariana, the mother, whose first instinct is to provide a daily solution for her children’s basic needs; she is also overwhelmed by the situation.

At some point the plot leaves some important questions unanswered: Why did Antonio abandon them? Why did they never try to call for help in Colombia? We don’t know if that was part of the true story or flaws in the script. Though there is a permanent collaboration between Mendoza and La Forte, the team took an important risk having Mendoza playing such a personal role in her first feature directing herself. But it’s not pretentious, simply because it’s a tribute to Mendoza’s mother. Said that, we must give a lot of credit to this team: it was a first feature for La Forte, and a second feature for Mendoza after her collaboration with Gabriel Noble (P-Star Rising, also in the Festival this year) in Autumn’s Eyes (2006).

Beyond some forced shots and a plot that becomes somehow predictable, this Tribeca All Access Alumni team have a bright future on their hands. Entre Nos has some glimpses of humor inside the drama, and it is an example of hope, inspiration and dignity, not only for most of the immigrants coming to the U.S., but also for all kind of people that must struggle in life. Empanadas for $1, collecting cans for 5 cents, and many other odd jobs that most New Yorkers ignore make possible accomplishing the American dream that still so many immigrants pursue. It is not necessarily becoming a successful artist, or a top executive, or living in a democracy. For many, it’s as simple as having the opportunity to sit in a school desk, the very basic step to have a dream coming true.

(Written for Remezcla)

Tribeca 2009: In The Bottom

Like she did in her debut film XXY (2007), the first sequences of writer/director Lucía Puenzo’s El Niño Pez (The Fish Child, 2009) submerge us in a dream-like submarine world. While the beginning credits fade in and out we can fly (well, swim) in our imagination and recollection of memories. According to Roland Barthes, the ultimate goal of any literary work is to make the reader participate as a producer of the text instead of a consumer. This fantastic film is based on her first novel with the same title (published in 2004 when she was just 23 years old). and we feel in every part of the story that she is not only a great storyteller, but at this early stage in her filmmaking career, she is becoming a great director as well.

The film score (originally composed by Andrés Goldstein and Daniel Tarrab, who also composed for XXY), the narration, the suspense, the dreams, all get us into a journey that beyond the images on the screen, let us create our own sequences like we do when we read a book. But Puenzo never abuses of that resource: everything is appropriate. The story lays on the Guarani legend of the fish child (mitay pirá), who inhabits the Ypoá lake in Paraguay, and guides the drown people to the bottom of the lake. La Guayi (Mariela Vitale), a Paraguayan maid who has been employed by an Argentine rich but dysfunctional family since she was a young teenager, introduces this legend. Lala (Inés Efrón, also the star of XXY) soon falls in love with La Guayi – and so does Lala’s father Bronté (Pep Munné), a fact that turns this story into a sea of jealousy, fury and unconditional worship. The two girls plan a dream life together somewhere in Paraguay, and to that extent they start stealing from Lala’s parents. But if a runaway and a lesbian forbidden love look complicated, things will get even worse after a mysterious death and the new presence of Sócrates (soap opera star Arnaldo André), Guayi’s father.

Puenzo digs one more time into the exploration of sexuality and acceptance, this time with a bigger role of seduction rather than curiosity – we could now perhaps expect her next film to be about sea and sexuality completing a trilogy. La Guayi sings in Guarani: “The moon is singing to me, while I sing for you, so you can sleep my baby, so you can sleep my baby.” Bronté, who doesn’t care about anybody’s feelings (probably not even about himself) explains that it’s exactly what Guarani women did with Spaniards conquerors: singing to them to mesmerize them; La Guayi mesmerizes everyone in the film – myself included. Cinematographer Rolo Pulpeiro (Emir Kusturica’s Maradona by Kusturica) shot this picture in 16mm, and captured the scenery so well that we can even feel the dry and arid climate without a word from the characters, also playing wonderfully with the use of shadows.

Another attractive element is brought by the presence of dogs and his trainer El Vasco (Diego Velázquez), who is close friend of Guayi and will help the girls with their passionate goal. Serafín, the girls’ dog, plays a passive but interesting role – check the book to find out why he’s not just an ordinary dog. The performances are very convincing – especially the two girls – in this dark and poignant tale produced by Oscar winner Luis Puenzo (Lucía’s father) among others. Lala devotes herself completely to La Guayi, especially when she cuts her precious hair. With this action as a symbol of loyalty, Lala suffers but hopes - that the hair will grow, and that Guayi will stay with her, like the fish child legend, even in the bottom of the lake.

(Written for Remezcla)

Public Screenings:

Mon, Apr 27, 6:15PM (AMC Village VII 3)
Tue, Apr 28, 2:00PM (AMC Village VII 6)
Wed, Apr 29, 9:15PM (AMC Village VII 3)
Sat, May 02, 2:00PM (AMC Village VII 6)

Tribeca 2008: Interview with José Padilha

Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) is José Padilha’s first fiction feature-length after his critically acclaimed documentary Ónibus 174 (Bus 174, 2002). Acquired by The Weinstein Co. for distribution in the US, the film was a huge success and cultural phenomenon in Brazil, where it is said it was watched by more than 10 million people before its release in theaters – all in pirated DVDs. This is a powerful film with brilliant cinematography by Lula Carvalho (O Ceu de Seuly - Love for Sale, 2006, and son of cinematographer Walter Carvalho), an extremely sharp sound supervised by Alessandro Laroca (Cidade de Deus – City of God, 2002), great music by Pedro Bromfman and a tight but smooth editing job by Daniel Rezende (Oscar nominated for City of God, also editor for The Year My Parents Went On Vacation, one of the best picks for the past Tribeca Festival in 2007.)

What is ground breaking about Elite Squad is that it is told through a cop’s point of view. Corruption, hypocrisy and social justice take a role over the action in this in-your-face story of a very complex society where everything falls into a grey zone flooded with personal interests, socio-political networks and a lot of violence. Padilha wrote the script with Bráulio Mantovani (City of God) and Rodrigo Pimentel, a military cop himself for eleven years (five of these as a captain in an elite squad). The film is based in the book Elite da Tropa, by Pimentel, Luiz Eduardo Soares and André Batista. A few months ago, Elite Squad won one of the most important awards in the film world: the Golden Bear at Berlinale.

Extraordinarily performed by Wagner Moura (Captain Nascimento), Caio Junqueira (Neto) and André Ramiro (Matias), this is a film as direct as José Padilha’s answers during our interview. With a smile and a friendly, positive attitude, Padliha received me at the Tribeca Filmmaker’s Lounge and answered all the questions right to the point. He was getting ready for more interviews in a hectic agenda that includes being part of the Jury too. In any case, compared with shooting a film about police in the favelas, doing press is surely a kind of a well-deserved vacation for Padilha, as he shared with us.

Pablo Goldbarg: Did you have to make a compromise with drug-dealers, in order to work in their territories, much like NGOs do?

José Padilha: The only way you can film in a favela in Brazil is talking to the drug-dealers. There is no other way. They control the favela. Everything that goes on in this land that has drug-dealers in it, it has to go through the dealers. Every single favela has an association of people living there, so instead of going through the drug-dealers, we went through the associations, because we didn’t want to have to deal with the dealers. But we know that once we cut up a deal with the association, the association is cutting up a deal with the drug-dealers. At least that’s what we thought. But then, in the middle of the shoot the dealers hijacked a car with four crew members and all the guns we used. The crew members were released after an hour, but the guns were stolen and the police went up to the location, so we had to stop shooting for two weeks. We didn’t cut a deal directly with the drug-dealers; and it proved to be the wrong thing to do.

P.G.: How did you convince the police institutions they were fairly portrayed in the script? How did you get their blessings or permits?

J.P.: The police institutions were fairly portrayed, but I never gave them the scripts, if I had, there wouldn’t be a movie. We only got the permit to shoot after several months through the Governor, because we threatened him to go to the press, and that would be a scandal, because Brazil has free speech. So, the Governor made the police give us the permit to shoot. After the film was finished, copies were stolen, and the police saw the movie before it opened, and they sued us, they tried to prevent the film from opening if we didn’t edit the torture scenes and killings in the favelas. So, the police hate us because the film portrayed them fairly (laughs.)

P.G.: What did you get the most after this film: friends or enemies?

J.P.: I got a lot of friends, even in the police. People who collaborated with the movie are interested in showing how things are, and they want to make the statement that things need to change. Those are my friends. My enemies... I don’t know where the hell they are. I don’t talk to them, I don’t call them up. From my perspective, I didn’t make any enemies. Maybe from the perspective of somebody else, I’m an enemy. I don’t even think about this.

P.G.: Is it possible to deal with the violence in the favelas without violating human rights?

J.P.: Yes, of course it is. The movie I’ve made has a protagonist who believes that violence can be controlled by violence. He believes that you can sort of violently force somebody not to be violent. It’s a kind of what America decided to do with Iraq: let’s go in and violently make the Iraqi government not to be violent. And you see what you get, right? The movie is basically a statement against that proposition, the idea that violence can be controlled by violence. This proposition not only destroys the lives of many innocent people but it also destroys the lives of those who believe in it. So, the protagonist who believes in that is suffering from post-traumatic stress and panic syndromes, he wants to leave the unit he has always lived for, his wife and kids don’t want to be with him... and we don’t make this up; this is true. This is what we found in all the research: most cops that abide by those violent behaviors end up fucked up. I mean, they end up with serious psychological problems. So, there is a way to deal with violence, and that’s by taking education to the favelas, trying to give people a chance to have jobs. That’s the right way to do it. That’s the only way to do it.

P.G.: Beyond the amazing portray of Nascimento, the transformation of Neto and Matias is a key element in the film. Can you talk about the work you did with the actors? Did you use any acting coaching like Sergio Machado did with Maria Fatima Toledo in Cidade Baixa - Lower City?

J.P.: I had like 120 actors in my movie. Many, many characters. It’s impossible for a director to handle this alone. What I did was separating the actors in groups: regular police men, elite squads, students, etc. For the actors who played regular or corrupted cops, I brought cops to train with them. Elite squad actors were trained with real elite squads. Supervising them was Fatima Toledo, an acting coach who worked also in City of God and Cidade Baixa, and myself. We would go with the different groups and rehearse with the actors and the real people to make the film feel realistic; that was the goal. Furthermore, I didn’t give the screenplay to the actors, I mean I took the dialogue out. So, they had the script but they didn’t know the lines. They had to learn to improvise, and we did this for three months, then we shot the movie. It’s a cool way to do it.

P.G.: Do you think action and entertaining films are the only way to get a good distribution of Latin American films in the U.S.?

J.P.: No, I don’t. I don’t see my movie as an action movie. I worked on it and I thought about it as a social critique of Brazilian society, but we had action in there. We have scenes that had energy in it, and it’s a way to get an audience. How good it is to make a very intellectual, sophisticated, slow paced detached movie about society that nobody goes to see? It doesn’t do any good. I believe there is a way to do serious social critique, and at the same time make movies that will have an audience. This is what we tried to do with Elite Squad, and this is what I think Latin American filmmakers at good at it. Actually, we have a tradition of doing engaging movies. Not only Latin American but also other foreign filmmakers are good at it, like [Greek] Costa-Gavras in Missing (1982). I think South American filmmakers should make movies primarily for their own audiences, because if their audiences go to the theaters, the movie will pick up distribution outside.

P.G.: Do you feel some kind of responsibility as a filmmaker and a mass communicator about social issues? What’s the difference between using documentary and fiction to pursue your goals?

J.P.: Even my fictional work, which is Elite Squad, has a documentary flavor. It’s meant to portray a reality as it is. You can ask anybody in Brazil and they will tell you that reality is very similar in the movie. We did a lot of research, interviews with cops, psychiatrists, to get reality into the script. So, as far as representing reality, you can do it with documentaries, but you can also do it with fictional movies. When they work out, they reach a larger audience than documentaries. A movie like City of God is strongly based in reality. It’s a fictional movie but it also reveals to you how the drug-dealing business started off, as well as a documentary does. But they can do the same thing, basically, which is bring up debate on social issues if they aim to portray reality. I don’t make a distinction there, but I do realize that fiction movies get to a broader audience.

P.G.: Is there any hope in Latin America to finish corruption beyond the use of extreme violence?

J.P.: I’m now working on my third movie, which I’m going to call Corruptology. It states the logic of politicians and politics in Latin America. Why politicians are so corrupt, and how the corruption at highest levels spreads out to the whole society and ends up generating the kind of violence you see in my previous two movies and others. I’m writing it with a sociologist in Brazil. I think there is a way to solve this, but it’s not an easy way, and it’s going take a while. I think South America is in a slow process towards a stronger democratic society, a fairer society. We don’t have it yet, but we’ll get there... we’ll get there.

P.G.: You were part of an intense training camp, your crew was kidnapped, your props stolen… yet you made a great film. What’s next? Do you think you could handle a romantic comedy?

J.P.: [laughs] Can I handle it? Well, I don’t know. I don’t think like this. I just do the story that I wan to do. If at some point I’m running at a romantic story that I do believe it’s important, I’m gonna try to do it. Then we’ll find out whether I can do it or not (laughs.) I wouldn’t refrain myself of trying to do it, nor a science fiction movie, or a comedy, or a movie for kids. I’ll do the movie that I have in my heart. This is what I want to say next through this language of filmmaking, and whatever it’s I’ll go for it. Maybe it’s a romantic comedy, or a cartoon! I like cartoons, I see a lot of them with my kid, so maybe one day I’m going to do a cartoon...

P.G.: I’ll definitely watch it...

(Written for Remezcla)

Tribeca 2008: Fantasy, Reality & Viceversa

What comes first: pain or pleasure? Happiness or sadness? Does it hurt to love and be loved, or because we’re already in pain we need to find love? Will these dualities ever be able to exist separately? Do they happen at the same time? All these questions are presented in a very smart way in Amor, Dolor y Viceversa (Love, Pain & Vice Versa), the new film of Mexican director Alfonso Pieda Ulloa, written by Alex Marino, based on a story by Blás Valdez. They take a step further turning this existential duality into a matrix for the spectator: what if, not knowing if pain or love comes first, we also don’t know if it’s reality or fantasy?

Night after night, Chelo (Bárbara Mori, La Mujer de mi Hermano) dreams about an attractive and mysterious man with an accent. These dreams slowly consumed her life, to the point that after a year, she becomes so obsessed she doesn’t want to meet any other guys. Her friend Gaby (Irene Azuela, El Búfalo de la Noche) tries to tell Chelo to forget about the perfect man of her dreams and come back to reality but one day, Chelo shows up, crying, at a police precinct to give a description of a man who, supposedly, attacked and raped her. Was she really attacked? Is she making it all up? Is she in love with her attacker? Is it the man of her dreams or an ex-boyfriend?

Dr. Ricardo Márquez (Leonardo Sbaraglia, Plata Quemada) has been suffering the same nightmares for a year: a very attractive woman seduces him only to kill him. Even his fiancée (Marina de Tavira, La Zona) is annoyed and jealous by this recurrent woman of his nightmares, but Ricardo swears that he doesn’t know this woman. What happens next, I cannot give away. Their stories cross, the double-searching becomes a paradox, and dreams merge into reality – and viceversa. This dark psychological thriller is wonderfully depicted by cinematographer Damián García (Más Que a Nada en el Mundo), and the escalating, tension and he/she versions of the story accurately supported by editor Jorge Macaya (Fermat’s Room, also showing at Tribeca Festival 2008.) They have created a isolated, atemporal urban setting for these characters, detaching the story from any local references. This could be Mexico or it could be Bilbao or Detroit. I even overheard someone commenting “It doesn’t look Mexican!” due to the film’s Hollywoodesque quality in the lighting, texture and mood. But people shouldn’t be surprised about good Mexican cinema anymore, this is 2008. Mori’s performance is strong and convincing, subdued for a telenovela actress although sometimes a little too monotone. Sbaraglia’s performance? Well, he can’t fail. At his 37 years of age, he has been in almost the same amount of movies, and in some of them with highly emotional and difficult roles (Intacto, En La Ciudad Sin Límites.)

In this his first feature film, Pineda Ulloa jumps back and forth twisting the storyline and forking paths in a puzzle that is re-constructed from two different points of view. Sometimes he abuses the flashbacks, repetition of dreams, and a few obvious images to make some noise – how many times did you seen in movies a desperate man, fully dressed, crying under the shower? In spite of that, the double-way prey-predator game works great, and the evident scenes are balanced with some imaginative ones. This film is the only Latin American film among the twelve selected for the World Narrative Feature Competition, where The Aquarium (Egypt), Quiet Chaos (Italy) and Lost-Indulgence (China) are favorites, though Pineda Ulloa and Marino’s clever and original story has good chances too, and we hope Mexico takes home one of the most important Tribeca awards again, like last year did Enrique Begne with Dos Abrazos winning Best New Narrative Filmmaker award.

Do Chelo and Ricardo finally meet? Oh, they definitely do. But, is it real...?

(Written for Remezcla)

Tribeca 2008: Cliché's Room

Let’s just face it: it’s practically impossible to be an innovative storyteller in film. It’s an art that usually re-uses, re-orders, and pays tributes. The magic and originality of cinema lies in the way filmmakers put all the elements together. It’s hard to detach our minds from thousands of images already recorded by our subconscious. The problem arises when the evident becomes too obvious or when re-use turns into overuse: then it just becomes “cliché” (and yes, sorry for using such a “cliché” word.)

Lluís Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña are the writers and directors of their first feature film La Habitación de Fermat (Fermat’s Room), a new Spanish suspense film about four mathematicians who don’t know each other, and are invited by a mysterious host to solve a “great enigma.” Tempted for the challenge, they travel to an unknown house in the hills. The room where they meet ends up being a death machine that shrinks each time they can’t solve a riddle. Sooner or later they will die unless they discover why they are there and who wants to kill them. The film has enclosed itself in the big challenge of making a film mainly in one room. Cinematographer Miguel Angel Amoedo and editor Jorge Macaya (Love, Pain & Viceversa, also showing at Tribeca) helped the writers/directors duo make a good job keeping a steady rhythm and aesthetic quality, but the movie falls early into a series of clichés that give you a claustrophobic sensation of hopelessness.

With performances that are accurate but not convincing enough, the four mathematicians are played by Lluís Homar (La Mala Eduación), Alejo Sauras, and Spanish TV stars Elena Ballesteros and Santi Millán. Some dialogues are not in the level of high IQ scientists, and it’s even disturbing to see these four supposedly genii sweating, excited and worried about puzzles and equations that reminds you of elementary or high school. That doesn’t mean that these are easy problems to solve, but it’s a strange situation. Even Fermat himself, the great Federico Luppi (an Argentine legend that acted in almost 100 movies, most recent one Pan’s Labyrinth) has no space to fully develop his role.

How many times can the characters jump scared from their spots when the intercom announces a new riddle? How much more tense can they get every time the walls move and shrink? How necessary is it to repeat and reveal a tense moment through the device of a zoom or a high-pitched violin? Why do they need to explain everything with flashbacks and leave nothing to the audience’s imagination? Excess is the main sin of this movie: with stereotyped expressions and character development, and even the use of extra saturated color and evident suspense music score to announce….more suspense. All of this can easily turn off an audience, though one of the things this film actually does really well is embedding the riddles into the tight storyline. Proof of this is the number of awards it has won in two fantasy film festivals: Málaga Fantastic (Spain) and Fantasporto (Portugal.)

The beginning credits show a miniature room being furnished by a human hand. It’s probably a way of advancing part of the plot: the walls will shrink. Or it’s perhaps that the film itself has already shrunk at the beginning. The most original element in this film is... the official website! (You don’t have to be a scientist to find it). Fermat’s Room didn’t go well in Spain: it was released in November 2007 with positive reviews, but despite counting with a few star-actors, it did less than a million dollar in the box office. Nevertheless, it has been sold to more than 20 countries, and it faces now a new challenge: IFC Entertainment has acquired the rights to do an American remake. Probably then we can solve the puzzle: can the story be saved? Is there any room for some fresh air, or nobody can make it better than their own creators? What happens at the end is pointless: it has already been (excessively) explained in this review, and the key lies in the title. I’m a sinner too.

(Written for Remezcla)

Tribeca 2008: Paraíso Redux

A lot of Latin American countries are considered “paradise:” gorgeous beaches, exquisite cuisines, kind people, cheap clothes, sporting events that become passionate social phenomena, historical architecture, and landscapes that are devotion of National Geographic photographers. Nevertheless, every year millions of Latin Americans believe the paradise is to the north, often embarking in humiliating and risky experiences, far away from their families, friends, language and customs.

Paraiso Travel is Colombian director Simon Brand’s second feature film after Unknown (2006) which starred James Caviezel. Written by Jorge Franco and Juan Manuel Rendón, and based on “Paraiso Travel”, a novel by Franco, it tells the story of manipulative and ambitious Reina (Angélica Blandón) and lovesick Marlon (Aldemar Correa), two teenagers from Medellín who travel illegally to New York looking for a better life. Reina wants to get out of Medellín and her conservative father, and Marlon, the movie’s “hero”…well, he comes from a good and loving family but he just wants to sleep with Reina and so follows her lead. So it is a bit preposterous that these two students steal their way to get $3,000 to buy a “non-guaranteed” ticket to freedom through Paraiso Travel Agency. Their naïve intents are soon crushed as they make the dangerous journey to Guatemala, Mexico and finally through the US border and New York, but soon after the first day, Marlon gets lost. No money, no friends, no family, no Reina... no English.

“New York is a monster to tame”, tells Giovanny (Pedro Capó, one of the best performers in the film) to Marlon while contemplating the Manhattan skyline on a break from work at Mi Tierra Colombiana restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens. Marlon is rescued by fellow Colombian immigrants and he meets generous and affable Latinos such as Giovanny, Milagros (superstar Ana de La Reguera in a disappointing role), a Mexican aspiring salsa singer who makes a living selling CDs outside the restaurant and Roger (John Leguizamo,) his sadomasochist (literally) but kind (and of course being Leguizamo, funny) landlord. Everyone takes Marlon’s hand to make him feel at home and forget about his quest to find Reina. “In this country you have to wait in line for everything…even to be happy” musters Giovanny, who serves as the Voice of Reason throughout the film.

Immigration to the U.S., beyond its legal/illegal condition is one of the hottest and most complex issues in the current political campaigns. It’s also a very important issue to address in a more serious way in Latin American countries, where citizens live immersed in false promises, corruption and poverty. But no matter how huge is the topic of massive Latin American migration to the U.S., lets not forget about the basic premise of the film: it’s a love story. No matter how many friends Marlon makes or Milagros’ seductive hip swivels, he is miserable because in the middle of Queens, he can’t find his Reina. Simon Brand tried to be as faithful as possible to Franco’s novel, and in some way it turns the whole migration discussion into an entertaining soap opera adapted to the big screen: it’s humorous, romantic, dramatic, sexy and has lots of topless shots. Paraiso Travel is a high-quality production (it cost almost $5 million), and drew one of the biggest box offices in Colombia’s history (no doubt it can have the same effect in many Latin American countries.) Thousands, if not millions of spectators will feel identified when a crying Marlon calls his mother asking for her daily blessing. Or will know what it feels like when he discovers commodities that don’t exist in our yet developing countries (like a handicapped-ready bathroom that works), and all the suffering and home-away-from home situations immigrants must face in a new country.

That said, even if the Latin American immigration in this country is a necessary and important topic on screen, don’t expect exceptional acting. Even Leguizamo, who also produced the film and is one of the best Latino actors in the U.S. along with Benicio del Toro, leaves us wishing his character were more developed. And yes, you must deal with some classic novelas stereotypes, including too much of plot explanation and an over-the-top ending. "I wanted to make a film that makes Latin Americans think twice about traveling to the U.S. illegally," Simon Brand told me during a meet and greet with the press at the Tribeca Film Festival, "but one that also makes Americans think twice about how these people are treated once they get here." Simon’s intentions go right to the point: his honest adaptation definitely brings new questions to a very relevant issue.

(Written for Remezcla)

Tribeca 2008: Net of Dreams

Who hasn’t felt lonely at some point? Who hasn’t spent endless nights staring out a window? Who hasn’t felt that strange pain in your chest when you spot a group of people screaming, laughing, and having fun while walking alone on the street? Loneliness is one of the most common themes in film, yet nobody has ever portrayed it with the awkwardness, or the poetic and crude sensitivity of Harmony Korine. When he was twenty-two years old, he shocked the cinema world with the screenplay for Kids (1995), a documentary-style story about drug-addled promiscuous youth in New York City. Thirteen years later, he comes back with a maturity unusual for a filmmaker who is not even forty with Mister Lonely, his most important and complex piece to date.

Written in collaboration with his brother Avi, Mister Lonely tells the story of Michael Jackson (Diego Luna), a young Mexican immigrant who roams the streets of Paris impersonating--and living his everyday life as--Michael Jackson. He is delicate, shy, and wears a surgical mask in public spaces. Michael confesses his strong and heartbreaking desire to be someone else to a tape recorder, expressing his disappointment with his personality and looks. While performing in a nursing home, tenderly making the elderly sing and hope to live forever, he meets Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton), who convinces him to move to a community of impersonators lead by her husband Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), as they are getting ready to perform the best show ever. They live in an isolated commune in the hills, and a better place couldn’t exist for this wacky group of impersonators--everyone is accepted by the others devoid of judgment or prejudice, and things run according to their own rules.

In the meantime, a parallel story unfolds in what seems to be a disconnected plot, though beneath the surface they share a common soul. Thousands of miles away, in some Latin American village, a foreign priest (Werner Herzog, the great German filmmaker) works with nuns in a mission to distribute food to the poorest communities. Like the impersonators, all of them are true believers, the purest dreamers: defined by desire, devotion, obsession. From the first scene, the film submerges us in a type of slow-motion dream. Harmony Korine confesses that the story originated as isolated images that later started taking on shape. This is sometimes intricately translated to the screen, but it is exactly what makes the film so interesting: everyone can take the different symbolisms and align them in different directions.

The impersonators share a very particular characteristic: they are all awful performers – yet they believe. Charlie Chaplin behaves more like Hitler than the comic, Abraham Lincoln (Richard Strange) curses and screams exaggeratedly, and every other character in the film is taken to another reality through their own impersonations and others’ souls. Their everyday duality is constantly exposed in public and private: in costume yet naked, embarrassed yet happy. The main performances of Luna, Morton, Lavant and Herzog are wonderful and rich, exploding their limits thanks to careful direction by Korine, as well as in subtle improvisations. The cinematography by Marcel Zyskind (9 Songs, A Mighty Heart) is stunning, and it’s no surprise to find the name of editor Valdís Oskarsdóttir (responsible for the masterful work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) in this film’s credits.

Dreams come true crossing the frontiers where Michael, Marilyn and the priest travel to other countries to accomplish their goals and live freer--nuns can fly too. In this thorny world, the pursuit of happiness is probably a never-ending search. The answer, if it exists, is deeply within us. “Sometimes the purest dreamers are the ones that get hurt the most,” says Harmony Korine. In a way, lonely dreamers are not alone. Michael rides a small bike with a cuddly monkey toy attached to it, trying to skate with him. Is Michael happy? We can’t see behind the mask. But something is clear: hope is the last thing we lose, and dreams are the first thing we create.

(Written for Remezcla)

Mister Lonely
[MISTE] Spotlight
Feature Narrative, 2007, 113 min
Directed by: Harmony Korine

Thu, May 01, 10:00PM AMC Village VII Theater 2 (Map)

Tribeca x 4: Alvaro Covacevich

Durante el 6º Festival de Cine de Tribeca tuve el placer y honor de entrevistar a algunos de los cineastas, actores, productores y ejecutivos del festival. A continuación, un extracto de la entrevista con Alvaro Covacevich, director y escritor de Morir Un Poco (To Die A Little).

During the 6th Tribeca Film Festival I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of the filmmakers, actors, producers and festival executives. Next there is an excerpt from the interview with Alvaro Covacevich, director and writer of Morir Un Poco (To Die A Little).

Pablo Goldbarg: ¿Considerás a tu película como un desaparecido más de la dictadura?

Alvaro Covacevich: Yo tuve, desgraciadamente, dos desaparecidos. Un hijo mío, que apareció después, y esta película, junto con otro material mío, que desapareció por mucho tiempo, porque los militares destruyeron no solo películas, también libros. Es clásica la escena, que ya parece como inventada, de los nazis quemando libros, y yo tengo filmado en una de mis películas a los militares quemando libros en Santiago, los libros marxistas… pero eso existe y eso es verdad. Tenían orden de hacer desaparecer todo lo que tenga que ver con la cultura. Hay una anécdota de cuando fue allanada mi casa, por la cual fui bastante maltratado y perseguido. Es por el teniente que condujo la patrulla que allanó mi casa. Yo siempre he tenido gran afición por el arte, para mi el arte ha sido un soporte muy grande dentro del cine, como lo fue para Visconti, como lo fue para muchos personajes del cine que se han apoyado mucho en la parte estética del arte, para de ahí empezar su idea. Entonces yo siempre he tenido grandes colecciones de libros, y he tenido una gran colección de arte cubista, que me interesa bastante. Entonces una de las razones por las cuales fui maltratado y detenido, que se aclaró después, fue que el oficial dijo que yo era pro Cubano… porque tenía mucho arte Cubista (risas). Finalmente parece que alguien del otro lado preguntó si era que hablaban de Fidel. “No, aquí hay muchos libros de unos nombres raros de cosas” (risas). Eso te da una idea de la ignorancia, agresiva además, porque por eso te podían matar. Si no hubiera habido respuesta del otro lado, a lo mejor decían “Bueno, fusílenlo, este es un pro Cubano, tiene su casa llena de panfletos y documentos pro Cubanos…”, y en realidad eran los mejores libros de arte cubista que yo había reunido en veinte años.

P.G.: ¿Cambia la forma de hacer cine después de esta desaparición?

A.C.: Yo creo que yo nunca quise estar como quien dice “encajonado” en una línea de cine. Incluso me rebelé bastante sobre eso. La película que yo hago inmediatamente después de Morir Un Poco (1967) es una pelicula que no tiene nada que ver con este tema. Retomo una historia que sucedió en Holanda, de una serie de jóvenes de la época del hippismo, intentan reunirse y tartar de vivir en comunidades, y lo primero que hacen es pintar sus bicicletas blancas, para que donde las dejen, cualquiera las pueda usar. Y con ese principio se empieza un movimiento, y ocurrió realmente, y yo desarrollé esa idea en Chile, tomando un poco y apoyándome en esta especie de movimiento del hippismo y estas sociedades comunitarias. Y hago la película sobre ese tema, nada más que yo continúo las bicicletas blancas con autos blancos, con monumentos blancos, con casas blancas, y entonces ahi interviene el Congreso, la política, la policía y destruye el movimiento que es la anarquia total. Entonces sí caigo en el tema político, pero en otro esquema. Esa película se llama New Love, o La Revolución de las Flores (1968). Es una sátira a este movimiento y lo que significó, porque en el fondo todos estos muchachos que empiezan protestando contra el establishment y contra la producción masiva de bienes de consumo. Ellos hacen sus propias cosas con las manos, sus collarcitos, sus cosas, pero tienen tanto éxito que finalmente empiezan a vender millones y tienen que tomar contadores, auditores, gerentes, supervisores, y terminan en lo mismo que están discutiendo.

P.G.: ¿Cuándo es tu exilio, y cómo se vive siendo artista en ese exilio?

A.C.: Bueno, yo creo que es muy difícil. En primer lugar porque no es lo mismo que tu decidas venir a estudiar a Nueva York o a trabajar, que estemos los dos como estamos ahora, a que venga una patrulla y te detenga. Yo estuve doce meses proscripto en la Embajada de México que nos acogió. No podíamos salir, estábamos aislados de la familia. Y de la noche a la mañana tu amaneces, como me pasó a mi, despiertas y hay una “polleta” colgando del techo de un hotelito muy digno, pero refugiado en un país que era muy extraño para mi.Debo recordarte que el castigo mas grande que ha existido—lo toma Shakespeare y sus diversas obras, también los Griegos--y se infligía a un hombre no era matarlo: era exiliarlo. Porque es muy difícil estar fuera de tu país y no poder volver. No es una decisión tuya: me voy a vivir a Argentina, o me voy a vivir a Francia y vuelvo cuando quiera. Pero esto de que te toman como una pieza de algo y te depositan en algún lugar donde tu no te puedes mover de ahí realmente a tu patria… eso es muy triste. Porque la gente dice “qué es la patria?”. Porque todos somos revolucionarios… en New Love hay una escena donde se queman los pasaportes, se queman los papeles, toda identidad, nacionalidad, propiedad de un país, como una protesta, y realmente uno sí que pertenece a los países. A ti no se te va a quitar nunca la manera de hablar de Argentino jamás ni a mi la de Chileno, y eso se va a arrastrar a tus nietos, que van a hablar de ti como ese personaje que oyeron distinto al resto que oyeron en su vida. Hay una frase maravillosa que dice “La patria es el pais de la infancia”; lo dice Gabriela Mistral. Es cierto, y es lo que más me acuerdo. Y mi exilio duró dieciocho años sin poder volver a mi país, y finalmente me quedé viviendo en México hasta ahora… son treinta años, entre exilio obligado y exilio aceptado por mi mismo. Es difícil porque es un enfoque en el cual tu no perteneces nunca a ese país. Yo tengo nietos Mexicanos, y sin embargo yo siento que yo sigo siendo extranjero… en America Latina. Yo creo que ese fenomeno no existe aquí en Nueva York. No se entiende ese concepto, pero sí en algunas generaciones, tus abuelos por ejemplo si vinieron para acá todavía lo deben sentir.

P.G.: La película reaparece en el 2006…

A.C.: La película desapareció entera. Se destruyó todo el material, junto con otro material mío, junto con otras películas. Habían unos documentales bien interesantes que yo había hecho en el Amazonas con cientificos de Naciones Unidas y antropólogos, para detectar una comunidad que nunca había tenido contacto con el ser civilizado. Mucho material se rompió, se perdió, gran colección de arte se la robaron en Chile… y bueno, Morir Un Poco desaparece, y yo la empecé a rastrear por años. Ofrecí un premio incluso en Chile, porque esta película tuvo un éxito impresionante. ¿Por qué ese exito? A lo mejor fue un espejo. Y hoy día es el mismo espejo, manchado, borrado, pero el mismo. Hay ciertas imágenes desvanecidas pero eso es parte del valor de la película en si misma. Como no va a haber una caseta (sala) donde se dió la película, en un pueblecito donde haya quedado una copia abandonada. No, los militares arrasaron todo. Había que destruir esta película. Era una forma de mostrar algo que ellos deberían estar obligados a hacer y que no lo iban a hacer nunca por el pueblo, eso era evidente. Y no sólo este material: libros, pinturas, todo lo que representara cualquier cosa de este tipo. Y mandé un hijo a buscarla a Alemania, y de repente apareció una voz de alguien… y apareció el tambor de esta versión que ustedes han visto, que es el único material que existe. Yo he estado recuperando otras cosas, pedazos que estoy tratando de juntar y restaurar. Es un trabajo lento y pesado, fotograma por fotograma, pero se puede hacer.

Nota Relacionada (related note):
To Live A Lot

Tribeca x 4: João Moreira Salles

During the 6th Tribeca Film Festival I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of the filmmakers, actors, producers and festival executives. Next there is an excerpt from the interview with João Moreira Salles, director, writer and producer of Santiago.

Durante el 6º Festival de Cine de Tribeca tuve el placer y honor de entrevistar a algunos de los cineastas, actores, productores y ejecutivos del festival. A continuación, un extracto de la entrevista con João Moreira Salles, director, escritor y productor de Santiago.

Pablo Goldbarg: When you start the film we see emptiness: a house, furniture, walls. I wonder what did you feel when you came back to your house revisiting the past?

João Moreira Salles: When I made the film in 1992/93, the house was empty. The house was abandoned in a sense. My mother had left the house, and the house was left to the cockroaches. And when I filmed the house there was this idea… when I say it, it sound pretentious, and it’s not literally on the film, but for me the house represents to certain idea of, not Brazil, specifically Rio de Janeiro, a city that at some point was very cosmopolitan. A lot of things were happening in Rio, cinema nuovo, bossanova, the best writers, those who re invented the Brazilian literature, they were not from Rio, but they had move to Mina Gerais and they were writing in Rio, the best poetry was being written in Rio. So, Rio was in a sense a city that had ambition, and the ambition was to be part of the world. In a political, economical and social way--the Paris Hilton social way--I think that the house represented that too. The fact that it was a house where Presidents from another countries would pass by and stay, people from the economic world outside of Brazil, the Rockefellers, etc. they would go and stay there. In a sense the house was also part of this idea of Brazil and Rio that had the ambition to be part of the world. Now, in ’92 this whole idea had completely disappeared. Rio was a city in decay, the house had lost its sense, my family was disintegrated, my father and mother had separated and divorced, my mother was already dead when I filmed, so the whole idea of the house and everything that happened in the house was an idea of the past, and that past was a glorious past in a sense. So, for me the empty house, and the way the house was left to its own chance and bad luck was also the idea that I had about my own family and my own city. A couple of years later I made “News From a Private World”, so you see in such a way there’s a connection.

P.G.: There is an amazing discovery about Santiago’s 30,000 pages of writing, and such richness inside. You probably remember when living there that Santiago was special (about the books, the dancing…). When did you know that you would do a film about him?

J.M.S.: Of course in 1992 when I decided to make a film about him it was a very traditional film, a film about someone else. The same way you make a film about a pianist, or a scientist. You make a film about another person, and you’re not in the film. Why Santiago? Because he was very interesting, he was part of my upbringing and childhood, and also he represented this idea of something that was out of place at that time. The same way that the house didn’t make any sense in 1992, Santiago didn’t make any sense either. The ideas that he had, and his idea of the world didn’t make any sense in 1992. Rio became a very violent city; Brazil had impeached the President; the inflation, and the whole idea about a very quaint noble aristocratic, even enclosed place where you can live without taking notice of Brazil... I mean you can live in that house and think that you were living in the first world, but that whole idea came down in the ‘90s, which is good. I’m not saying it’s bad. So, Santiago was also that person who represented something that is out of place. The film is about things that are out of place. But in that time I didn’t pay attention to the 30,000 pages. At that time I just wanted him to fill up the empty house with his stories. And his life, the things that he did with his own spear time was not a fair amount interest for me. And I didn’t film the papers. The only thing that you see in the film, that has been recently shot, three years ago, is in fact the papers. So, in ’92 it was a certain kind of film about Santiago, about the whole idea of the city that was going down the drains. In 2004, the film became a film about my relationship with him, and with the idea of time, and memory and loss. Which is something that for me it’s always there. This is something that I think a lot about. Of course, his papers are an expression of that. So, therefore I paid attention to the papers much, much later.

P.G.: Talking about the relationship with him, I imagine that a lot of people ask you during Q&A about you giving him specific orders during the film. Of course, as a director you must give them to the subject in terms of reaching your goals, but I wonder how did you deal with that knowing that he wasn’t the butler anymore, and you had a different relationship during the shooting?

J.M.S.: I really don’t think that at the time of the shooting the relationship had change that much. Although he wasn’t the butler anymore, I treated him as such, and I didn’t notice it at that time. I thought the relationship was very fair, but it was a very unfair relationship. Someone has the power and someone not. But one thing that I said about that is that he’s not only the object of the film. He is also the subject of the film. He has his own ideas, he has the power to be angry with me, to stop the shooting, to say cut. So, in a sense he reacts. I think this tension between someone who orders and someone who accepts some of the orders and do not accept others makes the complexity of the film. The film is made out of this tension of me trying to direct him, and he accepting and not accepting at the same time. At the time that I shot in ’92 I didn’t have any conscious about the way I was treating him. Not at all.

P.G.: How did you decide the cinematography? The narrator explains the need to search for a perfect frame. There are a few beautiful shots like the movement of hands. How did you choose a visual concept for this kind of poetry in a way?

J.M.S.: This is one of the problems of the film: it’s too beautiful. A large part of the way I related to Santiago was not due to class or power. It was due to aesthetics. It had to be beautiful. This is what I thought filming was at that time. You have to frame perfectly, you have to light perfectly, and you have to control the environment you have. For me now documentary is just the opposite. It’s not that you won’t frame well, but you will frame the way that you’re able to frame, because documentary is urgency for me now. If you don’t have lights you don’t need them, you just go and shoot. I would never do a take two, even less a take three. So, at that time, cinematography and the beauty of the shot was as important, if not more important than what was actually said by Santiago. And that’s why everything is so, so particularly chosen and perfect. The camera is always on a tripod and it doesn’t move. You always have a door between the camera and Santiago, or a curtain, or an element. His kitchen is a kind of dressed up in a sense. It’s documentary almost as fiction, with a kind of intervention that you have in fiction. And at that time that was very important for me, and also very important for the cinematographer, Walter Carvalho who then went on to make the first film my brother made. He shot Central Station also, but before that he was filming black and white, in fact Carvalho convinced my brother Walter to do it in black and white because of Santiago. The film is called “Foreign Land”. It’s a beautiful film. I actually think it’s my brother’s best film. It was shot with the same camera, with the same stock footage, so for me and for him those aspects of the film--photography, framing—were very, very important. Even more important than what Santiago was trying to say, and this is one of the things that I criticize in the film today.

P.G.: Thank you very much, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Santiago explains when the newsman asks if they are shooting a movie, that actually it’s not a movie and you are embalming him. It captures most of the things the film is about: Santiago is a character, you are capturing many moments in time, and if technology allows it, it’s eternal. So, thank you for that.

J.M.S.: Thank you very much.


Nota relacionada (related note):
Finale Allegro Imbalsamato

Tribeca x 4: Pablo Trapero y Martina Gusmán

Durante el 6º Festival de Cine de Tribeca tuve el placer y honor de entrevistar a algunos de los cineastas, actores, productores y ejecutivos del festival. A continuación, un extracto de la entrevista con Pablo Trapero, director, escritor y productor de Nacido y Criado (Born and Bred), y Martina Gusmán, actriz y productora ejecutiva de la misma película.

During the 6th Tribeca Film Festival I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of the filmmakers, actors, producers and festival executives. Next there is an excerpt from the interview with Pablo Trapero, director, writer and producer of Nacido y Criado (Born and Bred), and Martina Gusmán, actress and executive producer in the same film.

Pablo Goldbarg: Todas tus películas tienen diferentes estilos. ¿Sos consciente que en esta última estás “renacido y recriado”?

Pablo Trapero: (risas) La verdad que no. Se puede diferenciar un poco de las anteriores porque es deliberadamente más dramática quizás. Si tuvieramos que encontrarla en el “DVD Club” estaría en el género de drama, y eso puede ser que la diferencie un poco de las demás, pero no. Yo con cada película me involucré más o menos igual, y por suerte la recepción que tuvieron las películas me hace pensar más que nada en la que viene que hacia atrás. Entiendo lo que decís porque me lo han preguntado muchas veces, pero no fue un ejercicio formal. Eso quiero decirte: no se trata de “voy a hacer esto para diferenciar de tal cosa…” Siempre trato de ser muy solidario con la historia que quiero hacer, y cada historia va necesitando una forma de ser contada. Eso me parece que puede ser el origen de este cambio que notás.

P.G.: Algunas escenas se convierten en una marca muy personal: el coche de carrera de Mundo Grúa (1999), los tiros en la comisaría de El Bonaerense (2002), el maravilloso cortejo fúnebre con los tractores en tu película actual… Me pregunto si las tenés pensadas desde el guión, o al llegar al lugar de filmación se renueva el proceso creativo.

P.T.: No, la mayor parte de eso está en el guión. Lo que pasa es que en el set se termina de formar. El cortejo era más o menos como lo viste. A diferencia que en el guión se hablaba de otro tractor. Los tiros en El Bonaerense también. Después, en el medio del proceso estaba esta señora “super size me” con la ametralladora. En la escena se toma forma, pero estas ideas están desde el principio. Es este límite de lo absurdo y lo cotidiano. Trabajo muy consciente de eso. Los momentos de absurdo que tiene la vida de todos los días, y que uno lo vive con naturalidad, pero cuando alguien lo mira de afuera cambia. Absurdo o extrañamiento, o fantasia, o el nombre que le quieras poner. Pero justamente esta idea de que el día a día en realidad es como una aventura y no el “daily”, lo cotidiano, sino que todo el tiempo existen estas sorpresas. Esto es buscado en casi todas mis películas.

P.G.: Martina, ¿Cómo fue desde lo personal hacer un papel que es corto pero muy profundo, y que está relacionado con la tragedia?

Martina Gusmán: Como nosotros trabajamos juntos hace seis años, y como además somos marido y mujer con Pablo, es decir compartimos la vida juntos, yo estuve desde el inicio del guión y la idea de la película, incluso él escribió el personaje de Mili para que lo haga yo. Entonces todo lo que fue la investigación de los procesos de duelo, y lo que le pasa a la gente en situaciones similares, yo lo viví desde un comienzo. Trabajamos muchísimo con Guillermo Pfening (actor) y Pablo, y fue muy paulatino. Fuimos creando el personaje juntos.

P.G.: ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre Pablo director y Pablo productor, y cuáles son sus próximos proyectos?

M.G. : Que Pablo director siempre quiere más (risas), y que por suerte tiene un Pablo productor que puede también ser consciente de las cosas que puede o no hacer. Por lo tanto eso es muy bueno para él como director porque tiene una capacidad increíble de adaptarse a las diferentes situaciones o cambios. Por ejemplo, en Nacido y Criado, fuimos ahí porque era un lugar alucinante lleno de nieve, y la nieve se empezó a ir de una forma terrible. Cualquier otro director tal vez se hubiese paralizado, y sin embargo Pablo se adaptó, buscó nuevas locaciones para ir siguiendo la nieve, o armó nieve con sal. Tiene mucha facilidad para adaptarse, y mentalidad de productor. Esa combinación, para hacer cine en Argentina, es muy buena. De la productora ahora estamos haciendo una película, y de Pablo, su próxima película, que en principio se llama Desencuentro pero que todavía no está definido el nombre. Vamos a filmar en Septiembre/Octubre de este año, y vamos a trabajar juntos desde producción, y en la actuación. El 21 de Mayo arrancamos con el rodaje de la próxima película de Albertina Carri, directora de Geminis, que se llama La Rabia. Y después La Matiné, un documental uruguayo.

P.G.: Es un placer conocerlos, y gracias por hacer que el cine Argentino se conozca en el resto del mundo.

P.T.: Muchas gracias... muy amable.

M.G.: Muchas gracias a vos.


Nota relacionada (related note):
Renacer

Tribeca x 4: Salvatore Stabile

During the 6th Tribeca Film Festival I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of the participating filmmakers, actors, producers and festival executives. What follows is an excerpt from the interview with Salvatore Stabile, writer and director of “Where God Left His Shoes”.

Durante el 6º Festival de Cine de Tribeca tuve el placer y honor de entrevistar a algunos de los cineastas, actores, productores y ejecutivos del festival. A continuación, un extracto de la entrevista con Salvatore Stabile, escritor y director de “Where God Left His Shoes”.

Pablo Goldbarg: When did the homelessness theme trigger in you the need to make a movie?

Salvatore Stabile: Well, first, the creation of the movie… I really wanted to make a movie about a family, first. I never intended to take the cause of the homeless. I was always intending to make a movie about this family. About a family who is struggling to survive in the darkest time of their lives, and they come to realize that in the end, as long as they have each other, they will be OK. That’s what I started with in the script stage. The whole thing about homelessness, which is the theme of the film… when we started shooting the movie, we started to receive donations for clothing, then people started sending toys, furniture, and then food, and then gift cards, because we’d asked people and we told people that we’re going to help some homeless people out. And what happened was that we ended up getting a warehouse full of all of that stuff. And at the end of the shoot the most rewarding thing for me was that the day after we finished shooting, myself and four other crew members of mine got into this truck, we loaded the trucks up all the stuff and we started to go around New York City and pulling up to homeless shelters and just giving it away. And it was the best experience of the film for me. That was the most rewarding. Shooting a movie is wonderful, and working with John was wonderful, we had a great crew, we had a great cast, but there was nothing more rewarding than seeing these people, the thankfulness in their eyes when you hand over all these jackets, and food and clothing, and then from there we decided to continue to charity, and we’re going to continue to do it this year hopefully, and also we’re donating… I’m donating part of my back end for sure, my producer, all back ends towards homeless, so we figured it, you know, we are trying to make some type of difference, and hopefully that helps.

P.G.: It’s very interesting to see that Latinos are struggling in your film, and Italians are trying to help. I wonder, in a city like New York, how important is what the immigrants are doing. Beyond family values, what is the role of other cultures in this city and in the U.S.?

S.S.: I never wanted to make a movie about race. Being Italian I thought that I couldn’t come at all on Latino culture because I’m not Latino. We started with the fact that it’s just a movie about a family. So many Italians are portrayed in movies as gangsters and bad guys. I never intended it to be a comment on race or culture, you know, that we have an Italian-American that is trying to help them, because there is another Italian-American who didn’t want to help them. Essentially from the beginning I tried to find the best actors for the roles around John. You know, the film has made a statement without me intending to make a statement, and I think that could be taken as something that is beautiful. Hopefully people take different things from it.

P.G.: It’s a truly independent film. I know that you were working with the “Made in NY” incentive. Can you please tell me how it was working with all kinds of support, not only from the city but from churches, other organizations and locations? How was the “indy” experience?

S.S. People think New York is a difficult place because the traffic and people. I made two films and I worked on various television shows that were shot around the city, and I have friends who are independent filmmakers. Every time I shoot New York it’s the most welcoming experience, from the Mayor’s Office to locations. Everybody tries to make it possible for you to achieve your vision. And it’s very, very easy to shoot here. It allows independent films to flourish. I mean, everywhere you point your camera you have a beautiful shot. So, the city itself lends a beauty that you can find nowhere else. You cannot replicate New York anywhere else in the world. And the Mayor’s Office… we had, I think, fifty locations on a 25-day shoot. I had the best location manager who was working with all the offices. We never had a problem. There wasn’t one problem whether blocking off the street, cars, there was nothing I’d seen from the director/producer stand point that was a problem from the city. The other thing: we had so much support from the Trinity church who helped us. We made donations to their church, and they also helped with the homeless. When you connect to the right people in the city, there are so many people who want to help, and when they’re given the opportunity to help, that’s where the city shows how generous it really is. You really need to pin people down. “Hey look, I need your help, this is our cause”, and I think people are overwhelmed and happy to do it. But if you don’t approach them in a very direct way, you know, they just go on with their day and they forget. The support we had from Trinity church, the Mayor’s Office, the MTA… Albertine Anderson who runs the Film Division for the MTA was so accommodating to us. We had two children on the subway, so we needed special security. I hear stories of so many filmmakers “stealing” shots on subways, but we didn’t want to do that and put the kids in jeopardy. So, we made sure everything was done properly, and without her office we wouldn’t haven been able to do it. As you know, the train is the most important part of the film. I mean, the subway scenes in the beginning and the end, through out the middle. To me, growing up in New York city, the train is a home, 'cause you travel on it so much, it’s almost like your living room for two or three hours a day, so it was very important to me to film it correctly, to have full access to the train, and they provided that, and I’m very grateful.

P.G.: Your first feature (Gravesend, 1997) was ten years ago. You wanted to have some kind of maturity to make your second feature, and we see it. How was dealing with the expectations and patience, and how did you know that you were ready?

S.S.: I knew, after I made my first film, I heard enough filmmakers saying “the first one is important in a sense of getting recognition, and people will see what kind of talent you have, but your second film, if you mess that one up, you know, that’s the one that could really, really hurt you”. When I finished my first film I was nineteen, twenty years old. I didn’t necessarily know what I was doing. You know, I had some instinct. Everything was made with instinct. When the film came out, I received a lot of praise and a lot of negativity, and I handled both really well. I talked to my producer and I said: “you know, it’s very important to me to get an education. I made a film that showed some promise, but I really, really needed to learn my craft”. And I spent five to six years just writing for TV shows, and staying behind people who were very talented. And the reason I chose television is because you’re always in production, you’re always behind a camera, shooting thirteen or twenty-two episodes a season, and I’ve always been privileged to work with some of the best people on TV. I worked on shows like Rescue Me or The Sopranos or numerous other shows. When I wrote the script I was looking for something that I believed in. I didn’t want just to make a movie. I had several opportunities over the years to make many films on Hollywood or horror films, but I always wanted my second one to be very personal. Something that no matter what anybody says I’m sure this film will be praised, and will be criticized but at the end of the day that doesn’t matter to me, because I made a movie that is about something that I believed in. It’s so special, and it’s such an important cause behind it… no matter what anybody says about it, it could never be a failure. So, the wait for ten years was a great thing for two reasons: one, my craft. Two, I chose the right piece of material to do and really to continue my career. So I’m very fortunate.

P.G.: Thank you very much for your time and your movie. I can tell you that the shoes were on your set. I'm sure.

S.S.: Thank you, I feel very blessed. Everything has been amazing, from the production, to Tribeca, to everyone involved, to all the charity. I'm truly blessed.

Salvatore Stabile's picture property of Vulcan Productions © 2007

Source: http://wglhs.com/TheDirector.asp

Related note:

Shoes On The Set

Tribeca x 4: Gustavo Fontán

Durante el 6º Festival de Cine de Tribeca tuve el placer y honor de entrevistar a algunos de los cineastas, actores, productores y ejecutivos del festival. A continuación, un extracto de la entrevista con Gustavo Fontán, director y escritor de El Arbol (The Tree).

During the 6th Tribeca Film Festival I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of the filmmakers, actors, producers and festival executives. Next there is an excerpt from the interview with Gustavo Fontán, director and writer of El Arbol (The Tree).

Pablo Goldbarg: En lo visual de El Arbol (2006) se percibe algo muy poético. ¿Cómo fue esta transformación entre la literatura y el cine, y que tipo de conexiones encontrás entre ambas artes?

Gustavo Fontán: En principio creo que literatura y cine son dos lenguajes diferentes. Uno no puede compararlos en cuanto a transcripciones. Sí creo que como lector y como escritor, y como lector de poetas fundamentalmente, hay algo que siempre me interesó en los poetas: cómo pueden ejercer una mirada nueva sobre un mundo conocido por todos. Es decir, esta formas de mirar al mundo, de mirar poéticamente al mundo, de renovar con la mirada las cosas que son conocidas por todos y que están presentes para todos, y esta posibilidad de verlas diferente, a mi me parecía que esa capacidad de la poesía también debería ser una capacidad del cine. Y siempre me interesó en ese sentido ese poder de otorgarle a la realidad una forma, y una presencia, y una mirada que es nueva segun la mirada.

P.G.: ¿Cómo fue trabajar con tus padres? ¿Qué te produjo tenerlos a ellos presentes en la película, durante el rodaje y cuando ves la película?

G.F.: Fue una decisión muy fuerte. Incluso algunos amigos pensaban que estaba un poco loco: “vos sos demasiado valiente”, me decían. Yo venía de una experiencia que me había resultado un poco, no te diría desagradable, pero me había hecho pensar mucho. Yo venia de dirigir una película en España. Una producción independiente, con un sistema más sofisticado del que podemos tener. Y fue para mi rotunda la comprensión de que yo no quería eso. Leí una frase de Fassbinder que decía que uno no puede hacer cine sobre las cosas, sino que tiene que hacer cine con las cosas, y en ese momento decidí hacer una película con algunas de las cosas más cercanas que tenía. Y llega un momento de la vida además, que el paso del tiempo o la presencia de la muerte en los padres y en uno mismo como espejo desde los padres se vuelve como muy contundente, y para mí ese era el momento de la vida. Claro, en el relato no importaba todo eso porque fuesen mis padres, sino que era el lugar que yo tenía para acceder a la sensibilidad que la película planteaba. No porque importara biográficamente, pues en mis padres eso está ausente en el relato, sino que importaba sensiblemente. Era mi puerta de acceso a un mundo sensible.

P.G.: Esta línea muy finita entre documental y ficción esta presente en tu película. Mario Vargas Llosa escribió que algunos escritores, y te trato a vos también como escritor, pueden manejar las diferencias de planos de realidad de una manera muy sutil que el lector no se da cuenta. Me pregunto cómo definiste vos en esta historia jugar con ese límite.

G.F.: Está muy bien la pregunta…en ese sentido me hace muy feliz la película. Creo que lo conseguí, y en esto no hay nada de soberbia, sino de sentimiento de convicción. Existe el acceso a algo que siempre me resultó muy interesante. Por un lado la primera línea de la película es absolutamente simple, es absolutamente sencilla. Uno puede contra la historia en pocas palabras. Sin embargo a partir de esa simpleza es que uno va accediendo a esos otros territorios y a esos otros límites. Creo que fueron enjacando con mucha precisión, producto del trabajo de un equipo, producto de una reflexión que la fuimos haciendo a lo largo de tres años, producto de la intuición, producto de Dios, o esa otra cosa que a veces colabora mágicamente. Yo siento que es verdad, que hay posibles lecturas, lugares donde uno se puede parar para reflexionar sobre la película muy distintos. Y eso me hace muy feliz. Creo que sí, coincido con vos que esas capas son múltiples y que están como enlazadas.

P.G.: Te llevó dos años filmar el proyecto. Quisiste filmar todas las estaciones, y te diste el lujo en esta industria que es una vorágine de esperar un año más para ver si cubrías nuevas tomas. ¿Cómo es esto de trabajar con un equipo durante dos años y jugar con tu propia impaciencia?

G.F.: El equipo era un equipo muy pequeño en principio, y era un equipo de una solidaridad y una convicción en relacion al proyecto, y una convicción humana que fue fantástica. El trabajo era constante porque nosotros teníamos como una especie de estructura inicial pero no teníamos un guión con todas las secuencias, entonces nosotros filmabamos dos días al mes, editabamos, pensabamos, filmabamos, editabamos, por lo tanto te diría que el trabajo con el equipo fue constante durante esos años, absolutamente solidario. Pocas veces sentí una unidad tan potente en el grupo. Cada uno de ellos investigaba desde su rol. Hay mucha investigación de sonido, hay mucha investigación de fotografía, entonces era muy alentador para el equipo para las cabezas de grupo, porque no era que burocráticamente resolvían una película. El proyecto partía de otro lado: acá esta esto, vamos a investigar todos. Entonces desde ese lugar el equipo tenia una posición frente al relato muy activa y nunca tuvimos impaciencia. Yo incluso al principio les dije “vamos a filmar quizás cinco, seis años hasta que el árbol se caiga”, y partimos de esa idea; no hubo impaciencia.

P.G.: Gustavo, muchas gracias. Para mi sos verdaderamente un hallazgo, y me alegro que esto le esté pasando al cine Argentino.

G.F.: Te agradezco mucho.


Nota relacionada (related note):
Suenan Las Raíces