Dominga Sotomayor and her short film in Pandemic: “Every time I make a movie, it is like capturing an emotional state”

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In the international orbit of cinema and soap operas, there is no single reason for making a deal. But if it is to be simplified, Chilean director Marcela’s jump is happy to direct the second season of Narcos: Mexico It was triggered by how much producer Eric Newman liked his movie dog. Same thing with Sebastian Lelio: The possibility of making his first movie in English, Disobedience (2017), facilitated by actress and producer Rachel Weisz’s spell with Gloria (2013).

For her part, Dominga Sotomayor acknowledged that her first project in the United States is largely explained by the impact her film has had. Too late to die young (2018) in Animal Kingdom, the US company that makes titles like Follow (2014) and The dead do not die (2019), by Jim Jarmusch. That company, in alliance with NEON, that it premiered parasite In the United States – In 2020, the Chilean director called privacy in a group movie made in a pandemic, The year of the eternal storm (Year of the Eternal Storm), to be released in the coming months.

Previously, the director worked on common stories, be it the award-winning short film The island (2013), filmed with Polish filmmaker Katarzyna Klimkiewicz, or Visual Exchange of Messages with Spanish Karla Simon, Correspondence (2020). But this was also when he worked more independently. Director says From Thursday to Sunday (2012).

Sotomayor, who underwent the same exercise, adds: “For me, the beauty of the call was that it was not very ambitious, it consisted of“ Do it with what you have in Chile, today, with the limitations you face. ”Six other international filmmakers of these, only the Iranian director The famous Jafar Banahi (TaxiShe was involved at the time of being called. The rest joined because they were already involved in the process, from the Americans Laura Poitras and David Lowry to the famous Thai filmmaker Abechatpong Weerasethakul.

Although he cannot detail the plot of his short film, he notes that he filmed the part in July, in complete confinement and kept the action to a minimum. For me it is a document for a moment. Every time I make a movie it is a snapshot of an emotional state I have been in, like the people I have collaborated with. Correspondence It ends up being a document on the outbreak and this other short story is about the epidemic. “

While doing short stories, have you spoken with any other managers who have implemented a similar project during the pandemic?

I know Seba Lelio did something like this, and I didn’t ask him in detail about his experience, but there have been many such projects. I find it a good idea to go back to basics, everyone makes their own camera, and shoot at home. It reminded me a little of the days of film school. distance CorrespondenceI started seeing another correspondence between the filmmakers.

Sotomayor says that making her brief health isolation later made more sense with another experiment: When she started in August, she began her one-year career as a visiting professor at Harvard University, in the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies. There, among her works, she was a professor on a Latin American and Chilean film course, and led three thesis projects, in this case, short films produced in the Covid era. In one of the courses a student guides his father and brother, and another works with his mother. It felt like I was in a process similar to asking students, ”he says.

While in August she plans a trip to Boston, USA, where she will reside while completing her sophomore year at Harvard, the director continues to serve as president of the CCC Foundation, and the Center for Film and Creativity, where she was born. Within the framework of the idea of ​​returning spectators to gather around the big screen and that during the period of confinement he organized a series of virtual activities. In parallel, he also finished writing the feature film that was to take place Too late to die young, A story that would become his first film to be filmed abroad.

During the epidemic in Chile, there were practically no open cinemas, while broadcast platforms consolidated and continued to multiply. Are you looking at this scene with some concern?

It was only when we started with the CCC project that we said, ‘How do we make going to the movies attractive again’. We can watch movies on Netflix, on TV. How to make it attractive for people to collectively want to see a movie, which I think is a very horrible, difficult and different thing. And now I think we’re more accustomed to not leaving homes, platforms are working better, there’s more diversity, there’s more technology, and people are really getting themselves ready. So the challenge is even greater. We’ve talked about what it would be like to promise to get out of your home. It motivates me a lot. I think CCC is going to be a meeting place and it should be more than just showing movies. It should be a place for outdoor cinema, where you can go to meet people again safely, as there is a lot of space in the yard, have a coffee. But it’s also crazy, because we’re starting to work against ourselves. We said we wanted a physical meeting place and ended up creating a meeting on platforms, doing Zoom, reviews on Vimeo, and conversations with filmmakers on Instagram. I think this time I helped Consolidated Contractors Company become more popular. It seems like a meeting place at least in the world of cinema, as we are trying to reach a wider audience.

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