Happy Ending:Campo de Batalla on the cinema

I left Bolivia in December 2008 and it took me almost two years to finish the film, from the moment I left La Paz, I had no money to put towards the postproduction and the few people who got involved were either not being paid or  paid a very small fee. I met a very talented compositor/animator with whom I would like to work again and pay her the fee she deserves. We also have became good friends and she is happy Campo de Batalla gave her the first IMDB credit of a career in post where she is doing extremely well. The other people involved in the post have either disappeared, or shown no interest on the film. 

Once the film was finished, I made more mistakes. I started paying the fee to submit the film to main film festivals, a small film like this will never be playing amongst the titans unless you have made a masterpiece or have the talent of Bergman or Buñuel.  There are still very good festivals who don’t charge and it is better to start small and build up from there. By now I was so broke I couldn’t even afford paying burning DVD’s. I made 100 copies and that was it.

Other things happened in my career as a director while the postproduction for the film was going on. I kept making short films and became a better director. I started to experiment with silence and images over dialogue and learned to write in images rather than words. I joined a theatre group and started working with actors and dancers. In February 2010, I travelled to Harbour Island in the Bahamas to make a film for the Bahamas Ministry of tourism.  I was selected as a finalist of The 14 islands film challenge.Challenge because I was left alone in a island for two weeks with a camera and sound gear, but after Campo de Batalla, no other set has ever been so challenging. The Bahamas film was a holiday, not a challenge. I was not scared, I was happy, I was lucky. That felt like a time in paradise. If anything, I’m thankful to my first feature film because of what it has taught me. I also learned that as a director, you must learn to edit. Editing is an art in itself, but a good editor is hard to find and if you are short of cash, chances are that you may be working with someone who calls herself /himself an editor just because they know how to use Final Cut Pro. I regretted not editing Campo De Batalla myself but every film I did after, I edited myself. This, has taught me to value this art even more, I can now spot a good editor just by looking at four cuts.

Film festivals I already forgotten I submitted the film, started calling saying they wanted to show Campo De Batalla. Eventually the film made it to a distributor and Campo de Batalla had it’s cinema release in La Paz on 27th January  2011. Even though I was not able to make it there for the premiere at the Cinemateca Boliviana, the actors, the crew, my Bolivian family, they were all there and the film had a successful opening night. It was scheduled to be on the cinemas for three weeks but it ended up being on release for two months. It was surreal seeing my film advertised on posters next to a film such as Facebook, or The Fighter, it was also satisfying reading about how I made this film in El Pais newspaper or La Razón. 

When I made my first feature film, I had that silly idea many people turning thirty have, that turning thirty is a turning point in your life and that either you make it by thirty or you will never make it. The energy you need to make a first film in a low budget is enormous, but life is there to challenge us, if we are scared of making mistakes, if we don’t do things just because the conditions are not right or because we are waiting for something better to come along, a better idea, a better camera, a better team, then be rest assured that it will never be perfect and that either you do it while you have the energy and the passion or you never will. Being young and carefree is not forever so that in itself was an opportunity for me. 

Making a first feature film: Part 2

They tell you to drink Coca tea made of real coca leafs once you arrive in La Paz to avoid altitude sickness, luckily I didn’t suffer from it but in a city of almost 4000 metres above sea level, you do feel quite tired if you start walking fast or running so it does take time to acclimatize to that. As my uncle took me to see some potential flats to rent, we passed by an impressive modern glass building that I was told was the Cinemateca Boliviana. In this cinema, you can watch national films, films from neighbouring Latinamerican countries, as well as new releases from all over the world and world cinema gems. I thought at the time how great it would be to have Campo de Batalla showing there. 


As soon as I found a place to live right in the middle of the city, I organized a casting. First I used to walk around the streets and invite people who I thought looked the part, then I contacted schools, theatres and had two local contacts who were very helpful and kindly put me I touch with potential cast and crew. Actresses started arriving. You can’t never tell about an actor until you see her or him on camera, some faces maybe beautiful but that doesn’t mean they are photogenic, being photogenic is unfortunately down to mother nature, either you are or you aren’t.  I remember opening the door to a girl whom I didn't think much of when she came to the casting but when she started acting and I went to a full close up of her, she became someone else, not only could she act, she  had one of those faces born for to be photograph. The most difficult part to cast was the role of the grandmother as she had to be a real Cholita  and there aren't many that are trained actresses. A Cholita is an Aymara woman who dresses in traditional clothes and speaks Aymara too as well as Spanish, at least the sophisticated Cholitas of La Paz do, they also wear very beautiful  skirts, shawls and jewellery and do their thick black hair in two plats. Luckily, I meet one who was not only a lovely woman but a wonderful actress too. 

I was a first time director learning as I went along,on top of that I was acting too and it was hard to gain the actors trust for a long time. It took weeks for them to feel comfortable with me and for me to gain their respect and trust. Actors are inquisitive, they love what they do dearly and if they are good, they are experts in their own craft. They expect the same from the director. I recently met an actor who played a part in Capote, and in many chapters of SATC and he told me that unless the director is an actor, actors usually find themselves struggling to be understood.I agree fifty fifty as there are excellent directors who do not act and vice versa, but one thing is for sure, if you can't direct actors, then you can't direct a movie. To be continued

Making my first feature film: Part 1

In September 2008 I travelled to La Paz(Bolivia) from London. It was an exciting time for me. After almost a year and a half since I first had the idea for Campo de Batalla, I was now on my way to turn an idea into a film. This was going to be my first feature film. The film, every young filmmaker wants to make. The film I knew I had to make. I knew far too many filmmakers who keep talking about making a feature film but never actually made it , some of them are still talking about it even now. Some of them, are so unrealistic, so far removed from the real world, that they wait and wait for dear life to put together the million or two they claim their movie costs. I just  knew this was my time and my place and there were no excuses. I was not expecting a million neither was I relying on the dreadful government funding. A filmmaker makes films and that is what I wanted to do and that is what I have been doing ever since with or without money. A first feature film is a special one, regardless of what happens to it, whether you want to show it to the world or hide it away somewhere for dear history, it will always be your first film.I had the script, I had the energy and determination now I needed some money.  Luckily, I met a businesswoman who liked my film idea and liked what she called my entrepreneurial spirit. Her help and the help of her foundation was key for me to make it to Bolivia and shoot the film.I was off, happy to leave London.

You can never count on things going according to plan.The money I managed to put together, was all accurately budgeted to spend on the movie. It was not much, in fact, it was the budget a  fashion promo shot in London has for make –up but ,for me, it was enough, I was thankful. Then, first mishap happened.As I was about to board the plane to la Paz in Miami, the plane was cancelled. That day, a social revolt started in Bolivia and the flights were cancelled not just for that night but for two more weeks. And so I was stuck in Miami for what it felt a really long time. Two weeks were I kept calling the airline daily hoping to make it to La Paz. Two weeks on fun loving and youthful Miami. One of my characters in the film, Lupe (Played by Claudia Coronel), dreams of living in Miami and she kind of dresses like Latin women do in Miami. It was boiling hot there and I didn't have beach clothes or summer dresses, so in Robert Rodriguez style, I bought my first prop which I also needed for myself, a dress I wore during my two weeks there and that eventually was the dress of one of my main characters.This is the little yellow dress that made his way to final cut .

Arriving in La Paz is just magical, as you land on El Alto airport - which has the longest runaway in the world  due to the altitude of the city-is breathtaking. Too beautiful to even put in words and Im not Pablo Neruda to even try.The cold of the Andean Altiplano hit me hard as soon as i left the plane after the extreme heat of Miami but somehow I felt I was arriving home. This city was  going to be my home for the following months, I still had no contacts , crew or cast.In fact, it was only me making this movie, but like many filmmakers of my generation, I read that  Rodriguez bible "Rebel without a crew" and I was determined to make my first feature with or without crew, if he made it, I could make it too.  I just knew things will come along. First things first, an Api, that warm corn juice people drink in La Paz for breakfast. Then, sleep and then, met my charismatic uncle, an encyclopedic man, intelligent and sharp as a fox, he would help me find my way around for the first days. To be continued 

The Invisible Woman at ShortCutz

The Invisible Woman will  be playing at the ShortCutz ‘Winners’ evening on Sunday 6th of February!  It’s being held at the Proud Galleries from 7:30pm  and their special guest on sunday will be David Wilson Barnes, actor of Sex and the City, Capote or Taking Woodstock

So if you are in London,  get down there and have a good time.It's a free event and probably the best free film event around. I’ll be there somewhere so say hi.

Inside Julian Assange court hearing.

I was one of the few people inside the Julian Assange court hearing on Tuesday 14^th December 2010 at Westminster court magistrates (London) where he was eventually granted bail. As a filmmaker if I had to choose a film to describe the whole thing, it would be “To kill a mockingbird”. A film set in the US south during the depression era where a lawyer has to defend a black man against an undeserved rape charge. The film deals with the themes of racism and prejudice. In the Assange case, if we were to make a plot out of it, it would be an innocent (what happened to innocent until proven guilty?) man accused of rape charges because freedom of speech makes for uncomfortable reading for superpowers who make and destroy countries, people and cultures as if toys.

How I got inside court 1 was down to luck, sometimes you need luck in life and Tuesday was my lucky day. When I went through security, my bag was put through the scanner. I was expecting that security would confiscate the camera inside but to my surprise, this didn’t happen. As I walked upstairs with an Italian professor from Goldsmiths College, who like me was hoping to go in, we realised we were not press and we also didn’t have press passes so mission impossible. Then, a member of court staff shouted that 15 journalists could go in, only those with a press pass authorized by the W.C.M. The rest of us were asked to leave as there was no way we could go in. I just went a bit closer to the door to have a look when the same member of court staff said they were going to allow 15 more journalists. At this point it was all or nothing for me, even though there were two guards counting the amount of people going inside the courtroom and they were asked to show the press pass as they went in, somehow, I went in without having one. I just smiled to the guy counting people and he smiled back and that was it.  In my last post, I said that sometimes I feel that my life is there to provide material for my films, well this was one of those occasions.

The court room was very small for such a high profile case, I was expecting one of those courts you see in films but nothing could be further from the reality.  I could not see any cctv cameras inside the room, maybe there are and they are hidden but I couldn’t spot any. A lady kept asking the journalists to have their press passes visible. I was so nervous I kept putting my hair in front of me to cover my non existent press pass.

The atmosphere inside court as we were waiting for the hearing to start was respectful, serious, professional and highly confidential. Lawyers exchanged notes, journalists gave notes to lawyers asking, I guess, for interviews. Julian Assange had three lawyers there, two men and a young woman in her late thirties who seemed on the ball and highly focused on her job. She kept taking notes, checking her folders and exchanging confidentialities with her colleagues.

The lawyer on behalf of the Swedish authorities was also a young woman in her late thirties / early forties maximum with short blondish hair and a Mac laptop from where she kept reading what seemed like a long document full of bullet points. She had a partner from her law firm right behind her and they also kept exchanging confidentialities.

When the judge appeared and we were asked to stand up, and moments later Julian Assange appeared on the dock accompanied by a security guard, it all felt very dark, very serious, life changing for a man who looked very dignified, tired, overwhelmed but calm and collected. It was sad seeing him inside the dock , if this man proves to be innocent, there is nothing that will compensate for the very hard times he must be going through. Seeing him there behind a glass dock like an animal in a zoo for accusations he denies made the whole thing look like a sham. He only spoke to confirm his place of birth and his address, then he sat, and for the whole hearing he kept listening attentively to the accusation and the defense. Like many of us there, he was struggling sometimes to listen to what the lawyers were saying, I noticed he kept leaning forward towards the front of the dock. Lawyers should be wearing radio microphones as they stand up when talking. Those microphones attached to the table were of not much use.

During the hearing, whenever the lawyer in representation of the Swedish authorities was talking, I noticed that her answers and explanations were not smooth, eloquent or convincing. This is my impression, which is subjective but if I were directing an actress pretending to be a lawyer, I would want way more confidence as it did show lack of conviction. If the judge challenged her to her affirmations, she took a long time to think before answering . Long silences where followed by a quick read through her notes on the laptop. I assume, as a lawyer, she has to be really careful with what  she  says hence the long silences.

Journalists were twitting form their iphones, blackberries, laptops. All these equipment has built-in cameras and sound recording devices so it was easy for them to record or take pictures if they wanted to. This was maybe the last time this happens inside a court room. When bail was granted there were no cheers or hugs or smiles or any sense of triumphalism at all. Journalists dashed off to write their reports and Julian Assange exchanged a few words with his lawyers before being taken away, back to jail in a Serco van. 

It is sad that someone like Augusto Pinochet was granted bail on this country whereas Julian Assange was denied of that a week ago. Someone who has exposed war crimes is not a criminal. Let’s punish the criminals but not the messengers. He has started a revolution that will change the way governments operate for the generations to come. He has encouraged people around the globe to do something, to act, to support and fight for the truth. Wikileaks has shown what many of us knew, that we are governed by corrupted governments, that there is an empire who on the one hand is dying just as the throw away culture it created, yet, this empire is obsessed with power and control and will do anything to keep it  whatever the costs. Wikileaks is a doorway to a new world that is at least just, it is a breath of fresh air for the inhabitants of this planet affected by governments that oppress the right to free speech. 

Jemima Khan arriving in court

On another note,

The press has been quite harsh on Jemima Khan, they call her a socialite but she is a woman who seems passionate about her social and political convictions, someone who puts her money where her mouth is. If this was  a photo op for celebrities or socialites, surely all those people who turn up to the opening of a packet of crisps, would be there, she would not be at Westminster court magistrates on a cold gloomy Tuesday but on a Caribbean break enjoying the sunshine or in and out Annabel’s every Friday night. She does charity work, writes about social causes she believes in and uses her “social status” not to her advantage, but to the advantage of people or causes she believes in. Calling her a socialite is a bit demeaning not just for her but for the people supporting Assange and Wikileaks.

THE LIFE OF A WRITER

I’m currently living in London and London is a white blanket. It snows. I’m so cold I can’t do anything, it’s the perfect time to write but I haven’t been able to do that yet.  A friend last night reminded me, life goes on despite the weather. True, it goes on despite the weather and a few other things and now that the year is coming to an end, I definitely want to start the new one fresh and positive. For me being positive-professionally- means I’m working on my next film full-time. I made so many mistakes directing my first feature film that I don’t want to commit them again, if anything, I want to make new mistakes. It has been such a long and tedious process that next time, it has to be very worth it for me to sacrifice as much as I did for Campo de Batalla. The film is finally opening in the cinemas in Bolivia in January 2011 and this has been my biggest achievement as a filmmaker so far. The film is set in Bolivia and has a Bolivian casting and therefore for me it is very important that the Bolivian cinema goers see this film and enjoy it.But my next film will be set in London and I´m really excited about making a film here in a city that I know like the palm of my hand.

The first thing for a film to work, is to have a great story to tell and then, to tell it well. For the next six months or so, I’m going to be living as a writer, thinking, brainstorming and committed to the writing process. Life as a writer can be lonely at times but fulfilling and exciting when things eventually work out. I don’t have a television, haven’t had one for over a year now and I don’t miss it one bit, just seeing the front pages of the British tabloids on a daily basis reminds me how lucky I am not to be contaminated by the propaganda and mental disease that current British tv is. Thankfully, the Internet is changing the dictatorial nature of television and we can now choose what we want to see, no longer some broadcaster imposing on us their tastes and those of the government in power. I believe this is quite important for a writer, to be in companionship with herself or himself first and foremost. It is almost spiritual and monastic.

I have a clear idea of the theme of my next film but I still don’t know the structure or the full story and one of the things I learned is that before writing the script, I must have a structure, but before that, you have a theme,then you have the story and then the structure, so things working slowly but working.  When I wrote Campo de Batalla I just wrote the script without thinking too much in how the story would develop, this created blood, sweat and tears during filming and editing, because if the structure and story is 100% clear, then, despite the lack of resources you maybe facing-and I was facing endless resources-  you will always come up with a new way of doing things that are not going to be out of place within the main narrative. However if this is not clear- and it wasn’t for me-when things don’t go according to plan, you panic and don’t find solutions just problems, therefore, the story suffers. 

Every writer is different, some come up with an idea and they lock themselves up for days and write for endless hours until they write a first draft. I’m a very slow writer, I wish I could blurt it all out in days but I can’t. I think things over and over again. Sometimes I think that my life is there just to provide me with material for my films. Every event that happens in my life, I see it in cinematic terms, in possible scenes, in dialogue. Since I was a child I have been a very inquisitive person, my mum was so proud to have a six month-old baby who could talk that they thought I was going to be a politician but not, I’m no politician, I’m just inquisitive. If I dig into something, until I find what I’m looking for I won’t stop. This sometimes to the annoyance of friends or family who get fed up of my why, who, when , what, exactly how. Maybe they think I’m a gossiper but not, I’m just looking for material and so I need to know the whole story from beginning to end without missing any detail. If I were not a filmmaker I would be a very good private detective. I believe most writers are curious people. In life we go through so many emotions and events that despite the positive or negative, for us, it ends up being material and that’s how I see the bright side of things when they go wrong.

A writer must have a best friend who understands her or him, someone to call when you are stuck or when you have an idea to share. I’m lucky to have a very intelligent dad who is like a human library, anything you ask, he can answer, and usually in a witty way. 

In January I will be joining a group of scriptwriters with a first draft idea to help each other develop it further. I have done endless scriptwriting courses and read all those books you are supposed to read to learn about scriptwriting from Aristotles to Robert Mckee, but I’m not there to learn new rules but to be in the company of other people going through the same process as me. This enriches you vastly and motivates you to write daily. That’s why when someone asks me whether they should go to film school or not or whether they should do a Masters in writing or not, I always say, film school is not there to make you a better director or writer, but it is a great place to meet like minded people with the same drive and passion. That is very important, because you are going to need to share and discuss your ideas with people who can give you accurate feedback or feedback you can take into consideration.

Above all, a writer must have a stable life, but that’s another story. Everyone is different and stability has many variations. As Virginia Wolf said and I can’t agree more, a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. When I first arrived in London I was sharing a room with three other girls and I dreamed of the day I could have a place of my own to write , to think and to work from. Now at least, after a long time, that place is there for me, so no excuses. Happy writing everyone.

IN FILMMAKING CONTENT MUST DICTATE FORM

 Filmmaking is all about storytelling. One can have the best actors, the best photographer, the best art director, sets, etc but if the story is mediocre, then it would be a great looking mediocre film. The other way round applies too, sometimes to great achievements, when Martin Scorsese awarded the Palm D’or to a then 28 year old Thomas Vintenberg, for his film “Festen”, he said that “it was a great film that looked like shit”, and shit it does look but what a great story.

Something I’ve noticed among young wannabe directors these days, is that they don’t seem to have as much respect for scriptwriting as they do about the latest features of a new camera coming on in an already saturated market changing so fast only geeks can keep up. I was recently the only female filmmaker amongst a group of male directors, they were all young and urban and a bit too cool for me, but that's another story, nevertheless, their filmmaking conversations were unchallenging and to me ,they were more like a bunch of techno geeks, their knowledge of film history seemed non existent beyond Quentin Tarantino and I thought they would all make better cameramen than writer/directors. Filmmaking it’s not about camera gimmicks or style over substance, it’s all about storytelling and it is the story we are telling that dictates the form, that dictates how we shoot that story.   Think West Side Story, that is a clear example of a very stylised film where content dictates form even though it is a musical, and a great one too.

A film must be born out of a desire to express ourselves, to tell a story. It very rarely-never I would say- is born out of desire to try new camera shots or because we are obsessed with the endless possibilities of the latest camera on the market. Once we find a story we want to write, and when this moment arrives, you know it, it makes you feel so good about yourself it creates a sensation of happiness and fulfilment. It gives you even confidence in yourself. Suddenly there is a story you know is worth telling and worth spending you precious time writing it.

Then comes the pre-production hell, for me this is the part I like less, having produced all my films myself, I find it tiring, specially when you realise all those things you wished for, are not going to happen.You are not going to have access to that perfect location you wanted, perhaps you can’t afford the costumes you wished you had, and so on but this, must not put you off from making the film. One of the many things I learned from making my first feature film “ Campo de Batalla” is that there is always a way of shooting things to compensate for things you are lacking.

I have an admiration for novelists, their command of the language they write in, is so magnificent and rich, I sometimes wonder whether as kids their parents asked them to learn the dictionary by heart. I don’t think I could be a novelist, my command of Spanish is not as good as Borges, or Cervantes, or Vargas Llosa or Ruiz Zafón and English is only my third language, but I can write scripts and find writing dialogues my biggest strength. Linda Aronson says that “scriptwriting is the hardest form of literary writing”. I’m not sure about this if we compare it to a novelist but she is very close to what I think, that scriptwriting is pretty dam hard to get right, moreover, a script is never the end product, the script is bound to change a lot depending on the shooting and style of directing, photography, acting, circumstances and editing.

In this day and age, it seems like everybody and their cousin are filmmakers, in reality, they are just people who own cameras and shoot good footage. Worst of all is that many of these so called filmmakers believe that by having lots of subscribers to their you tube channels, they are the new Scorsese’s. Wrong, the worst video I have ever made, is actually the one getting more hits on you tube. One of the most popular channels and videos on the Internet are those about make up and how to apply it or what’s on your make –up bag. Shooting flashy looking images with no emotion, no story , no purpose is just that, purposeless.

It is sad that a whole generation of young filmmakers who never had it easier are not concentrating on the one thing that makes you a filmmaker in the first place, having a voice. It seems that form has taken over content when it should be the other way round, content should dictate form. Too many filmmakers talk about lenses and go into great detail about new gear coming up, it’s about time they take a good look at themselves, technology is there to be embraced but not to dictate content. A  film will always need the vision of a director and above all, a great story. Then, let the camera do its work. As filmmakers, we must be constantly reading, living, experiencing and thinking and not just in how are we going to get more hits or more subscribers or more online fans, or camera gimmicks but thinking about what is it we want to say and how are we going to say it. Take Guillermo Arriaga as an example, he is above all a brilliant intellectual with a very peculiar vision of the world, a humanists, a novelist and a wonderful scriptwriter and now director.