Your film is very diverse in tone, it is a melodrama and at the same time a black comedy, and it has a political background as well. How did you achieve this unity of tones and was the political story important to you or did you use it only as a background?
From the very beginning, it was clear to me that the story would be this rare combination of drama, political thriller and intimate portrait of two sisters. It was very challenging because different tones live in the same story, but I am glad I did it. For this kind of film, it is very important that you are in agreement with the actresses, it is very risky for them too. The political and historical background mainly serve as a connection, I wanted to give a commentary, but I also wanted to take a peek at the dark secrets of a family. The two of them do not even know what their father was doing in the past, so this is a film about the process of realizing, the discovery of where they come from, what their story is. For them, it is a journey for which they did not even know it would be part of their lives. Sometimes you read the news that seem very abstract to you because they belong to someone else's lives, and for them it is a reality, a part of their past, and that is very shocking. Not only for them, but also for the audience, to discover what their mother is capable of and what she has tried to hide over the past decades.
FEST was opened by the film The Favourite, which had a tremendous success, but it took twenty years to reach the audience because the producers thought that no one would want to watch a film where only women are in the lead roles. Your film focuses on three strong women and their relationship. Has there finally come a moment for such stories?
It is important for me to have such stories on screen and such characters. In my films I always try to give voice to characters who do not normally have it, or we do not have the opportunity to hear their voice. I thought it was a good moment for the film about this female triangle, a mother and two sisters. It was a good moment also because I had just finished my previous film The Clan where a father and his sons were in focus, and in this one a mother and her daughters, so there is this connection between them. The Clan achieved tremendous success all over the world, but it was very different, totally different in tone, so it was challenging for me to do The Quietude immediately after that.
It seems that this role is written specifically for your wife, Martina Gusman, and Bérénice Bejo also acts in the film. Did you do the casting process, how much influence did the actresses have on the development of the story and how much did they work on the script?
Shooting this film was a great challenge for me and the crew. It is a such a film that could be made only thanks to the three lead actresses. With Martina Gusman, my partner, I worked a lot, this is our fifth film. I wrote the script with her in mind, her talent, and the ability to present this character without compromise. Bérénice is an actress we all know. She physically greatly resembles Martina, and the film is based on the symbiosis that exists between their characters, that sister love.
I worked on the script for a long time. I usually start thinking about a story a few years before I start writing a script. I started to develop the story of this film in 2010 when Martina was in the Cannes jury where we met Bérénice. I was fascinated by their resemblance and it occurred to me I could make a film in which two of them would play sisters.
The title of the film is The Quietude, but the drama is based on the inquietude of all the characters on that property.
In Argentina, it is customary to name such properties the Quietude, Peace, Tranquility, Rest. It shows the desire for these things to exist in such places more than the real state of things. The house named The Quietude hides something different. From the beginning, the two worlds are shown simultaneously. The story is based on two sisters who do not know their past, and they slowly begin to discover together both the family past and the past of Argentina.
You use the structure of telenovelas to tell a dark story.
Melodrama is a good genre to work with. There are extreme moments, moments of absurdity, and even dark humor. For me, a good reference is Buñuel, The Exterminating Angel, or Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
The Clan had over a million and a half viewers in the first two weeks of screening in Argentina, and won the Silver Lion in Venice. It is said that there are festival films and blockbusters, but you manage to create festival blockbusters. How do you do it and what is the magic formula?
It is hard to say. I like all kinds of films. Before I became a director, I was a cinephile. What inspires me is my love for film and storytelling. I still watch films, I even have my own cinema at home. I am here to present my film, in a couple of days I will be a jury member at a festival, my friends are people from the industry ... I do not know what the secret is, but I can say that I learned from the best and I am trying to give back what I gained as a viewer and as a film fan. I think that I am trying to tell my stories but at the same time pay homage to the most significant films we all come from. My references are very diverse, but mostly they are directors who try to communicate with the audience. I think it is important to tell stories that reach broader audiences, giving everything that we can as artists.
Your film is very diverse in tone, it is a melodrama and at the same time a black comedy, and it has a political background as well. How did you achieve this unity of tones and was the political story important to you or did you use it only as a background?
From the very beginning, it was clear to me that the story would be this rare combination of drama, political thriller and intimate portrait of two sisters. It was very challenging because different tones live in the same story, but I am glad I did it. For this kind of film, it is very important that you are in agreement with the actresses, it is very risky for them too. The political and historical background mainly serve as a connection, I wanted to give a commentary, but I also wanted to take a peek at the dark secrets of a family. The two of them do not even know what their father was doing in the past, so this is a film about the process of realizing, the discovery of where they come from, what their story is. For them, it is a journey for which they did not even know it would be part of their lives. Sometimes you read the news that seem very abstract to you because they belong to someone else's lives, and for them it is a reality, a part of their past, and that is very shocking. Not only for them, but also for the audience, to discover what their mother is capable of and what she has tried to hide over the past decades.
FEST was opened by the film The Favourite, which had a tremendous success, but it took twenty years to reach the audience because the producers thought that no one would want to watch a film where only women are in the lead roles. Your film focuses on three strong women and their relationship. Has there finally come a moment for such stories?
It is important for me to have such stories on screen and such characters. In my films I always try to give voice to characters who do not normally have it, or we do not have the opportunity to hear their voice. I thought it was a good moment for the film about this female triangle, a mother and two sisters. It was a good moment also because I had just finished my previous film The Clan where a father and his sons were in focus, and in this one a mother and her daughters, so there is this connection between them. The Clan achieved tremendous success all over the world, but it was very different, totally different in tone, so it was challenging for me to do The Quietude immediately after that.
It seems that this role is written specifically for your wife, Martina Gusman, and Bérénice Bejo also acts in the film. Did you do the casting process, how much influence did the actresses have on the development of the story and how much did they work on the script?
Shooting this film was a great challenge for me and the crew. It is a such a film that could be made only thanks to the three lead actresses. With Martina Gusman, my partner, I worked a lot, this is our fifth film. I wrote the script with her in mind, her talent, and the ability to present this character without compromise. Bérénice is an actress we all know. She physically greatly resembles Martina, and the film is based on the symbiosis that exists between their characters, that sister love.
I worked on the script for a long time. I usually start thinking about a story a few years before I start writing a script. I started to develop the story of this film in 2010 when Martina was in the Cannes jury where we met Bérénice. I was fascinated by their resemblance and it occurred to me I could make a film in which two of them would play sisters.
The title of the film is The Quietude, but the drama is based on the inquietude of all the characters on that property.
In Argentina, it is customary to name such properties the Quietude, Peace, Tranquility, Rest. It shows the desire for these things to exist in such places more than the real state of things. The house named The Quietude hides something different. From the beginning, the two worlds are shown simultaneously. The story is based on two sisters who do not know their past, and they slowly begin to discover together both the family past and the past of Argentina.
You use the structure of telenovelas to tell a dark story.
Melodrama is a good genre to work with. There are extreme moments, moments of absurdity, and even dark humor. For me, a good reference is Buñuel, The Exterminating Angel, or Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
The Clan had over a million and a half viewers in the first two weeks of screening in Argentina, and won the Silver Lion in Venice. It is said that there are festival films and blockbusters, but you manage to create festival blockbusters. How do you do it and what is the magic formula?
It is hard to say. I like all kinds of films. Before I became a director, I was a cinephile. What inspires me is my love for film and storytelling. I still watch films, I even have my own cinema at home. I am here to present my film, in a couple of days I will be a jury member at a festival, my friends are people from the industry ... I do not know what the secret is, but I can say that I learned from the best and I am trying to give back what I gained as a viewer and as a film fan. I think that I am trying to tell my stories but at the same time pay homage to the most significant films we all come from. My references are very diverse, but mostly they are directors who try to communicate with the audience. I think it is important to tell stories that reach broader audiences, giving everything that we can as artists.
