Havana Film Festival is Vital

This was expressed to me by the young and famous Chilean film director, Matías Bize, who took part as a juror for opera prima in the event until the 17th in the Wonder City

Maggie Marín Ayarde mmm@enet.cu

Cubans are well acquainted with Matías Bize through his work desde Sábado hasta Los peces exhibited at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana. The joyful Chilean talked to this digital site for a few minutes.

“I am very happy to be back in Havana, a city that I also love. I’m fascinated by this festival. This year I had to come three times, I went twice to the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños and this is the third time that I come to Havana and I am very happy.

This is a festival that has also brought me great joy, I have come with all my films. I already had been a jury member once and now I repeat the experience and it seems amazing.”

– Is it difficult to judge, to put yourself in the other’s shoes?

“It’s always difficult to be a juror when you’re a director. It’s hard for me to say which movie is better than another, it’s something that brings deep contradictions but I try to do it from the subjectivity that one simply has and enjoy it because I do it as if I were a apectator.

“If a film seems to me that there is a director behind, there is an author and that film is interesting to me more than focusing on the technical aspects of the work. “

How would you distinguish the Havana Film Festival from many others in the world?

“It’s vital. The distinctive feature of this festival is that it has a large audience and that makes it incredible. Seeing a large room, as are the halls here, a theater full of people is something priceless t for one as a film director, something that I have not lived elsewhere in the world as here.

“That passion experienced in the cinema, is culture. The existence of people who know film and wait for films is a pleasure for me as a film director, beyond a prize and recognition. That feeling is the most beautiful that one can have in his career too.”

-What do you think about the Havana Film Festival programming?

“I saw the films, it is a very interesting programming with works from different countries and I really want to see them because the opera prima category is always interesting, they are fresh films that are not afraid, they take more chances and that is very interesting for me as a Film Director.”

– In this 21st century the general public is more clung to communication and information technologies and this detail is accounted for when it comes to conceiving and shooting a film.

“I think of a film as a story and I conceive it to be seen in the cinema, that’s  ideal. The cinema screen with the darkness, tranquility and the seat but I also think that lately the movies are seen in the mobiles, computers, on television and in that sense I try is that the to present the film for the viewer in the way that the viewer always look for it and when there is that  connection with what has been done, it seems interesting to me, because deep down I do half of the film, the other half is made by the spectator when he sees it and reflects and when he thinks it too. “

– Let’s talk about projects, then?

“I’m shooting a film called En tu piel and I shot it in the Dominican Republic. The story was born as the remake of my 2005 work En la cama but we finally made a new feature film inspired a bit by that movie that will be ready next year so I hope to bring it to the Havana Festival. The cast is also Dominican and is made up of Josué Guerrero and Eva Arias, two actors with whom I am super happy.

Translated  by ESTI