A man guarding the goal of a building. A woman who lives alone with her dog whom she wants to free from the agony of old age. Another woman fond of astrology who wonders about the mysterious humidity in her home. A girl who wakes up in the middle of the night to tell her dreams to the janitor. A teenage dance student who is distressed by the movement that shakes the building. These are the ingredients of Electric Sawn, latest work in medium-length format by Greek director Konstantina Kotzamani, veteran of the La Cabina festival, where he has presented several works in previous editions. The most loyal spectators of the contest will remember Zodiac, presented in the fifth edition, which told the life of Peter, an eight-year-old boy who lived his own universe when his mother leaves home. O Limbo, presented in the ninth edition, that brought us closer to a world governed by children in which the presence of an albino boy became a disturbing element. Kotzamani's cinema moves between the imaginary and the symbolic, seasoned, in this case, with a good dose of surrealism. We chatted with her, on this occasion, about his latest project.
It's not the first time you've come to La Cabin...
Yeah, I have been invited several times, but this is the first time I come. The first time I introduced myself with the first exercise I did at the Thessaloniki film school, which was also a medium-length film. It was called Zodiac and was here.
How did the idea of Electric swan?
I spent two years in Argentina for a scholarship as an artist and where I was collaborating with the FUC, What is the Buenos Aires film school?. I was writing a feature film, but before leaving I thought that I couldn't leave without filming something there, because it was a city that inspired me. So, The film has a lot to do with the images that affected me there and all the ideas of that colonial country, which is so different from Europe, and how the whole class system works. All of that seemed to me to be a very strong element to make a film.. It's a little magical, but, apart from that, The first day I spent in Buenos Aires I was walking around near my house, where is the lake where the movie is filmed, and something very strange happened to me. I was in the park looking at the lake and the swans when, suddenly, a chinese family appeared. So, a family member turns and asks me if one of the swans we are seeing is electric or not. I stayed a little shock, but he explained to me that in his city there was a park where there are small animals that move with batteries for tourists.. That's why, For them the question was very normal. This seemed like a good idea to me.: an electric swan and how someone who is a foreigner can perceive a city from the point of view of a tourist.
I understand that this anecdote gives the film its name., but I wanted you to tell us why you choose that element for the title.
I think it has to do with Buenos Aires, it's not my country, it's not my city, and with the fact that they were tourists and I also felt like a tourist. It was clear to me that I wanted to start from there., from the question of whether something is real or not real, and how foreigners see a place that is not their own place.
It's not that your previous jobs, I'm thinking about Limbo, For example, are exactly the same as this movie, but the two films move between the realistic and the poetic and, especially in this case, with a surreal component. Why do you choose that terrain between reality and unreality for your cinema??
In my films what always interests me is having a mystery to penetrate. That's what I like and my way of facing life, in general, that is to say, like a mystery that you have to face with reality. My films are always like this and I think I will continue making films like this (laughter)
The film raises, you have already mentioned it, the class difference that exists in Argentine society. To what extent were you interested in that question??
Yo, I come from a European country like Greece, When I arrived in Buenos Aires, this is what impacted me the most., that class difference that is in all the images you see in everyday life, it is very powerful. That's why I chose a protagonist who is Bolivian, because there all the people of Paraguay, from Bolivia, from Peru are the ones who do the tasks for the “European” people, how to say. And if, I wanted to use that difference, a native person in front of the rest of the building, who represent the bourgeoisie for whom he is like an element of the service. At the same time, I wanted to play with clichés. That seemed interesting to me from the beginning.. The protagonist is a poor Bolivian who does everything, and around him are those bourgeois women. I wanted to use those clichés to, after, change them. That's why that ending in which this Bolivian goalkeeper turns into a swan. I think it opens up another theme about class differences and raises an open question to the public about how those classes, in the end, can be found. He, For example, He falls in love with that girl who is on the highest floors and who is of a very high class. Can he relate to her or can he only do so by transforming into a swan? Something that is utopian and, at the same time, it's not real. I wanted to play with those clichés and change them to turn the pyramid to the other side.
There is an image that I understand works as a metaphor for the film, and it is how that social structure, what is that building, is decomposing. Is it a correct interpretation?
Yeah, for me, and following the rules of physics, very tall structures are very chaotic and are always about to fall. This happens in architecture, is called the motion sikcness of the buildings (building motion sickness) an effect by which, in the skyscrapers, For example, Very tall plants always move and that's why people get dizzy. I remember that in the Twin Towers in New York people had to take dramamines because, when there was wind, The building was moving so much that they felt like it was going to fall.. That always seemed to me to be a very good metaphor for those people who always want to be in a very high class., where there is always that feeling of falling. At the same time, At the base of the pyramid, people at the bottom are afraid that they are going to be flooded.. I played a lot with a building that is like a real organism; Above it moves and below it floods.
In a film like yours, the most interesting thing is how the construction of the script works.. Since there is no conventional story, a series of apparently free associations are established, but they finally end up coming together. How was the process?
When I started writing this script I thought there were different fragments and different lines and levels of the characters. I also thought about the value that each character has in the script and how the inhabitants of the different floors of the building come together at the end in a magical moment in which it feels that the entire building is aligned.. Before that, you have the feeling that a lot of things are happening, but those things go in parallel and do not communicate. But at the end there is that moment, which for me is the moment of magical realism that penetrates all the plants and connects everything. For me the script is like a patchwork, like when you join the dots of a drawing.
In this world of magical realism in which it seems that the characters have no relationship with each other, How do you choose the types that interest you and how do you work with the actors?? Although there is no story, Your characters have very marked and very strong personalities.. How do you work this element?
The truth is that in this film and in previous ones I always work with people who are not actors. Bueno, They are actors, but they are not professionals. For example, in this movie, half of the actors had never worked in film before. What I like a lot is searching among people, but always looking at the physical appearance. In general, I don't like doing a lot of tests, so I choose someone and I bring out what's inside that person, but I always work with that physical aspect. It seems more important to me than whether that person acts well or badly.. I look for that physical aspect of the character to be close to what I had imagined.. For example, when I found Carlos [the building's doorman] It was exactly how I had imagined it., a kind person and, at the same time, very simple and with a lot of tenderness. With the dancer I imagined a blonde girl, very pale, sexy, but, at the same time, who does not yet know his sexuality. The way I look for actors is sometimes unprofessional.. The two girls, For example, I found them on Facebook. The older woman is a very famous tango singer in Buenos Aires called Nelly Prince.. Has 95 years and still gives concerts.
And how do you then work with them on the psychological aspect of the characters?? Do you trust that there is a relationship between that physical appearance and their personality and do you let them do, or there is a job behind?
No, since I don't work with professional actors, If I give a lot of information to those people, who do not have the experience of doing it, I think it damages them, because you present more conflicts in their head and sometimes that closes them and does not open them. That's why I like to work with very practical things., very physical, how to put music on filming. We shot many scenes with a lot of music to have the atmosphere and atmosphere that I wanted.. I make them move all the time or I make them look at certain things. I always work with very simple things because I think that frees them..
Your film plays a lot with frontality and symmetries. I don't know if it is something purely aesthetic or if there is something that you like to work on and that has a special meaning for you..
I think I always like that, but in this film I forced it quite a bit because I wanted to highlight the presence of the architecture and the volume of the buildings, of the lines. I thought that, if he was very close to the actors, chasing them with the camera all the time, I had the feeling that I was going to miss the presence of the building, and for me the presence of that building and the architecture, as an organism and as a protagonist in the film, It was very important. For me, the building is the protagonist.
I wanted you to tell me about a phrase that a character in the movie says and that I liked.. Dice: “Love is like a miracle that everyone talks about.”, but almost no one saw
(laughter) Yeah, That's a phrase I had written down in my diary.. When I thought about Carlos, the protagonist, For me he was a miraculous person, a person who will bring the miracle, the one who carries the myth in the movie. That's why I felt that the heart of the character is love, loneliness and lack of love, and I wanted there to be a phrase that related that love to the miracle.
But that nobody saw it... There is no miracle, so? (laughter)
Yeah (laughter) Yeah, This is a bit pessimistic for him., but, at the same time, It's your strength.
To finish, I wanted to ask you what projects you have and if, after as many mediums and shorts as you have in your filmography, There is a possibility that you are going to face a feature film.
Yeah, This year I hope to make another medium-length film, but, on the other hand, I have already written two feature film scripts and one is advanced. We are now waiting for financing.. We have got the money from Greece and France. It's a pretty ambitious project that I hope to film in Japan., and it's going to be quite expensive. That's why I'm waiting a long time. While, I'm doing other things, like other medium films (laughter)
From what you told me at the beginning, I suppose it will also have that symbolic style of your previous works.
Yeah, It is also a mix of fantasy and realism. It is inspired by the mermaid schools that exist in Asia, in which young girls go to practice to be mermaids to work in aquariums and all that. There is a very strong trend in recent years and it is based on that condition (laughter)
