YOU'RE ON THE BALCONY TALKING ABOUT YOUR DREAMS will be screening at the Straight Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival
How did you get into making films?
I watched a lot of Monty Python’s Flying Circus when I was little. Everything else was an accident.
What inspired you to make your movie?
At the time, I came back from the United States and wanted to talk about Mexico. I also wanted to talk about literature. I made video poems with a friend and collaborator, shooting with my grandma’s camera, and then roots started to grow. There was a very vague idea of what I wanted to do for a short film based on a non-film text I wrote called LAS BRUJAS. The vagueness was thrilling. I did not write a script. I shot on my phone and other things like tablets and tablets shooting other tablets. My friends and my family agreed to help by being watched through a camera strapped on my head. Another heavily improvised film-essay sprung inside of it, called LA ORDEN DE LOS PRESAGIOS (THE ORDER OF THE SIGNS). The project turned out to be an enormous stitched-up bricolage film; a diligent accident. I was inspired by Vaporwave, Alfred Jarry, David Lynch, Madvillain, James Joyce, MF DOOM, Samuel Beckett, Nortec Collective, Quasimoto, Andy Warhol, Animal Collective, Jack Kerouac, Jean-Luc Godard, Celso Piña, William Burroughs, Vicente Huidobro, Chris Marker and others I can’t remember.
How has your style evolved?
I found a style while creating it. I still use my grandma’s camera, but now I have friends who help me borrow theirs. On the part of ideas, I’ve grown from dialogue and support from others who understand the ways in which I’m trying to communicate and translate things. I have found clarity among ambiguity and it’s not something I think I could have done on my own —I want to thank my friend Naomi Washer for helping me with translation edits of what otherwise would be very strange ways of saying things in English.
Tell us any strange or funny stories while making the film?
I received plenty of disapproval looks while taking the bus holding a big dead fish in a cardboard box. One of my high school friends, kind enough to appear on the film without knowing what it was about, passed out five seconds after shooting some portraits. She had a fever, but she’s ok now. Her father is a doctor.
The Misrule Film Movement & Pink8 manifesto bring what to mind?
The autonomy of the creator against the constraints of film as an institution. The possibility of creating exciting work with new mediums, reflecting on the ways in which audience and film interact with one another. Revitalizing art through raw sincerity, mystery and curiosity. Rebelliousness and non-conformity. Other narratives. Going out to the street with any camera; allowing the film to exist in one or more of the many possible ways it can exist.
What can we expect from your next film?
I want to make a film in three parts about two people trying to make a film about a short story about two people who are dreaming. Otherwise I want to talk about gardening.
