Interwiew with Marcelo Martinessi


  • "Las herederas" is a women's film, where did the idea come from? How was the creative process?

For some time, I wanted to write a story that was not only about women but also that tells a little more about my country. I was raised in a country where women had a very important role, I grew up with my mother, my grandmother, and my sisters. I think that in Paraguay, as a very macho country it is thought that men have all the answers, and women are given that beautiful territory of doubt, of the question and obviously I thought to myself that to tell the story of my country I had to tell a history of women. From there I started thinking about characters I knew, the situations, I have an aunt with the same tray that comes out in the movie. I remember my older aunts who always played cards. With that feminine universe I began to build the story, always with the idea that through this claustrophobic story I could also tell the story of my country.
 
  • The actresses from  “Las herederas” are Ana Ivanova y Ana Brun. How was the shooting? Was there a lot of work with actresses? 

Very comfortable, the actresses came without any kind of ego, I always felt their complete devotion to the film and to what I marked about the universe I wanted to create, and they were also all very generous with their time.
In Paraguay is different because there is no industry, we rehearsed for months, we got together when we could. It was very nice working with them.

  • We are at women's week, March 8th is International Women's Day. In your country Paraguay is there a feminist movement? Do you consider your movie as feminist?

 There is a feminist movement in my country, it is small, but there is also a very reactionary right in Paraguay that is afraid of feminism. I remember a question at the press conference in Paraguay that it was if we received funding from radical feminist groups as if we had received money from Al Qaeda, an absolutely absurd question. It seems to me that in my country where there is a structural violence towards women it is important that there are feminist movements. Regarding my movie I like to say the phrase of a great theorist who says: "instead of talking about feminism I prefer to talk about humanism." In the film, the woman is in a comfortable, natural place and if no more men appear, it was not deliberate, I gave them their place in the film.

  • So far you had done short as “Karai Norte” , “Las herederas” is your first fiction feature film. How has it been to make the leap from the short film to the feature film?
 
II always thought I was going to make short films and never a long one because Paraguay is a country where it is very difficult to finance a long one. But it happened to me that in 2012 after a political experience in my country, where until that moment I was director of public television, I felt the need to make a long.Now I think about it and it was a very difficult process, but in those moments there was so much passion that we did not realize, for example we achieved extra-cinematographic objectives for the film, such as changing the law to co-produce with Brazil.

  • How it all started? Did you always know that you wanted to dedicate yourself to this?

 I always wanted to tell stories, but I knew that in Paraguay it was going to be very difficult, so I studied cinema in London, and here in Madrid I learn about Projects’ Film Development. This is what I’ve always studied, and I always wanted to tell stories but to achieve it I had to leave my country, however with this story I realized that with a little more effort it can be done there.
 
  • You say that Asunción, the city where you grew up, is a prison city. How was growing up there?

I always say that my dad was 10 years old when  "Stroessner" came to power and left when I was 16, in other words, several generations in which films were barely made, there was some effort with medium-length films such as “El Pueblo” in 1969. It was a very dark country, where nothing was done until very late, and where there was no break with the dictatorship, we continue to have echoes of what was much deeper than Spain with Franco. Paraguay needs more breaks, destroy many more things. Growing up in a dark place also molds children as human beings.

  • Do you have any decisive experience in your career?

 'Las herederas', being my first film, and being so well received, it has passes in countries that are very important to us, it has been an impulse to continue doing this. It has been my great step, to make short almost as a hobby, to have the possibility to dedicate myself to this and live on it.

  • What would you say to those who start now in the audiovisual world?
 
It seems to me that the most important is that when you tell something, you must honest. I feel very much that the cinema that manipulates is a cinema that will always exist, a cinema that entertains because it knows the formula to make you cry, laugh. And that when there is an honest proposal, that kind of cinema connects as a human being with other human beings.

  • Finally, what would you recommend of the current cinema?

 In the current cinema there is a movie that I liked very much that is called  “Ray and Liz”, a British film that shocks the entire English social cinema. The great social cinema we know is British cinema and I think it is wonderful, but this movie is a break. It is about a photographer who grew up in subsidized housings and tells the story of his parents; I find wonderful being able to enter, feeling and staying in the room with his parents; Ray and Liz is the great movie of last year.

 
 Author: Amanda Torres.