Review Fix chats with “Madre†director Rodrigo Sorogoyen to find out what it’s like to be shortlisted for an Oscar and more.
Review Fix: How does it feel to be Oscar-shortlisted?
Rodrigo Sorogoyen: I am bursting with happiness and pride for the consideration of a work well done. I feel a great joy for the possibility of going to the Oscars and being among some of the best in the world. My team and I are feeling very nervous because on the 22nd, the nominations of the Oscars will be announced and we will know if we get it or not.
Review Fix: How did you get involved with this project?
Sorogoyen: Something similar to the set-up happened to a ex girl-friend of mine, though obviously without a tragedy occurring. She lived through the situation of receiving a telephone call from her son who was on vacation with her ex-husband, and the boy told her he didn’t know where his father was. What lasted three minutes in real life, in our short film is lengthened to a tragedy with maximum tension. It seemed to me to be very powerful material for a thriller with very few elements, for a thriller which begins in a very everyday situation and ends in the huge emotional rollercoaster ride for the protagonist, Elena.
Review Fix: What attracted you to it the most?
Sorogoyen: Being an original script of mine, I was very attracted to play with the off-field, with what the spectator does not see. The spectator has to use their imagination and the imagination is very powerful. Shooting a 15-minute shot in real time in sequence shot was very attractive to me too.
Review Fix: What have you learned from it?
Sorogoyen: The imagination spectator´s power. It is not necessary to have much assembly to create great tension, a daily scene inside a house can create a lot of tension. And you have to rehearse a sequence that is shot a lot.
Review Fix: What was the feeling like on set?
Sorogoyen: We were doing a very difficult exercise and there was a lot of concentration. We knew what was good at the moment and then the magic happened. It usually happens that you do 15 or 16 takes and fail in some things and suddenly the magic arises. The camera arrives when it has to arrive, the rhythm of the text and the staging is perfect and suddenly all the elements are conjugated and the magic appears. When it happened, we knew that we had the short and it was going to be a good short film.
Review Fix: How did this film affect you?
Sorogoyen: It has affected so much to me and the crew we have been working with on the feature film. It has allowed us to continue the story of the character, of Marta. Two years later we have shot the feature film and we are delighted, now we are in postproduction. It has been the most exciting movie I have ever done.
Review Fix: How do you want people to be affected by this film?
Sorogoyen: I want the spectator to be deeply affected by, to be moved in some way. I hope the spectator feels emotion in some way.
Review Fix: Who will appreciate this film the most?
Sorogoyen: Any person, any human being can get excited with this short film. Anyone can understand the circumstance of the protagonist but it is obvious that mothers can empthasize more with what the character feels.
Review Fix: Why should people see this film?
Sorogoyen: Because it makes you feel. In 15 minutes you can feel a lot of tension without realizing it and also it makes you remove feelings and emotions. And in such a short period it is a very powerful force, that is the strength of the cinema.
Review Fix: How would you like it to be remembered?
Sorogoyen: That the people who have seen it remember it as what I just said, as a work that generated feelings and emotions.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Sorogoyen: I always have several projects in mind, and we’re in production with MOTHER, the feature film, with a very strong script, but I do know that after MOTHER, I want to take a rest and calmly decide what I want to do with the rest of my life.
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