Breakfast with Déjalo Ser
An interview with Txema Novelo, director of Déjalo Ser
Which cameras did you use to shoot? How did you create that 80’s style?
I shoot Déjalo Ser entirely on Super 8 mm color negative. Using as far as I know the only camera that after the death of Super 8 mm sound film allowed to synchronize dialogue and sounds with an external recording device. It was a Beaulieu 6008 pro that a U Bahn driver sold to me last year in Berlin.
Why were you interested in depicting a search for inspiration trip?
I thinking it was the perfect excuse for creating a plot. The film is also an homage to some of the 50’s and 60’s Hannah Barbera cartoons, like Top Cat. So I wanted to have some sort of cartoonish conflict, and I felt a trip for finding inspiration served perfectly that purpose.
Your story has two different approaches and points of view on that journey, why did you want to create this effect?
Well, since the movie has also a strange analogy towards the Beatles and Yoko Ono. I wanted to have both perspectives in the journey, the feminine side of it and the masculine as well. It’s a sort of an east west, or ying yang kind of thing..
How much do you have to search for inspiration yourself? Is it difficult to find original stuff to express?
Well, I don’t have to search that much for inspiration to be honest, this film came fast as an idea, and the writing took me two weeks at the most. So no, I will say It’s not difficult for me to find original stuff to express. With this one, I think I just wanted to romanticize “simplicity” as a formula that worked beautifully to me back in the day during the “classic” film era. Le Fresnoy is an incredible school, but technology and the constant pursue of “originality” has created a form of “pretentiousness” and an urge to try to reinvent film language. To me the result to that is a dull, boring, clean, and imposed intention that plagues contemporary film student cinema these days. So I put a lot of effort on this film to try to go the opposite way.
Why did you choose to set in Oaxaca? Do you have family there?
I choose Oaxaca because the Tarahumara sierra is too far from Mexico City, so following Artaud’s footsteps was a bit out of hand. And I really just needed a powerful natural psicoactive as an excuse for the road trip, and since mushrooms have had a powerful effect on me in the past and not just peyote, I thought Oaxaca was perfect. Plus there is a myth that the Beatles wrote Let it be after Paul had a bad trip on mushrooms in Huatla de Jiménez in Oaxaca, on a session with María Sabina. But it’s hard to tell if that was true or not.
How much are you interested in Native knowledge and Antonin Artaud’s work? Do you plan to make further films on these thematics?
I guess I am more interested in Native Knowldege that I am interested in Antonin Artaud’s work. But I do respect the man, and I loved that somehow, tired of what he referred to as “western decadence”, he tried to look for answers in a different place, trough a different cosmology and vision. I see there is a trend in Europe at the moment called “Neo Chamanism”, Amazonian chamans are imported to European cities to practice ayahuasca rituals at rave parties and things like that. For as silly as it sounds, I do appreciate the global “need” to try to find answers in different places, speciality ancient wisdom. But to answer to your question, no I am not an anthropologist filmmaker and at the moment I find myself writing an historical vampire satire script.
Would you say that the short film format has given you any particular freedom?
Yes, I would say so. I love small formats and as a consequence I love small stories. I guess as most directors, nobody wants to be a perpetual short film director, but as an art is a perfect scenario to gain confidence and polish skills.
If you’ve already been to Clermont-Ferrand, could you share with us an anecdote or story from the festival? If not, what are your expectations for this year?
I have never been at Clermont-Ferrand so I am hoping to materialize in febraury an anecdote worth to be told in the future. I am extremely happy that my film was selected at international competition, and quite pleased to see that the French people give (probably more than any other country in the world) the much needed importance that short films deserve. I am also looking forward to catch up with some colleagues from Le Fresnoy who’s films are in competition, hoping we can open many wine bottles and eat as much cheese as we can.
Déjalo Ser is being shown in International Competition I7.
