Dinner with Un coche cualquiera

Interview with David Pérez Sañudo, director of Un coche cualquiera

What inspired you to tell this story?
We reflected about the concept of our story a few years ago: a guy who cannot get into his car. We considered that we had a lot of possibilities from this premise. On the other hand, we have always considered that Un coche cualquiera as an exercise about film empathy.

Can you talk us through the filming processes a little?
We filmed the short film in two nights. It was hard because we didn’t have so much time. I think there are two short films within the film. In the second part, we put on doubt what has happened during the first minutes. In addition, I would like to say that we use two different narratives. The main objective was to pose a simple question to the viewers: can we empathize with any character? Where is the limit of film empathy?

What did you hope the audience would take from it?
I would like to give the viewers 13 minutes of interest. Maybe one could think that is a quite simple reason, but what we really need is to place the viewer in a complicated role and to observe how it feels over the development of the story and when the main thesis is questioned. This is the reason why we need the viewers to concentrate.

What sort of freedom would you say the short format allows?
I finished the shooting of my first feature film last December and I can say that a short film allows more possibilities. Maybe we can find the reason in the film industry and the aggressive necessity of support for feature films. The economic factors are too determinant in the film industry and the short film format can still exist outside the main pressures of the feature film industry.

What do you consider your cinematographic references?
I don’t like to make references to other films. I always try to be free when I start a new project. If we have to talk about some references, I would cite Matteo Garrone, Alberto Rodríguez or Quentin Tarantino.

Un coche cualqueria is part of International Competition I13.