Dominga Sotomayor
Dominga Sotomayor makes her feature length directorial debut this week with her great new movie Thursday Till Sunday - a movie that looks at an adult work through child’s eyes.
We caught up with the director to chat about the movie, her transition from short projects and how the movie has been received worldwide.
- Thursday Till Sunday is released here in the UK on Friday so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
This is my first feature film and it is about two kids who are travelling with their parents to the north of Chile.
It will probably be their last family as the parents have already split up but they promised the kids that they would go to the north - it is somewhere that they usually go. It is a nostalgic and possibly last family trip for this family. So it is a read movie.
- As you say this is your first feature film so how have you found the transition from shorts?
It was a natural progression for me as with the short films I was focusing on the same themes of little family situations. The short films were all for film school and so they were not big budget they were very small projects.
Even though Thursday Till Sunday looks small because everything is confined in this car it was a much bigger production for me.
It was a real trip that we made with around thirty people to the north - so it was different. For me the goal was to explore some of the themes that I touched up on in my short films.
- You are in the director's chair for the film but you also penned the screenplay so what inspired the story?
The starting point of the film was a picture that I found of my childhood - it is actually one of the scenes in the film but the picture was of me travelling with my uncle on the roof of a car.
So it was a very funny moment for us but, at the same time, it was a starting point and I was thinking about how I could make a film about these two trips; the trip of these two kids on the roof of the car with freedom and innocence and at the same time a trip of this couple inside the car whose relationship is in trouble.
Every movie that I have made is connected with things that I have lived or things that I have seen - I am never looking too far away when I am developing stories.
I have all these memories of these trips during my childhood in Chile - Chile is so long and we were always travelling and travelling and not arriving anywhere (laughs).
I think that is what triggered the idea to make a while that is more about the journey rather then where they are going - I was trying to capture the journey itself and all the things that happen in the confinement of the car.
I have all these memories of travelling in the back seat of the car as well as the physical memories of what it was like to be a kid.
- You have mentioned that the film looks at the child side of the story as well as the adult side - two very different experiences - so did you find balancing those two aspects?
I don’t think that there is a balance as I wanted to show the parents through the eyes of the kids. The idea was not to make it very dramatic but instead make it from the point of view of the kids and without prejudice.
It is very nostalgic and very sad but it is also very happy - it is a memory of childhood.
- When I watched the movie I felt like it was a film about capturing an adult world from a child's perspective so how did you go about capturing this point of view?
The idea was to try and be close to the point of view of the kids and so the structure of the script is close how kids realise things, arrive late to some things and trying to hear things that are out of frame.
So even in the script the plan was to be very close to the way that kids realise things in a more unexpected and fragmented way.
In the shooting the idea was to have distance between the camera and the moments of conflict. But also we wanted to be very formal with the kids in the back seat of the car and we never looked in the face of the parents.
We purposefully tried not to cross to the front of the car - the only moment when Lucia goes to the front of the car is a very happy moment for her.
So the idea was to always be with the kids and work with the out frame but with some limitations because they cannot see the whole thing.
- Santi Ahumada and Emiliano Freifeld play Lucia and Manuel - both inexperienced actors - so why did you decide to work with children who had never acted before?
I really wanted to have authentic acting from the kids - not really acting more reacting. The idea was to have kids without any experience because they are less self conscious and so I was looking for kids who were not in TV or commercials.
I found Santi because she was a friend of my little sister and they were playing in the house with my mother in the swimming pool.
I found her a year before we started shooting and I realised that she was the main character. My mother is an actress and she helped me find the other two kids.
It was a very untraditional way to cast kids but I wanted to make a not very typical film of kids acting - it was more like tying to capture live feelings and real moments.
- They always say that you should never work with animals and children so how did you find working with them?
To be able to work with kids was one of my main goals and I put a lot of energy into this aspect of the film. They were amazing. There is something so alive and genuine about them.
Because the kids were so natural in the film the actors who play the parents were forced to move to this kind of acting.
Kids give some that is more alive and something more unexpected to the film. I didn’t want to make a film that looked like the shooting of a script instead I wanted to make something that looks like it is trying to document real feelings and real life.
- A large part of the movie does take part inside the car so what sort of filming challenges did that pose?
It was a big limitation but it was also it was very interesting. The car works like a capsule where the characters are all the time and it becomes like a house. I really wanted the car to almost become another character and to feel the integration of this family inside.
It was a challenge because we were always travelling; we were trying to make the film chronologically from Santiago to the north.
For me it was interesting to how people are forced to divert to more basic relationships when you away from the house and away from the city and I think that that is why people really feel this film.
It is very basic as it is four characters in a car and it is pretty timeless as you don’t know when and you don’t know where.
I really wanted to make the landscape quite dramatic in accordance with this dry couple who are travelling with this dry landscape. And so the solitude of the landscape really does reflect how they are.
- How have you found the response to the film so far?
It has been a great experience for a first film. In the beginning the reviews from the critics were very good but what surprised me was how people, in many countries, have reacted closely and emotionally to the film.
This is a film that makes you think and it make you feel the comfort of being a kid again because you don’t know what is happening.
But it is not really important what is happening in this film but it is more about being able to take this trip with them almost as another passenger.
- This movie has played all over the world at a string of different festivals and won some awards as well so how have you found the whole festival experience?
It was very nice. When you feel the reaction of the audience that is when you remember why you are making movies.
I really wanted to travel with the movie last year because it was part of the whole experience of making a film and it closes this process. If you don’t travel then you don’t know what is happening with the film.
So for me it was very important to have these conversations with different people and hear what they had to say about the movie and see their reaction.
It is great to have a good experience at festival because it allows you release the film in certain countries; for example if you play at a Spanish festival the movie will be released in Spain.
So the success was a big surprise as I felt that this movie was very Chilean because it is drawn from personal things and people I know - it is very simple and personal - but it was a nice to surprise how people could connect with it.
When I was in Russia a woman came to me and said ‘I really feel it was like my childhood with my parents’. I think that this film allows people to connect with their childhood and the trips that they went on.
- Finally what is next for you?
I am currently editing a short film that I co-directed with a Polish filmmaker in Chile. I was invited to shoot a film in Lisbon at the end of the year and that is a collaborative film with four directors.
I am also writing my new feature film which is called Live To Die Young and I am planning to shoot that next year.
“Thursday Till Sunday is in UK cinemas from 5th April check here for listings: http://www.day-for-night.org/thursday-till-sunday-venue-info.”