After five previous editions, Les Avant Premieres, a French movie cycle, was back in town. As usual, the programme included a wide selection of movies from famous directors to new talents and promises. Two important directors were presenting their films, Martin Provost (Director of “Violette”), and Alain Guiraudie (Director of “Stranger by the Lake”).
The Buenos Aires Film Commission met them and had the chance to ask a few questions.
Martin Provost said that he found Buenos Aires extremely interesting with its streets, parks and inner gardens. He confessed that his first idea of the city was through the Wong Kar Wai movie “Happy Together” and he loved the director’s vision of Buenos Aires. One thing that caught his attention was that in Buenos Aires you can find art everywhere, and that argentinians have a very close relationship with music, painting and films, and this relationship seems very natural for everyone in the City. Alain Guiraudie, on the other hand, found the public very warm.
When audiovisual politics are concerned, Guiraudie explained that the most important thing to him is to separate the idea of market and art, and not to look for a product that is aimed for everyone or to satisfy advertising. It is important to defend a system where big production films can help finance smaller ones. The only way it to do so, for now, is through government politics, such as taxes refunds, for example.
Regarding locations, both directors have different points of view. While Provost says his idea is to center a character in a small part of the frame because he thinks that when the actor is being shot from up to close,he become all the film, the character is all the film, and it doesn’t put us in perspective. The idea is that the character is with the universe merge, and no apart. On the other hand, Guiraudie talked about the location in his last film. The lake represented the idea of being an interior and exterior location at the same time. He confessed that he doesn’t enjoy close spaces and the lake, allowed the characters to build this mystery and intimacy without needing any walls.
