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#13 VENICE DISCOVERS AN AUTHOR AS WITTY AS HIS FILM
09/09/2006
After the last but not least official screening of Venice Days, the director Gianfranco Quattrini gave the public a last taste of genuine authorial enthusiasm and talent, confirming, in several languages and with a great deal of references of all kinds (from Sgt. Pepper to the occultist Aleister Crowley), the intelligence of his palimpsestic Chicha tu madre.
This colourful debut proved to be a reflection of his cosmopolitism and of the multi-faceted experience which led him, very naturally, to become a film-maker.
Indeed, after not finding himself good enough as an actor, and after realizing theatre did not allow him to fully express himself, Quattrini clocked up a good amount of 'flight hours', he says, by making music videos -—hence the fantastic soundtrack of Chicha....
Very much like his film, the shooting, Quattrini explained, worked like a collage: for six weeks, he conducted a real work in progress, the construction of which changed everyday according to actors' needs (leaving, for instance, the erotic scenes for the very last day to give his cast the time to chill out) and the hazards of the production he handled with his cousin —after which he even converted his 16mm reel into a digital film before making the final 35mm version in order to give his film its very special texture.
Quattrini, finally, proved a natural story-teller by sharing with the public amusing anecdotes, such as when he was offered a pirate copy of his own film!
What does the character of Julio César represent for you?
Like many other people in Latin America, he is a survivor who lives without a plan. In order to get by, he combines his "spiritual" life as a fortune-teller with ethically unbalanced conducts and activities.
How did you decide to go back to your birthplace, Lima, to shoot your debut?
It was a practical, almost visceral necessity for me to connect myself with my country. It also seemed fair to bring back home a little bit of the effervescence Argentinean cinema is currently going through. The tarot motif illustrates a phenomenon common to all Latin American countries, that is, the need to believe in other things parallel to more synchretic beliefs and traditions. What is more typical of Peru is this very popular "chicha" culture that goes together with the arrival in Lima of many different kinds of socially marginal people whose presence all together in the same city generates incredible vitality.
Do you have any cinematic mentors?
The list is long, but let's say it includes, for example, Cassavetes, Herzog, Coppola, Truffaut, Pasolini, Fellini, Buñuel. For Chicha, I did not particularly try to refer to other filmmakers —although, as I was shooting it, the film gradually started resembling certain Italian comedies, such as Monicelli's. My second film will surely be more of a reflection on cinema.
Bénédicte Prot (Cineuropa)
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