Training the eye means seeing how the artist performed visuals, seeing musicians, painters, seeing pictures, to train everything which is related to eye and see. That is the most important skill one should have. Make the eye the most important and powerful organ in your body.
1) Tell us about your background and journey.
I come from a middle-class family in South America with a good relationship with art. My father was a theatre director, my grandparents from my mother's side were very into art, my grandfather was an architect and painter, My grandmother was a pianist and a singer and taught me music so, art was in my environment. I come from the 1968s, I was 18 years old and the world was under a big revolution to protest president Johnson's decision, everything was kind of going wild, Vietnam war, riots in Washington and South America.
I was very into politics and committed. I found out through cinema, through photography especially, I could do my revolution because I was not into arms and firearms. So, my way of doing my revolution was using photography and cinema to expose injustice and fairness.
I live and come from South America which is the most unfair continent in the world having very very rich people and very very poor people and very little middle class. There was a big difference between the richest and the poor, so I was very committed to denouncing that. I decided that I wanted to study cinema. I found that the only film school that was around was in Brazil.
My father, at that moment, became a diplomat and offered to study in America, but it was not useful for me to study in America. I preferred to study in a Latin American country and then I went to Brazil to study film.
2) How and when did you realise your passion for creating films?
As I said, I understood that image creation was the only way of exposing, denouncing unfairness. So, I started taking pictures of unfairness, of poor people and rich people showing the differences, of manifestations and of riots. I did a hippie hitchhiking trip to Brazil living in churches and small squares to take pictures and I met a guy there studying cinema when I was 17 years old, and I got inspired to study cinema. I got back, finished my education, gave exams and moved to Brazil to join film University there with a commitment to be a political filmmaker. There were so many filmmakers that I admired at that time.
3) What are the important skills one should have to be a successful cinematographer?
I would say, you have to have a very powerful eye, you have to favor seeing, watching. We live in a society where words are so important and the meaning is on words, on talking and saying. I tried all my school time and afterward too to look at things, to see things, to see how things behave, the volume, the texture, the color, the feeling that an image provokes me, the light, how light hits people's faces, training the eye.
Training the eye means seeing how the artist performed visuals, seeing musicians, painters, seeing pictures, to train everything which is related to eye and see. That is the most important skill one should have. Make the eye the most important and powerful organ in your body.
4) Which films do you appreciate the most for their cinematography?
I am a great admirer of Victoria Storaro's cinematography. Films like Apocalypse Now, or The Conformist I really admire. I also like Michael Seresin's cinematography, Alan Parker's films are great too. There are so many films that I admire so much. So, it's difficult to tell, because you see a film, you love a film and then that film becomes your favorite and the process continues. I like many, many cinematographers and films.
5) What has been the biggest learning from your job?
It is a very fortunate job because you travel all over the world, you meet so many people, you see so many different realities. So, I have learned a little bit about many things. I have learned about poverty, chemical testing in Africa.
I have learned about so many things and even to do fiction, I really have to research a lot and dive deep into the knowledge. So, I have learned so many new things and it's a beautiful job.
6) Which is your favorite book and why?
I don't exactly have a favorite book. I love the Argentine Writer Osvaldo Soriano. I like Mario Benedetti , Eduardo Galeano , and Manuel Puig. I like Latin American literature so much. There are so many books which I like. Some of the books are
1) Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina.
2) La Tregua
3) El Beso de la Mujer Araña.
4) Triste y Solitario Final.
5) Cuarteles de Invierno.
6) No Habrá mas Pena ni Olvido
7) Pantaleón y las visitadoras.
Interviewed By: Navya Garg
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