Venice Film Festival: a preview of Trenque Lauquen, the other Argentine hope

The two are called Laura and the two have been friends for a long time. And, in addition, they shared the writing of the script for Trenque Lauquénthe film he directed Laura Citarella and stars Laura ParedesMember of lava skinand which opens internationally this Thursday at venice party.

It does so in a parallel section of Orizzonti, and has the particularity that, due to its duration (4 hours), it occupies two “slots” or spaces in Orizzonti, that is, when they selected it, they left out another production.

Furthermore, Laura Paredes was already at the Mostra: on Saturday, at the screening of Argentina, 1985as she embodies Adriana Calvo, whose heartbreaking testimony was followed in silence in the huge Great Hall, We spoke to the two Laura of Trenque Lauquénand also the passage of Paredes to the competition for the Golden Lion with the film starring Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani.

– “Trenque Lauquen” is an ambitious project, not only for its total duration of 4 hours, divided into two parts, and which will include an interval. Did you plan it that way before when you started sprouting the idea?

Laura Citarella: We knew from the start it was going to be a long movie. Too many things have already happened in the script, but I was never sure what the duration would be or how the film would be screened. We came very naturally to the current structure, which consists of two films. Two films that need each other, but are not strictly dependent on each other.

-And how did it happen that you wrote the screenplay with Laura -Paredes-, who is the protagonist?

-Cite it: I started developing the treatment for this film, which I had been thinking about before starting The woman with the dogs (2015, which he co-directed with Verónica Llinás), to present it to a Dutch fund. It was a movie that I had fantasized about, that we were talking about, but that I knew was missing a lot. The idea of ​​writing with Laura seemed good to me. Not only because she was able to enter her experience as a director and playwright, but also because she is the protagonist.

-And what do you feel you contribute to the writing, to the development of the screenplay?

-Walls Laura: With Laura we are very friends and Trenque Lauquén It was a project we were thinking about and rewriting in parallel with the shoot. I believe that the fundamental contribution has to do with this work dynamic. With not becoming an actress in the film but the person with whom she was thinking about the plot and structure of the film. We always look at the shots together.

I’ve always loved Laura’s. He likes that I watch the scenes and understand what I’m acting out or what’s going on in the shoot. Somehow, we both think in cinematic terms and it’s not very common. Actors don’t always have this opportunity with directors.

-You co-directed “Woman with Dogs” with Verónica Llinás, I have the feeling that you enjoy working, that the actresses participate in the assembly and completion of your films.

-Cite it: Having also had the experience of working with Verónica, I think this idea of ​​having those who act in a film write or structure their lyrics works very well. There are other keys to thinking and another way of looking at writing. I think it helped us find the materials, test them.

There is something there that is very much alive and which I suppose was better for me than being in a room writing alone. Laura from there became, not only the actress and co-writer, but the main partner of this film, the person to whom I consulted everything.

– Is it a sequel, or a continuation of “Ostende”, but in another location? The main character is the same.

-Cite it: The whole project is a great saga. This is also why Laura is the actress. Yes, she is the same character Ostend, in a new imaginary universe, in a new location in Buenos Aires. Let’s say that certain procedures are repeated, but everything around the character is renewed and, in fact, does not exist Ostend like the past, rather than from some minimal quotation. It’s a way to keep shooting the same movie over and over as time goes by and we all get older.

-Laura, your husband is an actor and producer of the film, and you (Paredes) are an actress and partner of Mariano Llinás, producer. And there is Verónica Llinás. All very familiar.

-citella: Ezequiel (Pierri), my husband, is an actor and producer of the film (the latter, together with Ingrid Pokropek). Laura is a friend of mine and she is married to Mariano, who is my partner in El Pampero Cine. And yes, besides, my brother, my mother, my grandmother are acting. It is a film structured – strictly speaking of the production – around the figure of the family.

There is something about this that made it possible. Let’s say that shooting for five years, requiring the perseverance of so many people, would have been impossible in an unknown pattern. Something about not stopping thinking about the film. Neither inside nor outside the home, it has allowed it to become a very collective process, with a lot of collaboration and participation from everyone.

-Walls: I think one of the peculiarities generated by such a long shoot is that the production conditions are weak to make it possible. Many times we have gone to film with the children, with the family that takes care of our children. Well, that chaotic dynamic, of mixing work with personal life, also generates its own language and therefore its uniqueness.

-Give me an example.

-At a certain point it was decided to film a new structure that involved an extra year of work and filming, and that was done in the best possible way. Many times, on weekends or shorter trips over the months, which is impossible in a more classic work structure. And you can’t even support it if there isn’t a way of thinking about production that incorporates those fraternal patterns, as El Pampero cine has always tried to do.

– Why did you think of Trenque Lauquen? Does it also have to do with your family?

-Cite it: Trenque Lauquen is the city where my family comes from, where today my grandmother, my uncles, my cousins ​​live. It is a much loved place, where I spent all the summers of my childhood. Also, I shot a short there short stories (three together) in 2007 and is where we also shot many other films for El Pampero Cine. It’s a familiar city, dear, which in these five years of filming has given us a lot to make this film exist. There is, I believe, another key to the familiar.

-What topics did you want to address in the film?

-Cite it: The film tells how from an episode – a woman who is gone – everyone has visions and versions of events. Everyone is wrong. Nobody is right. And at the same time everyone is somewhat right.

-In addition to Venice, the film will go to the New York Film Festival. What does all this generate for you?

-Cite it: Yes, and also in San Sebastián and some festivals that are still being confirmed. In principle, everything makes me happy because it is not just about taking Trenque everywhere, but about ending a long phase of work.

-And when would you do the premiere in Argentina?

-Cite it: The first in Argentina is still being studied.

Laura at the “Argentina, 1985” gala.

-Interpreting Adriana Calvo, who gives an impressive testimony as in real life, in “Argentina, 1985”. How did you feel seeing yourself on screen in the Great Hall, with that deadly silence from the audience when your character bears witness to him in the Judgment?

-Walls: the first of Argentina, 1985 it was very exciting. Almost as good as the day the testimony was shot. For me, being in the same room where Adriana Calvo changed the course of the trial and having to say her words was one of the most moving moments I have experienced as an actress. It was a great catharsis for all of us who were there.

The entire technical team and the other actors were recreating an almost sacred moment. And at the first I felt the same thrill again. An audience once again heard those words which were the symbol of horror and, in turn, of profound courage. In this sense there is something in Adriana’s speech that becomes almost a moment of communion.