Direcciones (Addresses)
In a country with no numerical system for street addresses, a young woman explores the unique system that has taken hold, and the prospect of its rapid disappearance.
Interview with Writers/Directors María Luisa Santos and Carlo Nasisse
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
We are interested in the connections people have to landscape and to place, particularly the places we are from. This is a theme we have explored in various films and we felt that the system of addresses in Costa Rica was a particularly interesting entry point.
We are both life partners and creative partners and were discussing how one could make film sustainably, which for us means to do so cheaply, and in your spare time. The meandering structure for Direcciones really emerged from these parameters. It was this very simple and yet rich idea that we could slowly work on with very little expectations of it being “good”. It just unfolded over the course of many months of writing, filming, and writing some more. We wanted the film to feel like a quilt being slowly woven together. The beginning feels like a traditional documentary with talking head interviews and observational footage. As the film progresses, and our protagonist (a slightly fictionalized version of Luisa) begins to find the beauty and power in these addresses we fall into a more essay-like mode of filmmaking. We mix archival 16 and 8mm footage, with google earth renderings of the landscape, with digital video we shot to create a collage-like portrayal of the landscape. We mix these formats in order to both emulate the animation of the past into the present that takes place with address-giving, but also to reflect with the form of our film the way in which Costa Rican addresses are relational, like mangrove trees. Everything is in relation to something else, an interwoven system. As the system in Costa Rica is increasingly threatened we hoped to explore the beauty in inefficiency and the power in knowing a place you are from.
We wanted to create a small poem about a system that our children will likely be unable to participate in, but whose value and lessons we hope to maintain.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
This film finds meaning in the everyday task of giving directions. We want to draw attention to how cultural ideas about place and memory are contained within the ways in which we navigate in towns, cities, and rural communities. While this film doesn’t contain any call to action, we hope that it gives an audience space to reflect on the place they are from, the place they live and how they relate to it.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
This is an interesting question for us. Luisa is the narrator, and an interview with her grandma is a central component of the film. It is really her story although with a few caveats. We talked a lot about the positionality of the narrator and had many different iterations. We settled on a slightly fictionalized version of Luisa to guide the viewer in the film. This gave us a lot of creative space to create the transformation we knew we wanted. So it is deeply personal and local and yet there is a sliver of fiction. The film explores collective memory through the voice of this narrator and as the film progresses there is a kind of expansion in understanding and awareness.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
We mentioned this in other responses. It has been a wonderfully meandering and non-direct process.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
We really didn’t know what people would think of the film. The response has honestly been remarkable and has taken us a little by surprise. We are premiering our film at the end of January, this will be the first time seeing a large audience reacting to it.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
It has been surprising how deep a nerve it seems to have hit with various audiences.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We hope to show the film to anyone who is interested and would love to share a bit of us.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We would love any opportunity to show the film at more festivals/ find some kind of permanent online home for it. Maybe a distributor can help us expand.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We would like it to inspire contemplation.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
What does it mean to “know” / belong to a place?
Would you like to add anything else?
Thank you for the space and platform to talk about cinema, to talk about our film.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
María Luisa Santos and Carlo Nasisse are co-writers and co-directors of a fiction short film currently being edited called La montaña (The Mountain) also produced by Natalia Quesada Amador and filmed in Pico Blanco, Escazú, Costa Rica.
Interview: January 2023
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Direcciones (Addresses)
In a country with no numerical system for street addresses, a young woman explores the unique system that has taken hold, and the prospect of its rapid disappearance.
Length: 14:22
Director: María Luisa Santos and Carlo Nasisse
Producer: Natalia Quesada
Writer: María Luisa Santos and Carlo Nasisse
About the writer, director and producer:
MARÍA LUISA SANTOS is a Costa Rican-Cuban director, editor and writer. She writes stories and makes films dealing with landscape, personal loss, and family. Luisa is interested in the connections between one’s internal life and the environment around us. Her work has been shown in The New Yorker, SXSW, PBS, New Orleans FF, Slamdance, and Philadelphia Latino FF, amongst others.
CARLO NASISSE is a director pursuing long-form projects that explore regional culture, ecology, and the relationships between humans, landscape, and politics. His work has been featured in the New Yorker, SXSW, Slamdance, and Big Sky and screened as part of exhibits at the Times Art Center Berlin and the Rockbund Museum of Art in Shanghai. He is currently completing his MFA at Stanford University.
NATALIA QUESADA graduated from Veritas University in Costa Rica with a degree in Film and Television, with an emphasis in production. She co-founded the production company Dos Ruedas Producciones. She produced the fiction feature Quebrada Ignacia and the documentary feature She Stop Herself to Look, both projects currently in postproduction.
Key cast: Ligia Kopper, Andrés Fernández, Franklyn Meyers and Johnatan Rojas.
Looking for: distributors, journalists, film festival directors and buyers
Instagram: @marialuisasantosf, @carlonasisse
Hashtags used: #direcciones, #addresses, #memory, #places, #landscape, #culture, #home
Other: Vimeo
Funders: Self- funded
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month?
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival / Missoula, Montana - Saturday, February 18, 2023.