AMDOCS / Wales International Film Festival 2019 – In the Dark Room
A meeting with the famous Spanish photographer, Cristina Garcia Rodero, member of the Magnum Photos Agency. A conversation rescued from the box of all those visual memories that come to mind while processing my photos in the solitude of the Dark Room.
Interview with Director/Producer/Editor/Actor Luigi Abanto Varese
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
In the Dark Room is the third documentary short dedicated to Masters of Photography, the first ones are: Talking with Ernesto Bazan and Coffee with Jodi Bieber, so, I will continue with some other photographers that I admire and show their works.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
You should watch this film because it is an experimental proposal, I want the audience to have some minutes of a different experience.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
I think both themes complement each other. On one side there’s the interview to Cristina García Rodero, we talk about different issues and on the other side, there are the images of the process of photography in the dark room, which is my personal theme and leads the narrative of the documentary.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
A lot, the interview was made in 2012, It is one shot, 30 minutes of an intensive conversation and profound, so, I had to think how to edit the footage in order to show an interesting film and entertain at the same time. I designed the short film as a comic book.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
Good ones, people told me that they become informed about the Balkans conflict and recognized Cristina’s work as a great photographer.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Yes, when I finished the post-production I didn’t know if my idea would have success, so I showed it first to my distributor agent and she told me that the final product impacted her. I think it worked.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
I definitely need my executive producer and the distributor agent in order to get as many festivals as I can.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
As I said before, I want the audience to have 9 minutes of a different experience, become involved in the wonderful universe of photography.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
I think it would be: What motivates a photographer to go to foreign and dangerous places taking risks in order to photograph?
Would you like to add anything else?
I hope the audience would appreciate Cristina’s photography as a legacy to the world and to generations to come.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Well, I am working on a “self-documentary”. You know, I am a pharmacist and work at nights, I want to show this experience of attending to the public in different situations and show my personal moments behind the desk, my temporal escape to the universe that literature brings to me when I read while having a little free time.
And I am working too on the script of my next horror short film: Ivania.
Interview: April 2019
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In the Dark Room
A meeting with the famous Spanish photographer, Cristina Garcia Rodero, member of the Magnum Photos Agency. A conversation rescued from the box of all those visual memories that come to mind while processing my photos in the solitude of the Dark Room.
Length: 9:51
Director: Luigi Abanto Varese
Producer: Danel Aser
Writer: Luigi Abanto Varese
About the writer, director and producer:
LUIGI ABANTO VARESE (Trujillo – Perú, 1975). Lives in Barcelona, in 2004 started his photographic career with projects such us Introprojection, Ayahuasca a story of a trip, Instants, Dependent Lives, Stolen Moments, etc.
In 2011, started his cinematographic career with his first documentary short Talking with Ernesto Bazán, Coffee with Jodi Bieber (Best Documentary Corti Sonanti, Italia 2013), the fiction short film Being an Angel (Best Editing ECU Francia 2015) and Astrid (Best short film Mecal Film Festival, Schools of Films category, Spain 2016, Best Film Noida Film Festival, India 2017) and his latest documentary short film In the Dark Room (Best Documentary short Cinerama Valladolid, Spain 2018, Best Documentary Film Muy Castilla la Mancha 2019, Big Sky Film Festival, Montana USA, 2019), this is the third documentary short dedicated to masters of photography.
Key cast: Cristina García Rodero (Interviewee), Luigi Abanto Varese (Interviewer, performance)
Looking for: distributors, journalists, film festival directors, producers
Facebook: Luigi Abanto Varese
Website: www.luigiabantovarese.com
Made in association with: Camera & Tripod Productions, El Plato de Cinema
Funders: Self-funded and with the colaboration of El Plato de Cinema.