translated from Spanish: Martin Deus on “My best friend”: “Do not talk of love if it is the fuel of our lives?”

ended the waiting: “My best friend” came to the Argentine cinema screens. Starring Angelo Spinetta and Lautaro Rodríguez, the film garnered very good reviews with only the passage of a few hours of its release.” “A history of friendship or love: depends on where you look it”, expresses the logo the heart of the plot of the film, and overview in a nutshell. Focused on the relationship between two friends who must live together, the story shows how each will learn from each other and overcoming their differences through a relationship. To understand more details about the film, Ridge spoke with Martin Deus, the director, who opened his heart with respect to its beginnings, its purpose with the film, and much more. Why did decide to pursue the movie “My best friend”? How did the shooting?
“I had really wanted to relive feelings of adolescence that marked me forever. Loneliness, self-discovery, unacknowledged love, the passage to adulthood. Although it is not an autobiographical story in the strict sense of the word, portrays emotions I know closely, that lived intensely. I suppose that, to the logical desire to make my first film (almost twenty years ago that I am dedicated to the cinema), joined that desire to become an artistic fact everything that lived and which I so deeply marked”. 

“The shooting was a wonderful and very intense experience where will look it (…)” By more comprehensive that it has been the preparation by more elaborate to be the script, the shooting is always a moment in which history is revealed, even to its own author, which assumes that you already know everything. So, in short, was that: the epic of a teamwork, the Epiphany of discovering the ultimate meaning of history… And lose three kilos”. How was working with Angelo Spinetta and Lautaro Rodríguez? Why you chose those actors to embody the characters?

The director together with the protagonists “had things, physical characteristics or personality that me liked to add to their characters. Each director has his technique, I am generally more than wanting to make something genuine, particular that already have the actors in their own lives, which force them to make a composition or fit into a pre-designed mould”.” Lautaro radiates something fascinating: Kid’s neighborhood, very charismatic, very awake, much Street, with a few fabulous tattoos and a pragmatism to deal with life that I will always envy. It was a diamond in the rough: had never acted before, or taken classes. But loved the proposal and demonstrated commitment. Choosing it was taking a great risk, but something told me that he had to rely on their natural, intuitive ease to act. “And while I did”.

“Angelo, for its part, in addition to being very photogenic, it has that mixture between child and adult. When we filmed, he had just turned sixteen, I was gluing lug and changing voice. This physical transformation was perfect for a character in the process of change, of self-discovery. We get together once to talk about the script and its intelligence, its so adult and reasonable way talk frightened me. The second time we saw, was hearing and the third was for a trial, because it was already chosen as the protagonist. Almost one could say it was love at first sight”. With regard to the idea of showing affection between male friends, do you think that there is some phobia or prejudice in the society? Do message transmitted the film?
“Definitely. Long taught boys express affection was a characteristic feminine and, therefore, prohibited. It is somewhat uncomfortable, embarrassing, even can be a source of ridicule. ‘ Even so, emotions are like water and always find where filtered, and the film portrays a little that, the unique way in the love between two friends is often express “” there is also love, because that is also a way of saying ‘ I love you ‘ , idiot ‘ or ‘sos re important for me’. What cannot be said with words, men say it with actions, and that’s gold for a film, and feel that it is what makes my best friend a story so subtle and so candida”. How typically is reflect homosexuality in Argentine cinema? “My best friend” makes a difference? And in the international cinema?

“My best friend” was released “no author is an island and films always have a context. I have memories of going to see ‘Plata Quemada’ beyond 2000 and float out. At that time, show two men kissing in this way was quite scandalous. But more shocking was to see them so deeply in love. “” Set in 1965, was a period film, but also a film of its time: still lacked visibility in the streets, still gays were his life only in the intimacy, people knew in many cases, but that was not talked about “.” The other big influence was Marco Berger, not only for its cinematic approach, but because it was the first director of films that I met in person and that I became a friend and I couldn’t speak as equals, even though I had not done yet my first long. “I think that framework is ‘the’ gay of Argentina film director, and is not that it has been covered with a look totalizing the life and customs of the LGBT community but on the contrary, his cinema is an eternal, stubborn return to a few themes and obsessions”.
‘It is something new to tell the story about sexuality without showing sex’ “I’m still not able to tell where it comes to deal with ‘My best friend’ in the panorama of LGBT cinema, but yes I would say that it has something new to tell the story about sex ualidad without showing sex, and not because it is taboo to show it, but to highlight that, in sexual self-discovery, ninety percent of the passes issue by the head. The procession goes inside, tab you dropped or not you falls, but at the moment it does not make noise, is something quite internal. Even you can discover you gay, recognize you and accept you long before your first time.”” I like to think that bridging distances and impact, my best friend came out at the same time as ‘ Call me by your name’ and ‘Love, Simon, and that the current film, accompanied by a very rapid and very deep, social change shows stories of diversity already not a me lodrama of discrimination and rejection, in which the gay is predestined to suffer and suppressed, but as something more universal variants. “Love is love”. The film was awarded at the Cannes film festival in the Grand Prize Ecran Junior category. What does that represent for you?

Filming of “My best friend” “an award that fills me with pride, not so much because it was in Cannes, which is probably the most prestigious festival in the world, but because his jury was composed by French guys aged between thirteen and fifteen years.” I felt a great relief. “I can say that my portrait of a teenager, shot twenty-two years after having served sixteen, is absolutely credible and can make connection and awaken emotions, and even transcend cultural boundaries”. “Love raw” you can also see the friendship, which should resolve many confused emotions. Did you take it as a basis for this new production? Is there a relationship between the two films?
“‘Raw love’ is cousin of ‘My best friend’. I learned when I finished the film, it was not something conscious. It is obviously a subject that haunts me: unclassifiable love, love that is fails to put precise boundaries or name. Secret love. Even so, they are different stories. ‘My best friend’ has a more Platonic relationship and his title has something of an irony: are so different between them, their lives so far. “It is a spark of coincidence that are known and a connection explosively intense that suddenly something mysterious if you wish or, at least, unites them, incidentally”. Seems to love is one of the recurrent gaps in your movies. Why do you mention this topic? What other issues you would you cover?

Martin Deus ‘love is a mystery. Always. You’ll never be able to explain all by you love such a person, or if that love is similar or different to that feel by such other person. We live seeking to satisfy our needs and everything we do is for self-dealing, however when we feel love run us a bit of our ego, had to think about other than ourselves. If love has a purpose, it ceases to be love and becomes convenience.”” Love is in the air, as the song says. Through each and every one of us, in the street, houses, schools and jobs. Down the bridges and on the international space station. I’ve been in love with a friend, Cortázar, my grandfather, my first grade teacher, my best friend, a guy that I wrote and we never got to see in person not talk of love if love is the common factor of all stories and? memories that come to mind, if love is same fuel of our lives?” You were director of several music videos. In what environment you feel more comfortable, music or film? Why?
“I am a director of video clips very by accident, because a partner mine came one day to tell me that there was a band that wanted us to do a video.” I not consumed video clips, not watching MTV, had no idea what it was. By luck. I could not copy me of what did not know, and I also took it to heart, I didn’t feel the need to make a statement of style, to say ‘this is my film’ “.”
“Bands with which I worked it hit the jump and that later opened doors” “so very lightly, and with much desire to play and have fun, I started to get you images to songs. I was lucky that one of the bands with whom I worked hit the jump and that later opened doors. If I think about it a little, my video clips are very narrative, most have little stories, at levels very coRTOS”.” In this regard, I like to think that a dividing line as marked among both genders, that I am always the same when I filmed and use the same tools there is. “A movie to a video clip, but both is obviously not the same things I feel them as work as author”. What is what comes in the future for you as director?
“It is something that I try not to think. Obvious that you I want to continue the party, and make movies until I die. I loved the experience and the effect of the film on the people who saw it. I’m still writing and wanting to grow as an author and be able to deal with riskier projects”. In this note: my best friend Martin Deus

Original source in Spanish