translated from Spanish: Malena Pichot releases “Finde”, her first film: “I like to talk to my generation”

Agos and Santi are entering their forties. They have been a couple for many years, they have no children. Fed up with the routine and their monoenvironment in The Federal Capital, they decide to take a weekend in the countryside. Through an app they find a dreamed fifth house and at a very good price. There they are waiting for their owners, Emi and Lore, a charming couple who due to personal problems will not be able to leave the house during those days. In return, they offer to treat them like in a five-star hotel. The proposal is tempting, but, spoiler alert: nothing is what it seems.

Malena Pichot lashes out again with “Finde”, her first film, a totally independent production that, like each of her creations, inaugurates a new way of telling a story and portraying her generation. She and Julián Lucero – partner in several of her hits such as “Cualca”, “Por ahora”, “Mundillo” and “Leonor” – are the main actors but also the writers and executive producers of this story directed by another habitué of the Pichot universe: Nano Garay Santaló.

“At the beginning of the pandemic we did ‘Leonor’, a streaming that had a little bit more production compared to that time and we did very well. Because of that, and because we haven’t been working in theater for a while, we had to occupy our heads in something. We wrote this film in a couple of months and we took it forward,” the comedian told Filo.news.On average, a film takes five weeks to shoot. “Finde” was filmed in five days, a titanic task that only filmmakers like Pichot and Lucero can carry out successfully. “It’s crazy that has to do with lowering the pretensions and expectations of not wanting to make a masterpiece but an audiovisual piece of humor for people to have fun,” confessed “Grandma YouTuber”, a nickname with which Male defines herself and clearly shows her enormous career in the audiovisual world.

The strawberry of the dessert is the participation of Leonardo Sbaraglia, an actor of race who knew how to play a character for nothing conventional: “We had to be afraid of the couple of the house then could not be someone from our group of comedian friends because it was not going to be believable”, says Male who usually includes his actor friends in his projects.” Sbaraglia is an acting monster. It has very intense scenes and very passionate monologues. It was very fascinating to be in a scene with him because he’s hypnotic, he’s a person who acts since he’s 17, he acted with Almodóvar. It’s all crazy and you can tell the difference,” the comedian said of the actor who brings Emi to life.

The cast of “Finde” is completed with Paula Grinszpan, acclaimed film and theater actress who puts the body to Lore, the owner of the country house. She and her husband hide a sinister side that is revealed as the plot progresses. Also having a brief participation are the actor Pablo Fusco and Julián Kartun, singer of El Kuelgue and another regular name in the world of Malena: “In fact, the name of the film came to him. He is also the one who thought the name of Cualca. Juli is very good with titles,” he revealed.

“Vacation is not cooking, not washing,” Lucero’s character says in the trailer. But the initial fantasy and the somewhat suspicious offer of the owners of the fifth begins to crack little by little and Agos and Santi begin to intuit that their proposal hides other intentions. “At first it’s all idyllic and then it gets weird,” clarifies the protagonist and that’s when the seasonings of the horror genre and even the gore burst in.” It’s comedy with horror elements, but it’s basically comedy, we’re not looking to scare people but to laugh. It’s a parody of terror. Every time something of tension happens it breaks with a joke” and explains to the less tolerant to the genre that there is no risk of suffering: Finde is, first and foremost, a comedy movie.****
How do you see national productions, from the most mainstream to the most under?

– I think there are a lot of people doing a lot of things. However, in mainstream places there are still the same people. It’s hard for there to be a transition of new people. The big productions are always the same, but I’m already at peace with that, it’s how the system works and as long as I can keep doing my crazy things I don’t worry too much.
– I feel like there’s very little comedy in national cinema, the ones that are made are more traditional. Anyway, I realized very recently that to do comedy, to write jokes and make them funny you have to know who is going to say them. You can’t write a comedy script and then look for the actors. It seems to me that this is, perhaps, what is wrong in Argentina. Jokes aren’t universal, it’s not like you wrote a joke on a piece of paper and it’s going to be funny whoever says it. There’s a joke out there that’s funny to me but if someone else says it doesn’t work. That is why, when we write, we already know who is going to say it. You already wrote for that tone and that’s what makes it funny, I think.
Is there an inspiration in Finde?

– I always feel like talking about my generation, although you don’t have to be my age to understand the codes. But I always talk about what’s happening to me right now, at that age. With Por Ahora the question was ‘what are we going to work on, what are we going to live on?’ And the problem of Finde is that of millennials who are already 40, who have been in a couple for many years, without children.
What can you tell us about your character?

– Agos isn’t that much like me because she’s a girl who’s already a little bit right-wing, someone who went “gentrified” over the years and all she wants is money and to have a better place in the laburo. I think my stamp goes through there, to tell something generational.
What’s next?

– We’re thinking with Vanesa Strauch about doing a stand up show but very slowly, some fechita here, there. I haven’t acted for a year and a half, I haven’t got on stage. It’s like doing gymnastics again, you have to take strength and come back but yes, I’m always seeing how I can do something, develop an idea but that’s historic of a lifetime, whether there is a pandemic or not. It is difficult for her to admit it, but without a doubt she is a reference in her own, a creator who wants, can and knows how to break with the known. In an industry dominated by a mainstream that rarely renews faces and names we are left with creators like Pichot and Lucero who play it to tell other stories from another perspective.” Finde” had the support of Futurock, is available to watch online from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 September and you can get your ticket in this link.

Original source in Spanish