The filmmaker Carlos Sorín, worthy of a retrospective of his work within the framework of the 11th Bariloche Audiovisual Festival (FAB), maintained that “at this time when the theaters seem to be in their decline, the festivals fulfill a function of seeing again a film accompanied and on the big screen.”
“Seeing films in these conditions will soon not be appreciated more than at festivals. When my grandson is 20 years old, he won’t even know that movie theaters existed,” Sorín said during an interview with Télam.
Present in this place in Argentine Patagonia where he filmed a good part of his work, the FAB screened “El Perro”, “Fishing Days”, “Joel” and last night, after a masterful talk at the Sarmiento Library, “Historias Mínimas ”, successful film from 2002 and third in a list that consists of a total of 10 titles.
The last of that production by the 79-year-old artist was “Tomy’s Notebook” (2020), produced by the Netflix platform, an experience about which he indicates that “a premiere on the platform means the world. They told me ‘it opens on November 19’ and that day it could be seen in like 125 countries, that reality doesn’t enter your head.”
Télam: What is it like to produce a film for a platform like Netflix from Argentina?
Carlos Sorín: Argentina is a good place to produce, it has an industry that is more than 80 years old, it has good technicians, good actors, with a very varied range, from the technical and also the ethnic. But now the platforms are going to film those series with Argentine actors and Argentine technicians, but in Uruguay, because they cannot understand the economic ups and downs of the country. They tell you “if it’s very cheap to film in Argentina, it’s even very complicated.” Due to the fluctuations in the dollar price, it is even more favorable to them, it does not enter their heads, it is cheaper for them, but the businessmen in the industry do not choose it.
T: And how much do platforms impact today’s cinema?
CS: There is a very strong and very dramatic change, dramatic in the sense of violence, not in a negative sense. Things are moving forward and in the long run it is for the better, I would say that this change occurred five or six years ago with the exponential acceleration of data transmission, but then it changed and then you have a subscription at a reasonable price with impressive catalogs and against that can’t be fought. I always thought that this was going to happen, that when the internet entered the film business it would undoubtedly change everything and the pandemic accelerated everything, the board was kicked and it is irreversible.
T: How do you get along as a filmmaker with this technological change?
CS: The equipment has become more portable, lighter, the budgets are lower and the language has also expanded a lot, certain things that were previously sacred rules are allowed, and therefore it is easier to access making a film with a lot of less media anywhere. In fact, I’m going to make my next film with three of those new iPhone 15 Pro Maxs that just came out.
T: Making a movie filmed using iPhone seems like a big challenge…
CS: Yes there is a challenge. It will be a hybrid fiction that has a number of documentary components, which has to do with a group, I am not going to specify a group of what, but the thing is that the cell phone is not intimidating because people use it constantly. Besides, I like technical challenges and it seems to me that the new device already has a level of resolution that is fine, it is not enough for a 20-meter screen, but it is enough for an LED on which the platforms’ movies can be seen. Portable lighting equipment has also come out, which I have and use, and all of that makes things a lot easier. I think that here there are two alternatives, either you make a production on the big, huge, gigantic platforms or you go to the other extreme, and there I feel more comfortable.
T: Do you already have the script for that movie?
CS: There is no script…yet. There will be it as you make your way as you walk (laughs).
T: So you are not only going to venture into technical innovation, but also into a different way of working on content?
CS: It’s going to be written as filming progresses. It is not an avant-garde idea, it is inevitable that it should be so.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
