Interview: Lucrecia Martel, filmmaker

Lucrecia Martel is young and intelligent, and her sensitive look at intimate family relationships convinced the Sundance jury. As a result of the money she won from the 1998's Best Script Award edition, she was able to start making her first film, La Cienaga, that the audience attending the second Buenos Aires International Independant Film Festival will be able to preview in a special section.

Lucrecia Martel is a 33-year-old filmmaker born in the small province of Salta, in the northwestern part of Argentina, near Bolivia in the Altiplano and sorrounded by a culture which is both magical and tragic at the same time. And it was precisely in Salta where she imagined the reunion of two families who spend a weekend together after a long period of not seeing each other. A misfortunate event forces them to share the same country house, bringing out a complex history of silences, secrets and absences.

That story became the script for her first film, La Cienaga (The Swamp), which won the attention of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival jury, awarding her the Best Script Award at the Mecca for independant filmmakers. "It was really important getting that award. It got my movie started", recalls Martel, who is presenting trailers of her movie in the Films in Production section of the BA FICI.

With the recognition of Robert Redford himself -who is quoted to have said that Martel's script was "enlighting and rich"- and 135,000 dollars in her bank account (she received $10,000 at that time and another $125,000 on completion of the film last March), the young filmmaker could achieve her dream of getting one of the country's most renown divas of the silver screen -Graciela Borges- to portray the matriarch in the families' encounter.

The Best Script Award in Sundance "works as a contract", explained Lucrecia. "Once the Sundance Institute decides your project is chosen, the NHK Network -one of the most powerful TV networks in Japan- buys the script from Sundance. Such is the confidence they have in their jury."

The NHK gave 1998's first place award to four scripts. Lucrecia's was chosen from more than 40 Latin American films to be in competition. Once the film is ready, "they air it in Japan", said the director, who expects her opera prima (first film) to open in Argentinean theatres on August 10th.

The remaining 800,000 dollars came from the INCAA (Argentina's Film Institute), whose committee "didn't believe the movie was commercial enough", reminds Martel; and two independant producers: Lita Stantic -who worked in several very famous Argentinean films, including the 1985 Academy Award Winner, The Official Story- and Cuatro Cabezas, a very successful production company founded by Mario Pergolini, one of the country's most respected and rebellious journalists whose tv shows top listed the ratings for the last five years. Martel declares herself "fulfilled" with the shooting that took place in the arid Salta in three small villages called Quijano, La Quebrada and El Dique between January 3rd and March 10th, 2000. "The interesting thing about the characters, she added, is that their family bonds are weak and powerful at the same time."

She is also grateful to her stars. "Working with Graciela [Borges] and her real life son, Juan Cruz Bordeu, -who portray an alcoholic mother and the ignored son- was really great. They are warm, caring actors and they helped me out with my first directing experience, making it really memorable for me."

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Clara Fernandez Escudero