Episode 1: I didn't go to Cannes
a No-Travel journal to the best place in the world
A quick but hearfelt translation from #Nofuiacannes, that if you read spanish you should check out.
Americans have a phrase that I hear a lot. It’s “catch the early bird”, which means you have a discount for subscribing to something in advance. A capitalist version of the spanish saying “al que madruga Dios le ayuda”.
If you are a film student or you work in the audiovisual field, there comes a point where you get dozens of “catch the early bird” emails, asking you to rush to register in courses, seminars, workshops, competitions and festivals, paying a little less for the experience.
My succesful application for the Rogue Film School by Werner Herzog was called “F * ck the early bird” and spoke of wanting to stop catching the damn birds and seeing the sun rise more often. Being in touch with the world where everything happens and stop attending cocktails and pitchings where our soul is sold as a packaged gift. Since When making movies became solely about that?
No. making movies is not about that. But let me admit that when you get an email with this info, your world shakes up a little bit. 5 projects worldwide.
Again and again the words of Werner Herzog came to my mind, almost like a German rap of dubious translation: Festivals use you or are you gonna use Festivals?
And yes, the truth is that many festivals use you and many others just don’t. There are many areas where the creator is the least important node in a bizarre equation between business, fandom and majors, remixed with imported cocktails and finger food. It is the Capitalism, Stupid!I know it is.
As Rodrigo Illaraga from Genio Maligno says “Today, denouncing that we live in a consumer society “ has become such a commonplace as using Che Guevara T-shirts”
Herzog also uses you. Medium. Facebook. Cannes and your girlfriend use you. Let’s get that out of the way and move on.
The Kintsugi project is a Film, a web narrative and a piece of virtual reality. It is fully Mixed Media. Animation. Rotoscoping. Live Action and varied narrative techniques in every episode of the project. It has producers in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Cochabamba, Mexico and Singapore. It is a collaborative mystery.
The project itself has quite a history but it honors the basic concept of Kintsugi: unite with traces of gold, that which has been broken.
And here we break ourselves again.
The opportunity to make a pitch or presentation in Cannes, implied a double presentation. Paris in June, during a Transmedia Market Event for CVD and Pitching in Cannes at Cannes Next, a space to delve into the future of film.
Amazing opportunity if you live in a place where you can really accept it.
There is a clear future for films that drive the passion of big businesses and there’s another future of not really going places without industry support for the independent creators.
Two trips to France within two months. From Latin America. From Argentina. To set up a campaign in the most expensive festival in the world. Living in the other side of the planet.
Being a filmmaker.
Independent.
Southeamerican.
A woman
Working in issues of technology and innovation.
Quite a catch right?
Of course not.
During these days I will tell you manys stories how I have been told NO.
No from Cultural Institutions that fill their mouths with innovation but devour entrepreneurs as caviar. The local Film Industry No, that clinging to the silver screen refers to me as “a non-considered producer” “by absence of laws and resolutions regarding new media”.
Thank you. Love you. Let’s break up again. is it all because I am girl?
The No of those who say Film is THIS and if it’s not THIS, then it’s not Film. The No of a country that does not support the development of audiovisual projects, the weaker and more powerful phase of every great movie. The No of those who say putting together a google cardboard to experience virtual reality is “complicated” and has “no future”. The support of those who say “if you go first you’ll always get punched more than the rest”.
The unconditional support of local events that never dare to say yes to their local artists. The No of a system that requires that you can answer a selection of this caliber in less than a week. No matter where you are from. The failure of those who do not see beyond their nose (and that´s why they will never use a cardboard)
But this non-travel diary is a huge YES. To turn the situation around and duckdive to the other side of the wave with a smile and the need for more.
Art is not a secret code to initiates.
“Collaboration” is not just for a few.
Having given a whole week of free and personalized mentoring on issues of transmedia and audiovisual Innovation during Berlinale or BAFICI film Festival, or any other big festival where I am invited to go, I understand we have many great stories to tell. I understand that a system that is closed, is a broken system. A system that does not respect the makers, is also a weak system.
So let’s do this
We will travel virtually to this non-place during the month of May. Rethinking hybrid systems. We will continue making ,connecting and betting on our passions again. Let’s talk about the YES, behind a closed door.
“Forget the festivals, let’s screen movies in the Forest”
Said Vincent Moon to me with the warmth of the poets. Let´s find our forest and let’s tell the best stories in the world. Nothing. Nothing is as impossible as it seems.
About three or four hundred meters from the Pyramid I bent down, I took a handful of sand, I dropped it a little further and said quietly: “I am modifying the Sahara. ‘”
In “The Desert” — Atlas p. 82 Jorge Luis Borges
Follow the daily trip to Nowhere here and in every social media hotspot at SeirenFilms
Write to MLaura@seirenfilms.com and let’s keep on modifying the desert.
M.Laura Ruggiero. Transmedia producer. StoryHacker.
You can see the full version in spanish, here.
