The author of ‘Amores perro’ maintains that “today there is nothing that interests me less than reality”, and addresses a film based on his experiences
the mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu returned for the fifth time to the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) to open it this Saturday with his latest film ‘Bard, false chronicle of a few truths’, an ‘autofiction’ that, paradoxically, distances the director from reality like never before and draws viewers into his personal memories.
‘I started in ‘Amores perro’ (2000) where I was obviously interested in reality, today there is nothing that interests me less than reality, because I already realized that reality does not exist,’ assured the director at a press conference hours before the festival’s opening ceremony.
The director’s film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, portrays the story of Silverio Gama, a journalist and documentary filmmaker who returns to Mexico after establishing much of his life in the United States to enter an identity crisis from memories and confrontations that mix reality with the dreamlike.
Based on his own current questions, and essential parts of his life, González Iñárritu explained that with the film I sought to express the sensations that the migrate and the identity that is built from said act and the passage of time.
‘I have always believed that there is no one more Mexican than the Mexican who leaves the country, because when you leave your country your absences accumulate and somehow the presence of your country becomes much more powerful’, explained the author of ‘Birdman’ (2014).
From that reunion with its roots, the Mexican director created a feature film of more than three hourswhich was filmed in Mexico City, 20 years after his first film, which also had that metropolis as a setting.
unusual experience
In the film, actors like Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid and Iker Solano, they give life to characters based on himself, his wife and children respectively and all, he said, were chosen for their talent and the personal connections he felt to their stories.
‘I had never worked with Alejandro and he chose me, but He did not choose me for my talents, but for the moment of life in which I waswhich was similar to his’, said Giménez Cacho, who plays Silverio in the film, at the conference.
The actor from the series ‘A Strange Enemy’ explained that the ‘fantastic, but fantasy’ experience he had while making ‘Bardo’, It was an unusual experience that I would hardly experience again in my lifefor the freedom and mimicry he felt with his character, as well as the total understanding of the theme that the director wanted to express.
The conference was also attended by the production designer Eugenio Caballero (‘Roma’, 2018), the co-writer Nicolás Giacobone, with whom he had worked on ‘Biutiful’ (2010)the costume designer Anna Terrazas, the president of FICM, Alejandro Ramírez, and the director of the festival, Daniela Michel.
González Iñárritu’s film, and ‘Pinocchio’, from his compatriot William of the Bullare two of the most anticipated films of the year and the 20th edition of FICM.
This year the official selection of the festival is made up of 95 titles which are divided between 59 short films, 15 documentary feature films, 11 works from the state of Michoacán and 10 feature films.
It will be a week of intense cinematographic activity in which personalities such as Maribel Verdudirector Barry Jenkins, Claire Denis, among others, They will parade through Morelia, the capital of the state of Michoacán to celebrate the fully in-person return of cinema in Morelia after two years of hybrid celebration.
The twentieth edition of FICM will take place from October 22 to 29 and will develop face-to-face functions in the city of Morelia and virtual through Cinépolis Klic, Canal 22 and FilminLatino.