Is love a hazard, or will it save the day? Chilean writer-director Diego Céspedes explores that query and the theme of household and group as a refuge in his characteristic debut The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, which world premieres in Cannes‘ Un Sure Regard part on Thursday.
It tells the story of Lidia, 11, “who grows up in a loving queer household pushed to the sting of an unwelcoming dusty mining city,” in line with a synopsis. “They’re blamed for a mysterious sickness that’s beginning to unfold – mentioned to be handed by way of a single gaze, when one man falls in love with one other.”
Try an unique clip for the film, produced by Quijote Movies in Chile and Les Valseurs in France, with gross sales being dealt with by Charades, right here.
The trendy western, starring Tamara Cortés, Matías Catalán, and Paula Dinamarca, could also be set within the Chilean desert within the Eighties, properly earlier than the 29-year-old was born. However the queer director is aware of the challenges his characters face, together with violence, concern and hatred, from his household’s expertise.
“My household comes from the suburbs of Chile’s capital, Santiago, they usually rented this little hairdresser salon and employed homosexual individuals to chop hair. At the moment, it was simply homosexual individuals reducing hair,” he tells THR. “My mom was very near them, and all of them died of AIDS. And I keep in mind that my mom didn’t have a lot details about it. We simply heard that it was a really harmful factor that may be transmitted very simply. It was simply scary.”
That’s a part of the context through which Céspedes created his story. “I used to be additionally impressed by actual individuals and the way dissidents and transgender individuals, when they’re deserted by society, create communities and households,” he explains. “That’s particular for me and the core of the movie, the creation of an actual household that’s not sharing blood.”
Discovering Lidia took a yr of auditions earlier than the inventive workforce hit the jackpot with Cortés. “It was her first time round trans girls and such a various group,” the director recollects. “However after we put them collectively, she was very comfy and really pure. And she or he has this mixture of an grownup perspective and in addition this type of humor.”
‘The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo’
Courtesy of Cannes Movie Competition
The concept that a gaze may transmit AIDS is just not one Céspedes ever heard anybody counsel. “It’s a complete creation, however in actual life, I’ve heard very related issues,” he says earlier than sharing ideas match for the post-truth world. “There was ignorance at the moment, and even now. While you don’t have entry to data, you create explanations, as a result of us human beings want a proof for all the pieces. So, I believed that on this fictional city, what they give thought to the illness might be one thing that doesn’t confront actuality. We’re having intercourse between males, and that’s the principle method of transmission. However why would we are saying that, if we will create one other rationalization that matches our method of seeing life?”
In that sense, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo is a plea to face actuality and others. Actually, the necessity for being open to encountering people who find themselves completely different is a core message that Céspedes feels is very well timed. “We develop up in a technology the place individuals are taking very exhausting positions on who’s the unhealthy one and who’s the nice one, however I believe we’re lacking that dialog and that wanting one another within the eye.”
Diego Céspedes
Is the filmmaker optimistic that even in a divided world, people can construct actual connections? “That’s a chance, even when we don’t see it an excessive amount of in our fashionable society,” he tells THR. “As human beings, we will discuss, and we will discover settlement after we look one another within the eye. We have to discuss extra.”