SON OF THE BRIDE

at the Prescott Hotel in San Francisco
March 21, 2002

You mentioned that one of your goals with this film was to create something that dispelled stereotypes, and certainly your Oscar nomination will encourage people to see this film about everyday people who happen to live in Argentina.
I actually use a lot the metaphor for American people to understand what I am doing, I use a lot the metaphor of Black cinema in America... Most of the people here (in the U.S.), will know us by the awful things you read in the newspaper and film. One of the things that struck me when we go to screenings is people tell me 'but oh, that's like real people there. They are so similar to us.' And, I use the comparison to Black cinema here because I think that it's important to have films like 'Boys in the Hood'; but it is also important to have films like regular hard-working dignified Black people... 98% of Latin American films are seen through the eyes of a poor kid who turns into a thief or a poor girl who turns into a prostitute. I really think that right now in Argentina we are reaching great depression numbers; we are reaching something like 40% under the line of poverty. 95% of that people are fighting to work, are teaching their children that you don't steal because it's bad, and I don't know how they do it, especially since they see the higher classes stealing until their hearts are content and getting away with it.

My film is more about the middle class, but it shows a person from the middle class who could have sold out, but in the end he turns around and says 'I'll stay here'; which is most of the people there... Many of the critics were very pissed at this. They thought it was just a populist movement that didn't fully represent the drama that Argentina was sinking into... And I think people showed them wrong because we had people saying 'finally there are people who are like us. They have the same temptations like we do: selling out and leaving the country, getting away from it all. But who hangs on.' And I really think that is precisely what I meant about (misrepresenting) the miserable people. You need the balance... The political and economic situation in Argentina is present in the film, but it is present in a more second layer, second reading. We did what we did to make the restaurant a symbol of the country: the restaurant that we inherited from our elders, and that we sort of sold out, and now we have to start from the broken down cafe across the street.

Campanella studied film in Argentina and in the United States (NYU- Certificate Program). When asked to compare the filmmaking process in the United States and Argentina, Campanella responded:
The process of making a film, the division of labor is very similar anywhere in the world... The producers always look at 'will I make my money back on this'. And sometimes when they think they won't, like ironically on this movie. A lot of producers passed on it because they thought it was going to be a total flop; and finally Pol-ka Producciones read the script and loved it and said that 'I think with good marketing, we can get our money back'. Because it was a love story about two old people and one of them had Alzheimer's; and the other guy is a 42 year old guy who has a heart attack, and they were not seeing this as a very commercial movie (laughing)... So he really went for it because he (Adrian Suar) liked the script.

So there are three ways of doing it (getting financing): You have your state help in some cities there are credits that some movies get. If you make a movie with a cooperative system, meaning that you never make any money, you just make points. You can make a movie like here with a $100,000 to $200,000 and with that help from the state, you can get your movie made.

The other way, is with genuine money from production companies. Because it is so risky, all these companies tend to get together and put very little money each of them to minimize the risk. We had four production companies: three from Argentina ($100-400k each) and the Spanish one ($300k). So it was between $1.5-1.7 million. And that was at the time of one peso- one dollar. Now you could make the exactly the same movie, with exactly the same people for $800k. (Due to the current economic devaluation).

The third way, which is used by many movies, is a co-production. Many European companies and European organizations are putting money in Latin American films... There are some movies that you will find that are a French-Spanish-Argentine co-production. They get most of the money because it then qualifies as some kind of European movie too. Then they get a quota in Europe of screenings and TV rights, and they get their money back... The downside of that is a little bit creative because in order to qualify, let's say, we had a Spanish-Argentine co-production; we could get around that because the actress who plays the girlfriend and the actor who plays the father are both Argentinean but they are also Spanish citizens... The composer was Spanish and the sound person was Spanish. But sometimes when you don't get that, let's say, there are many Argentine citizens in Spain, but let's say you have a Mexican movie, it is very hard because then you have to make a character or two characters in your movie that are Spanish and then you have a film that makes no sense to be Mexican or Argentinean in the first place. And then you start mixing cultures from everywhere and it doesn't make sense.

Has the political climate in Argentina influenced the climate for filmmakers?
This movie was made before the current political climate. The times from December to February were very chaotic. Now we are just trying to get a little bit of stability so that we can get to the elections of 2003.

How autobiographical is "Son of the Bride" because it was influenced by the fact that your father wanted to remarry your mother?
It was based on my father wanting to marry my mother in the (Catholic) Church... It was very moving. It was 35 years (their marriage) and they never married in the Church because my mother was divorced. Now her first husband passed away and my father wanted to marry her in the Church. And the Church would not allow it because my mother has Alzheimer's disease. So that is what created the story. Nothing else that happens in the film is strictly something that happened in my life. So I wouldn't call it autobiographical, but I would call it the most personal thing that I have done because the character, Rafael, is a voice to a lot of my fears, repressions, and prejudices. I felt a lot like Rafael in the beginning (of production): afraid of making commitments, always completely afraid of predictability and domesticity.

Actually, my writing partner (Fernando Castets) was basically the same. We wanted to show how these older couples can have this relationship that we think is impossible. We started writing it as an homage to that older generation that they could do it, but to also say how impossible it was today. And in the process of writing it, in the eighth draft... You know how the script can start giving you something- and we started thinking, maybe we are the stupid people. Maybe we should try to live through those valleys, through those boring moments. If the pot of gold is at the end of the relationship that one will take care of the other, if you are together your whole life- so what if for six months the impulses are low. And then we added that scene, that was not in the script (which I will not give away here, but involves Rafael and an intercom).

What advice would you give to young filmmakers?
When I was 23, I came to America with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. After making for many years, the films that I thought that the audience would want to hear and would want to see, and the producers would want to see, and failing miserably. Stick it out, is one advice- At the age of 38, I said, 'I'm fed up with this, I am not getting any satisfaction from this, nobody wants to see this. I went back to Argentina to make the movies that I wanted to see. And here it is nominated for an Oscar.(laughing) I really think that you have to make the films first that you like. Do that and sooner or later- that's the only way. It might not happen, but if it does, that's the only way.