Fernando Eimbcke on the Origin of “Duck Season:” “It came from a very silly idea. Four characters on Sunday with nothing to do, what could happen? So we…I said ‘we’ because we, Paula [Markovitch] and me, started to play with a lot of things with four characters in one place.”
Eimbcke said that he always planned the film around the same four characters – two young boys, their beautiful neighbor, and a pizza delivery guy. Those characters never changed over the course of writing the screenplay. Eimbcke revealed he particularly identified with the pizza guy. “I identified a lot with the pizza guy because at the time when I was writing the script, I had a very hard time because I had kind of a crisis. I felt very frustrated because I hadn’t made a film that I wanted to do. I was making a lot of things that I didn’t like too much. I spent a long time working as a waiter, a boy messenger, a DJ, a bar man, all those things. Those were very, very nice jobs but I wasn’t doing the thing that I liked most.”
The two young boys, Moko and Flama, represent teenagers in general. “I think that all teenagers are the same in the essence because you are like, you don’t like life, you hate everything. It’s like, ‘I don’t want to. I don’t care,’ so I researched a lot in my own experiences, like a teenager with my friends. My parents didn’t divorce but I had a lot of friends that their parents divorced and I saw them having a very hard time.”
The Cast of “Duck Season:” “We spent like a lot of months looking for those kids, all over the place. In the newspaper, in the schools, every kind of place. We decided that the main parameter for choosing them will be the vibe between them. So we made three kids for each character and mixed them and we saw how the vibe went with them. We found it between [Diego Catano] as Moko and [Daniel Miranda] as Flama was really, really special. Really good.
It was really funny because we had a lot of problem with Rita character. We choose a girl and we said, ‘Okay, let’s make the film. Let’s shoot on that day…’ And we made camera tests for the black and white and we realized that Moko and Flama didn’t care about that girl, about that Rita. We were like, ‘Oh no!’ So we changed our minds. We looked for another Rita and then that Rita came and they were like, ‘Okay..’ and they were very, very shy. We thought, ‘Okay, that’s Rita.’”
Losing his Rita right before filming began caused a little bit of panic. “It was terrible. But at the same time it was terrible and not because the crew…it was like most of them studied with me so they were like friends. It was not like, ‘I don’t have an actress! We will have a big problem.’ It was like friends, like a school film, so it wasn’t that kind of terrible.”
Fernando Eimbcke Describes How He Became Interested in Filmmaking: “When I was a little kid I didn’t have an idea. I didn’t have any idea and I realized that I wanted to study film when I was working as a photo assistant and someone told me that film school was free. It’s amazing. It’s a film school called CUEC [Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematograficos] and they gave you film material. They give you the camera, lights, everything and you pay nothing. One peso per unit maybe…”
CUEC is the alma mater of a lot of well-known filmmakers, including Alfonso Cuaron who saw “Duck Season” at Cannes and offered his support. “He saw the film in Cannes and he loved the film and he told us I want to help in every way I can,” said Eimbcke. “I was really, really happy and honored because I like a lot of the work of Alfonso. I remember when I was in film school I saw his film ‘Sólo con tu pareja.’ I saw that film and I was like, ‘Wow! It’s a comedy, it’s very fresh.’ So when Alfonso saw the film and he told me, ‘Wow, I like it,’ it was very, very good for me.”
Fernando Eimbcke’s Writing Process: “We worked like in seven drafts. I’m a very obsessive writer so if I make a new draft, I check everything, like spelling, like dots, everything, so I take a long time making a new draft. Before starting a new draft I write a lot. I hear a lot of people. I gave the script to the people that I trust more, so I listen a lot. I assimilate and then I start writing.”
Eimbcke credits his writing partner Markovitch with taking the lead when it came to figuring out the structure of “Duck Season.” “She helped me a lot identifying the conflict between the characters. That was like gold, and really, really good for me. I like to work a lot with the atmosphere, with the characters. Paula helped me a lot to find, ‘What’s the problem with that character? What’s his conflict?’ so that helped a lot. And with the structure, with the dramatic structure, I’m kind of obsessive structure guy. I like to know where I’m going, what’s the end of the film, and I don’t want to improvise.”
