The Decision to Go with Black and White: “During the screenwriting, I was seeing a lot of black and white films and I was like, ‘Well maybe… I don’t know. I don’t know.’ I talked with the DP and I told him, ‘Think about black and white.’ He said, ‘Why?’ And we started talking and we realized that it was very good for the film because the film is a very tiny film. The things that are happening are very tiny – intimate – and minimalist. So we thought it could help.
The black and white issue is not an easy issue for a producer. So we went to the producer and we told him, ‘Well, we want to make the film in black and white.’ He was like, ‘What?!’ We told him, ‘Don’t worry. Let’s make a camera test.’ We made the test and showed him and everybody was like, ‘It’s really good for this kind of story. Really, really good.’ So we went with the black and white.”
Fernando Eimbcke on His Approach to Directing: “It was my first film so I tried a lot of different ways. Sometimes I gave them a lot of freedom. Sometimes I was like, ‘No, no, no. Just take the cookie and do that. Just that.’
I learned a lot. It was my first film so I was learning a lot and everything, every scene was totally different. I directed everything in a different way, in a way that I felt could work. There are scenes that are totally improvised. Actually the actor who plays Moko came to me and he told me, ‘Come on Fernando. This is very boring. This is a very boring scene.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about? Why? Okay, propose something to me.’ He proposed the scene were Moko is telling Flama about the things that supposedly happened in the kitchen – the kissing scene. When the scene finished I was depressed. (Laughing) Like, ‘What am I doing here? What’s my job? Okay, turn off the lights. Good-bye.’”
Fernando Eimbcke on Lessons Learned: “As a director you must work very hard to understand the characters, the dramatic development. And if you work at that, you can trust in all the people - in the photographer, in the editor, in the producer. Because you feel secure, you can listen to the people. They came with a lot of good ideas so I learned that.
In the film school you were like, ‘No I don’t to hear it because maybe I could be influenced,’ so it was like, ‘No, no!’ Here I was like, ‘What do you think?’ I learned a lot because that kind of attitude helped the film.”
Is He a Writer Who Directs or a Director Who Writes? “Director who writes. Writing is very, very difficult. You are so lonely and it’s very, very difficult and you can spend a day with nothing, all the time thinking. But when a script is finished it’s like, ‘Wow!’ It’s very, very nice and very rewarding. I don’t know. But I think that I write in a very bad way. I write in a very cinematic way. If you read a script of mine, it’s like, ‘…point …point …point,’ so it’s not like a real pleasure for other people. But I can imagine the scenes so I think I’m more kind of a director.”
Fernando Eimbcke’s Next Film: “Duck Season” was a hit at film festivals and was even nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2006. As a first time filmmaker, that sort of recognition and support for his debut effort could add a little pressure when it comes time to work on his second movie. Eimbcke said, “I had a very hard time the first months after finishing ‘Duck Season’ with the festivals. I had a crisis and was like, ‘What am I going to do? I have to make something really good!’ And then I realized it doesn’t matter. It’s a career. A director…you can’t talk about a director with one film. You talk about a director with three, four, five films, you know? So if the second film is not good, well if people don’t like it, it doesn’t matter. If I like it, it’s okay. The only compromise is with me. If people hate the second film, what can I do?”
