Writer/Director Laura Casabe and Actor Fernanda Echevarría talk to Fest Track about intention, imagery and thematics in regards to their film playing the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
00:27You know, it's funny because if it's about the senses, this story is about how these girls experience everything through their senses.
00:34And whether you're in the club or they're in the house or like in the lake, that's what I thought was really interesting is because you have like like Diego and Sylvia in the water.
00:46And then you have Natalia and the way they're all like it's all about water, fire, all earthly elements.
00:54Could you talk about it? Even even when they're in the club, it's just about that.
00:58It's about the heat. It's about the you know, that idea, even in the bathroom, the way everybody is sort of moving like animals around each other.
01:06There's so much. Can you talk about using the senses? Because you could you could feel you could smell you could do all those things.
01:13And you do that with this. I mean, even with the hobos, you know, his his basket, you can sort of smell the blood.
01:22I mean, could you talk about finding that? And then I'll ask about the playing that because that's a whole other thing.
01:30Well, I I do. I was very lucky to work with Diego Tenorio, which is like a great cinematographer, you know, and we we talked about all this.
01:41So it's so nice that you mentioned it, because there were things that we are pretty much conscious about it, about the water and the way we were to portray water, that it's an element that repeats during the scenes.
01:52And we wanted to talk about when water is like, OK, let me look for this water.
01:57Estancada, you know, when it's like it's not moving, you know, how do you say quiet?
02:00It's like pond water, pond water, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:05Like I want to and and we thought that when when the water was like pondered and was the energy was so static and that it was so tense at some point.
02:15But between the but between the boys and the girls, everything was flowing, actually.
02:20And we were and we kind of portray and we kind of think about the camera like moving energy, like, you know, and and of course, yes, this fire and water, because this kind of two elements being when they get, you know, when they meet is kind of this they're making, you know, like it's not an explosion.
02:41It's like vapor, you know, like like this, you know, like a mist, like a mist or a fog.
02:46Exactly, exactly. So we always think about these elements in which portray this and the colors.
02:52You know, if you can see the water that is pond, you also you have a fire reflection, the reflection is.
02:58So we kind of thought about this in a plastic way for to portray the energy of of of these women, of this of this group.
03:07And also about this, actually, the literature and everything were really we wanted to feel the summer and to feel the potrefaction at some point and the social discomposition, you know, and classes, you know, and that is the way we try to because it was how to portray this moment, you know, this moment of our country and how to portray this moment of crisis.
03:31You can you want to be explosive, you want to, you know, to feel it, to feel it and that for us, you know, the sound and the way we kind of, how do you say, shoot?
03:47Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:48Yeah, all the time trying to make you feel something as an aspect, you know, more than to reflect, we want to go through senses more than through mind and rationalization.
03:59Say you agree, ask me, I see, you say you're sorry, I dare you to be, the girl that you thought of is not what I am, I chose to let your love, your company, and I just get so much fascination, oh, you feel something in deep position.
04:29And my last question for both of y'all, I'll ask it to Fernanda and then Laura, if you could wrap up on it,
04:57is I loved what you said, Laura, social decomposition, because it's about how we deconstruct ourselves.
05:03Because when we come back to it, it comes back to the primal, jealousy, it comes back to anger, rage, you know, vulnerability, all these things float into it.
05:13And I mean, Fernanda, if you could talk about looking at the social decomposition of these girls,
05:18because Sylvia, she remembers what it was like to be those girls in a certain way, and then she became that.
05:26But also, it's interesting physically how you have this confidence, and you see that sort of slip away as time goes on to those final moments, you know, that we see, which I won't give away.
05:38But could you talk about social decomposition of human behavior, specifically within this world of these girls, and these women, because they function in a different way than obviously men do, in certain ways.
05:54I don't mean that as a criticism at all.
05:56I just mean it as an organic thing.
05:58Yeah.
05:59Could you talk about that, looking at that psychology and that breakdown?
06:03Yes, I think, well, first of all, speaking something you guys said earlier, it was very, when Laura said that I came from Mexico to Argentina for two months,
06:18and it was also a time travel thing in a way that my 2001, when I was 19, had nothing to do with Laura's, no?
06:30I read a lot about it, I saw a documentary about it, I was trying to prepare to understand what was happening there,
06:39even though it wouldn't be represented in my character specifically, or in my context, in the Silvia's familiar context, or whatever I wanted to.
07:00So, let's see.
07:01So, let's see, I played by Lexington, who's definitely an opportunity to bring me,
07:05I've always wanted to do a tour with a different thing in my life.
07:20And I think I looked at the tour, and I played the tour with my friends, and I thought that I didn't see where I was sitting there.
07:24I played the position in the room in the room where I was sitting there and I played a big kid in this room.
07:27I played a lot of an amazing group of people in the room.
07:29But what about in Fernanda? What about in you? Because you experienced something very
07:37unique probably when you were that age, right?
07:40Yeah, yeah, yeah. But internally as a coming of age kind of thing, what was happening?
07:46And there were problems here in Mexico, but it was very different from that crisis. And
07:51I wanted to see what ground was, what Silvia was going to walk on with how urgentness to
07:58find the fun. You know, I think that what Silvia wanted, she wants a lot of things. But one of
08:06one of them was, I want to make this summer remarkable for them. Because these is hard times
08:13and shit happens. I fell in love with Diego and I'm going to be straightforward with that because
08:22when something happens to Silvia, she's very straightforward in that way.
08:26So, I don't know, I think that Silvia herself doesn't, is not that aware about the
08:37social discomposition. She doesn't have the maturity to see that.
08:41She's just living. She's just living.
08:43She's just living. And she sees herself as a very, very, not very, very, very,
08:49a little bit superior to the rest of the group.
08:51She has more experience.
08:53She has more age. She has this confidence that is a total screen.
08:58I don't know what to say. It's a screen.
09:01Mass screen.
09:02Totally. She doesn't really believe she's that beautiful or that interesting. She knows that she
09:09has to believe it and have this spark on her all the time. But she could cry at any given moment,
09:18you know. That is, she's continuing with the term decomposition. She is trying not to, you know.
09:38In virtue of my holy baptism, supported by the word of God, I, with the power of the precious blood of Jesus Christ,
09:55also what you are saying about all these feelings, you know, jealousy and anger and, you know,
10:25what I think. And love, and love, let's not.
10:27And love and desire, you know, and be overflowing with desire because you have love.
10:33But you also, for me, it was really important to portray feminine desire in an honest way,
10:40you know. And, and, and for me, it was something that really story and to shine a light of those
10:46corners of nature that are so strong. Also during when you're a teenager to talk about jealousy,
10:51to talk about love, to talk about desire, to want to pack and to want to love and to be
10:56overflowing with all this that you cannot control. For me, it's so important to shine a, you kind of
11:01shine a light to all this way, to all those feelings, because it's kind of honest at some point. I don't
11:06judge these characters in this way. And I also don't judge Natalia or Silvia because I kind of understand,
11:12because I felt, I felt in that way when I was a teenager. And I think it's kind of interesting to,
11:18to, to, you know, kind of, um, put a, put a light of this way of feeling because, uh, maybe there's
11:25something there that we are not allowed to talk, but if we talk about it, it's going to be kind of
11:31more honest. And in that moment of life, then you're going to become like kind of functional to society.
11:36But when you are like 19 years old, everything is collapsing and you are really honest about the way you
11:43feel about things. Can you talk about that idea of what rage, but dread, you know, because the film
11:51does have that underlying feeling that something is going to happen, uh, but you're not quite sure.
11:57Can you talk about, is that something that you try to feel on the day or is that something that built
12:02in the edit as it came through? Well, it was, uh, was an idea. It was always an idea, you know, to, to,
12:09to, to portray, you know, this tension that it's kind of, it starts to is you don't feel it up front.
12:17It's something that is like feeling that starts to grow in you. And that for me, what's really
12:22important. Uh, and, and, and yes, we do have that idea and I do have that idea, but then the moment
12:30that, then that actually kind of discovered the way to do that, it was during the editing,
12:35you know, yeah, it was during the editing. I worked with a great, uh, with two great editors,
12:40uh, and I went from, for Argentina and the other one from Mexico, uh, you know,
12:44Ana Ramona and Miguel Sperfinger. They're both of them great. And from the second part with Miguel,
12:51we were so conscious about it, you know, to, to, you know, this path that starts to grow in you
12:58and all of the sudden, you know, why you start to see a movie that you try to, I don't want to,
13:02I never liked to put things up front at some point.
