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Claudia Pinto Emperador • Director

“I make films about the things that scare me, things I don’t understand”

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- Spanish-Venezuelan director-producer Claudia Pinto Emperador won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at San Sebastián for The Consequences

Claudia Pinto Emperador • Director

As is the case every year, the VI Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum at the San Sebastián International Film Festival served as the venue where the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award was handed out to one of its selected projects. This time, the lucky title was The Consequences [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Claudia Pinto Emperador
film profile
]
, the second feature-length project by Spanish-Venezuelan director Claudia Pinto Emperador, following La distancia más larga [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. The movie will tell the story of Fabiola, a woman who begins to feel uncomfortable with the relationship that exists between her father and her 13-year-old daughter. On a trip to a small island, she becomes a spy in her own home, torn between the terror of what she may discover and the need to find answers.

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Cineuropa: How did this project come about?
Claudia Pinto Emperador:
It was born of something very personal. I have a three-year-old daughter and a three-month-old baby, so I’ve brought up a child and been pregnant at the same time. The starting point was me posing the question of what would happen if my children got into danger without me realising – to what extent would I be able to lie and remain silent to protect them? Starting out with that story idea, I gradually became more deeply involved in it, asking myself question after question, and that’s where this strange, disturbing tale of love between parents and children came from.

Actually, I make films about the things that scare me, things I don’t understand. I believe in a kind of cinema that plumbs the depths, unfurling apparently straightforward stories that nevertheless have a significant emotional and psychological weight to them. And the project has brought me here, with my family as well, as they’ve come along to join me.

You are 100% involved in the project, as the director, producer, co-screenwriter and so on
Absolutely. My screenwriting partner is Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles. This is the first time we have worked together, but it has been a very interesting process because he has also brought a male point of view to the topic of motherhood and fatherhood, and we complemented each other really well. I am producing the film myself together with Rodolfo Cova (who won the Golden Lion at Venice with From Afar, and he was also one of the members of the production team behind April’s Daughter) for Factor RH. We’ve known each other for 15 years, and we had really wanted to work together for several years. Luckily, he really liked this project when he saw it. I am producing the movie with Sin Rodeos Films, the production outfit that I made my previous film with. I’m kind of wearing all three hats on the project, but I’m also sharing the work with professionals and friends who I really believe in, because it’s quite a heavy workload. We’re already co-producing with Mexico, and now we have quite a lot of links to France (the film’s score is French, for example), with a fantastic option within the Eurimages territory, so we hope to be able to finish wrapping things up soon. Everything seems to be on the right track for us to be able to close the deals.

Had you thought from the very beginning about bringing the movie to the VI Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum at San Sebastián to look for partners?
Yes, this is the first forum that we’ve presented the project at, the first international exposure for the film, and our intention was to look for a co-producer in Europe, a sales agent and a Spanish distributor, and if all continues to go as it seems like it’s going, we will achieve our goals very shortly. They also gave us the Cannes Film Market Award so that we could go to Ventana Sur, which is great for us because it’s a very good occasion to get your screenplay read, to have conversations and then be able to firm up deals.

We are thinking of shooting next summer, and it would be good for us to do it without too much delay, setting in motion all of the mechanisms necessary to enable us to stick to that plan. If everything turns out ok, I hope to return to San Sebastián with the finished movie in 2019.

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(Translated from Spanish)

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