Last week we received great news for Spanish cinema: the short film Matria, by Álvaro Gago, has won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. This is the most important award Sundance grants to a short film and one of the most prominent prizes in the entire festival circuit.
With Matria, there are now five Spanish short films awarded at Sundance.
In 2006, La ruta natural by Álex Pastor inaugurated the Spanish honors list with the Jury Prize for International Short Filmmaking (the Grand Jury Prize did not yet exist).
Three years later, in 2009, Chema García Ibarra burst onto the scene; his first short, The Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5, achieved a Special Mention, which he repeated in 2011 with Protoparticles.
A year earlier, in 2010, Álex Montoya also achieved a Special Mention with his short How I Met Your Father.
More than 7 years had to pass for Álvaro Gago to make history again. Matria has definitively established itself on the international stage, doing so just a few months after starting its festival run, with awards at Seminci, Alcine, Aguilar de Campoo, and now Sundance.
A close look
In recent weeks, I have spoken on several occasions about the false belief held by many directors and producers who think it is better to shoot in English and emulate American cinema to enter their market and succeed at international festivals (shooting in English might only work for certain genres, such as fantasy and science fiction).
I see this problem more and more often in both shorts and feature films, and it is a shame. There are projects with a great production effort that, even if they perform well at some international festivals, do not go as far.
If we analyze the approach of Matria—a day in the life of Ramona, who works in a Galician cannery—we realize that the best way to make great films is by telling stories that are closer to home.
One of the keys to the success of Matria
I believe that one of the keys to reaching such heights in the festival circuit is to look closer: at your neighbors, your friends, and to talk about their problems and conflicts.
Think about your project.
What level of involvement do you have with the stories you are telling?
Do you know your characters well?
Is it an environment close to you?
The Spanish shorts that have been awarded at Sundance are very different, but all of them take place in a specific space and environment, and all of them speak in the language of their authors (Spanish and Galician, in the case of Matria). La ruta natural takes place in Barcelona, The Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5 and Protoparticles in Elche, How I Met Your Father in Valencia, and Matria in Galicia.
It is about contextualizing your film, and ensuring that this context helps describe the characters’ actions.
A very special case is the cinema of Chema García Ibarra; his films take place in Elche, where he lives and works. To date, he is the most awarded Spanish director at Sundance, with great success at prestigious international festivals.
This contextualization does not have to be very obvious, nor does it necessarily have to deal with social issues; it is simply about placing your story in a location you know well, one that is close to you.
There are other cases outside of Spain that serve as examples of this idea. The Polish short film The Whistle, by Grzegorz Zariczny, which also won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2013, is a documentary about the problems of a friend of the director who is unemployed and facing a very difficult future—an approach very similar to Matria.
Think of some of the most successful Spanish films at festivals last year, such as The Disinherited by Laura Ferrés, or Summer 1993 by Carla Simón. In both cases, the space and time where they take place are key to telling the stories they tell and describing the characters, who are very close to their directors.
Keep it in mind for your projects
If you are developing a project, think about these small details, analyze the work of great directors, and review the most awarded films at international festivals.
Seek an emotional connection with the viewer by looking into your characters’ eyes.
The best stories are very close to you; you just have to look around.