The Human Aspect
Mexican filmmaker David Pablos talks about his time at the Berlinale Talent Campus and his new film ONE FRONTIER, ALL FRONTIERS
ONE FRONTIER, ALL FRONTIERS
David Pablos, a Mexican filmmaker, now working on his MFA at Columbia University through a Fulbright Scholarship, participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus 2009, as part of Doc Station. His latest film, ONE FRONTIER, ALL FRONTIERS, which he developed at Doc Station, has been accepted to IDFA for official competition in the first appearances section, and recently premiered in its native Mexico at Morelia International Film Festival. I traversed the city to meet David at his Uptown apartment on a rainy October afternoon. I watched his film, and we discussed his project and his involvement with the Talent Campus.
How did you come upon the idea for ONE FRONTIER, ALL FRONTIERS? I’m originally from Tijuana, which the film was mostly shot in. Since I was born and raised there, these scenes that you just saw in the film, were part of everyday life for me. I lived just in front of the fence, so upon returning I got to see many images that were very interesting, and familiar. I left Tijuana when I was 18, and I went back two or three years later, and I saw everything differently and I realized how people on both sides — in Mexico and the US, accept the fence, it’s part of their lives. I’m not judging whether it’s good or bad, it’s just there. And I wanted to do that, to talk about the everyday life of the fence.
Tell me about finding the subjects of this film. How did you meet your main characters? When I pitched the project I didn’t have any specific characters. Aliona van der Horst, my mentor from IDFA, said to me “You should write the stories and the characters that you want to see, write them as if it were a fiction—invent their stories, and pitch it like that. I’m pretty sure you’ll find these stories when you go there. Never doubt how fascinating reality is. It will go beyond what you can imagine.” Her words were true. In my written pitch I had a couple, and I went to Mexico and found them.
So when you got there, how did you find these characters? Most of the time I would meet them before we started shooting and I would ask their permission and most of them would say yes. And something very interesting happened, because they are in a very intense emotion space, they didn’t care about the camera, they immediately forgot it.
What was the development process of this film? I started with the idea for this film in early 2008 when I was editing my thesis film in Mexico City, called THE SONG OF THE DEAD CHILDREN. It’s a fiction film, and I was very lucky because it did well in festivals, and I got other funding offers after because people liked it. I wrote this project and saw that IDFA had a summer school in 2008. I applied and was accepted, which was amazing. I had a very good mentor, Aliona van der Horst, a Dutch documentary filmmaker. And then I was accepted to the Berlinale in 2009. I hadn’t submitted my project to the Doc Station, but once I was accepted, they suggested that I do, and I was accepted. My project was very much developed at IDFA but at the Berlinale I went even further and I got to do a pitch. I came back to Mexico, I applied to a fund, and four months later I got the money to do the film. It was made between December 2009 and January 2010 — two months of shooting.
How did your involvement with Doc Station help you further this project? What was interesting about the Berlinale is I had two European tutors. Fleur Knopperts, who is Dutch but has been living in Berlin for some time, knew about walls. How perfect to have a tutor that had lived that. She was very critical but in a good way, because she knew that I had to present something different. She was the one who really helped me clarify and push my project. We knew that what was important was the emotional, human aspects. Not to have political statements. She emphasized that I should talk about the things that affected me, coming from a personal view, and that’s what would make the film different from other films about the wall. So Berlin was basically the place where I could push my ideas to the next level. We had a pitch, and it was terrifying but it was an amazing thing to do. The pitch consisted of an actor who would read the project, and there was a producer, who asked us questions about the project. The Berlinale Talent Campus is amazing. As a director, you can take much more advantage of it if you have a project you are developing.
You made a version of your border film for German television. How did this come to be and how is it different from ONE FRONTIER, ALL FRONTIERS? When I pitched the film in Berlin a German producer came to me, very interested in my documentary subject. She worked for a television company ZDF, with a documentary series about children all over the world, called FOREIGN CHILDREN. And she said, “Why don’t you make a project for us? About children at the border.” It was funny because I submitted for two projects to get funding. And I was notified that I got the funding for both, and I ended up making them at the same time in two months. The FOREIGN CHILDREN version is about three main children who try to cross to the US to see their parents, and they are arrested and sent back. This story is more contemplative.
What was your experience making a film at the border? Tijuana was an amazing place to grow up, but now it’s very different because of the violence. My crew was scared because we heard horrible stories about other film crews. We were afraid when we arrived, but it lasted only a couple of days. And this is the lesson I got from Tijuana: people who live there are aware of the situation, but they don’t live in fear. That was the most extraordinary thing. They are not afraid, and they don’t stop doing what they have to do. They don’t stop going to the street or having fun. There was so much life. And that’s what I hope is reflected in the film. Life — no matter what — life. There is a lot of love in some of the stories, and I’m very glad for that, because all the stories are in the middle of the revolution in the city and the violence. But the people have to keep living.
This year’s focus at the Talent Campus is about filmmakers positioning themselves and defining what they stand for. How would you define yourself as a filmmaker, where you stand, and the direction you are going in? I know that there are certain subjects that I’m especially drawn to, and one of them is family. I realized recently, that all my films are about broken families. It’s what comes out of me, I don’t know why, well, I do know why… What I like about my films, even though I love them and hate them, is that they are honest. For me what’s most important about a director is his eye, how he looks at things and how he presents things, and how he tells you a story. I’m very much more about sensations; I’m drawn to atmospheres. The atmospheres I can create, in fiction with the actors and the mise-en-scène, in documentary it’s the same thing, even though you don’t have actors you find a mise-en-scène, and not only finding the right scene, but– how are you presenting the scene? I want the eye of the filmmaker to be evident.