Junior in Radio, TV and Internet, along with being a director of the short film “The Year that the Sun died”, premiered last month in Teatro Cásper Líbero.
Natália Fujiki: Why Radio, TV and Internet as a major and why Cásper Líbero?
Danilo Carvalho: Well, being honest… I really don’t know if I must say this (LOL) I chose Cásper Líbero, because I got the first place ON its entering exam and I ended up winning a scholarship for the first year in college. I did not know Cásper very much and I have a family who does not have a very Strong financial support. However, after two years studying to enter in a college, I wanted some kind of sign to help me find out the future of my academic life, because, I have always wanted to study film and audiovisual in general, but the right place to start was a mystery.
I was being introduced to Cásper and to the course in the first weeks and I thought they were very funny, challenger and, mainly, good spaces to fight and create: by the friendships, the pedagogic structure, I realized, in small steps, that Cásper Líbero could make me go beyond itself. The RTVI course, as it is, gives the possibility to the students run after their own challenges and improve themselves further the class, further the 200 diary minutes they already have. I don’t if it is the same thing with the other courses at Cásper, but it its one of its particularities, and I realized just a few students realized this too: Cásper Líbero has to be enjoyed, and I am not referring to just “pay it”, but the chances to enjoy every single friendship, teacher and opportunity.
NF: Tell us a little about your short film. Where was it based on, how is the plot and what does it mean to you?
DC: Well, in a certain way, it was based in my own head (LOL). Many people get confused with the title, because of the song that I listen to. The first idea that started the argument (word used for “story” or narrative line of a film) was while I listened to The Year The Sun Died, by the heavy metal group Sanctuary, who has a vocalist that I admire very much have influenced me a lot: Warrel Dane. He is different from the others singers that I know, mainly because of the way he writes his songs, the dramatic and philosophic tone, putting the philosophic references in the lyrics. And as philosophic reader and identifying myself very much with movies that has the subject in its plot, I decides to make a movie that could use the symbology of the “death of the sun” – in the album, it is literal, but in my film, it is a metaphor for something else. And I also decided to use the same title, not with the object to adapt to the cinema, but to keep the reference and the tribute. Absolutely nothing of Lisbellas’s story is common what Dane wrote, but the tribute is there: it was the start, through his voice, the force to make the film has come.
The second step was the creation of the protagonist Lisbella (interpreted by Júlia Gama). What I wanted was some who had all the characteristics, mainly psychics, different from mines. In a certain way, Lisbella is the opposite of what I am and her trajectory in the spiral of nihilism is a manner that gives me the possibility to face the Nietzche “abyss”. It is also an opportunity to give power to the nihilism speech, resentment and the value of life – issues that for me, they define our human relations, define what is being a human being.
NF: How did the opportunity of directing a short film appear for a person who is still in the graduation as you?
DC: The opportunity was created. No one “invited” me to make a movie and no one give me the idea. Cinema, like life, is fight: and every fighting has its strategic, inside its duration. Duration is the most important issue. There is no “right time” to begin an artistic career. And far, “The Year The Sun Died” is my first experience with the film universe, I had already direct an experimental short film called “Poesia à São Paulo – Poetry to São Paulo”; a mockumentary called “CHAIR” (for a Television Production paper) and I also made the photography and direction assistance for a short film in the Kino’s Night of the Kinofórum Cultural Association called “) between (“. But The Year the Sun died is my first film and we call it “authorial”, because it begins my first “brand” and “style” as a film director. And this includes all the esthetics, linguistics and evaluative research. It is a kick, the beginning of something bigger inside the seventh art. In my opinion, there is not a right time to start, the person has to feel it and the desire to create, to learn, to err (and mostly) to hit. I did not want to wait until the end of the graduation, I do not think a piece of paper will make difference. To become a director, to become who you are, you need to start fighting, and a director fights making movies, learning with them. And just like I said in the first question, Cásper has a big space where you can start create: there is the Clact Zoom (Cásper’s producer), that allows you to make your own project and with the instruments, the possibility to transform an idea in something real is given. The teachers are accessible and helpful. All these opportunities are there, available for all students. They just have to run after them. It is not easy starting a movie when you are young, but the funny things are in the difficulties.
NF: What were the biggest challenges and the best learning during all the process?
DC: I think I would take many days answering this question, because there were many challenges and learnings. The cinema I make is a little “guerrilha” cinema kind, in the way that I need to do all the things with not so much money and material resources. And at the same time, I had to create a language and a qualify esthetics notion. I think the biggest challenge was, during the process, find the many identities of the short film. In my opinion, the film regards many aspects of the “how makes cinema” and my object was try to create a cohesion between all these many forces, without excluding them. Then, I guess I can say one of the biggest challenges was construct the film: find a story line (that not necessarily has to be connected with the “story”) able to transmit, in a clear way, the esthetics experience that I was proposing with the film. I tried to escape from the normal problems of the first films: I always try to avoid the pretension, the bore, and the mawkish of a pseudo philosophical movie. Of course some inexperiences were registered, and I am happy they are there, because when I watched the film I saw what I leaned, that I made mistakes and I am not going to make them anymore. Today I realize that I am not the same who had the idea of producing a movie at the first time.
NF: What standards did you use to choose your co-workers?
DC: In a “guerrilha” cinema, the ideal is search people who are not so interested in earn money (LOL). But seriously, the idea is real, I funded the film, but I could not finance the people, so the best thing to do was find people who had a similar vision and position of the cinema to mines: people who are worried in doing something not mediocre, but in the same time, these people should have the reality notion to know they are starting their life in the artistic universe (I do not like to use the word “career”). Then I called some students who were in the same period in college as me, some people who were about to graduate (like the co-writer and ex member of the Clact Zoom Marina Garcia or the art director Soraya Bussiki), freshmen and some other people who were not from Cásper. All them very different, with different political, social positions and behaviors, but with something in common: the desire to go beyond, to improve themselves, to start and make a sincere cinema.
NF: What tips do you give for all those people that have the desire to become directors?
DC: It is funny, because I did a similar question to my direction teacher in another school and he answered me: “study hard and watch movies”, then he gave me two mini slaps in my back and let me talking alone. In a certain way, his tip, even extremely obvious, it is worthy. Study and watch movies are necessities. But I want to go beyond him: to become a director, to fight is necessary. “To run after”. To do. To study and watch movies, though important, are not enough, but most of people are attached to this. The movies are here for us go farther and not stuck on them. It is no use check roll filmographies, they do not give the guarantee that you will be a good film-maker. You only learn realizing, making mistakes and hits. It sounds cliché and one more speech with the ideal “that only the practice teacher”, but I want to people see something yonder: if you do not start, if your do not know who you are inside the cinema universe, you will be a frustrated person. I think most of the people in the cinema universe are frustrated because they resent themselves with the fight that is making cinema, then they became impatient and gave up. Or ended hating cinema and life, because they were labeled as “misunderstood artists”. In my opinion, the first step to do not become directors like the ones described above is to enjoy the space, inside or outside Cásper, and also enjoy the environment with relative democracy of the production means to make cinema. Inside Cásper, use the equipments. Outside the Cásper, yes, you can use a cellphone camera, if you (starting with study and the concern to have a language) know what to do with it. To be a director is necessary stop dreaming é start doing.