The director of “When Big People”, Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz: interview

As a child, you generally do not have the possibility of having your own agency. However, in the case of a Dominican young American boy, he must choose the truth or lie to protect the means of subsistence of those he loves. Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz When the big people lieCo-written by Pablo Cervera and produced by the AFI Conservatory, follows an eight-year-old boy named Elvis (Kaden Quinn) whose mother, Lola (Sasha Thank you), organized a profit for profit with a Palestinian immigrant (Faruk Amireh) in the hopes of fixing their difficulties. When an immigration agent (Diane Sargent) assess the legitimacy of the Union, the future of Elvis and the life of his mother of poverty are in balance.

When the big people lie Tour the Tenluride Film Festival, the International Festival of Indy Shorts, the New York Latino Film Festival, the Boston Film Festival, the Sony Future Filmmaker Awards and the Hispanic Heritage Film Festival Showcase. Here, the deadline talks about Fernández-Ruiz of his experience with the fight of immigrants and the importance of inter-ethnic narration.

DEADLINE: Where does the concept of the short circuit come from?

Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz: This came from so many stories borrowed from people with whom I grew up. The reality is that I saw it at home – green cards weddings. I try to be really protective on this subject, but it is the heart. There was this industry of people who were in business in Boston in the 90s. It was as if you needed money and your work was not cut, it would bring you an additional $ 5,000. So, I think it was really the beginning of this – looking at something that I experienced and feeling the need to crack this.

DEADLINE: There is not much dialogue in the film. How did you find Kaden Quinn and worked with him to transmit such heavy concepts?

Fernández-Ruiz: I have a Dope casting director [Alan Luna]. He is also producer [of some of my other projects]. He just opened the whole world. It was the difficult thing; I had in mind these people with whom I had already gone to lunches and dinners. Sasha [Merci] And I had already met; She is Dominican, so she is in my community. Fark [Amireh]I asked a friend if he knew people who were Palestinians and could connect me with them. She introduced me to a standing actor, and I was charmed by her energy. But, to find children, I did not know children here in Los Angeles.

Thus, our casting director made this massive call. There were around 700 children, and we reduced it to around 200. And many of these children are good, but bringing them to the final 10 was important because I saw all these children in person and brought them back to AFI. We sat with Sasha, where I asked her to help me choose, because whatever the kid, we were going to be the child who played with her. We needed this chemistry. I had my DP [Mko Malkhasyan Miko] Record all the interactions so that I can see in real time what chemistry would look like.

Kaden entered and he spoke of his grandfather, who had died, and he became so emotional. He sucked the whole room. This kid brought so much gravity to the room. He was so raw and rocked Sasha. So watching these two interact with each other, that’s when I knew.

DEADLINE: The character of Kaden, Elvis, has a lot. He is afraid of losing memories of his incarcerated father, while treating his mother with other men, even if it is an impossible arrangement for money. He tends to compare his situation to be in the ocean. Can you talk more about what Elvis goes through?

Fernández-Ruiz: There are a lot there. My father was incarcerated. I have pictures of my father and me. He is in a combination in which he seems to fly – he wrapped the sleeves. The photo we took [at the prison] Was we inside a library study, by this fireplace. I have no remember to be there. And in [looking back at this photo]I could see that the study looked opulent but also plastic. I also have no memory of being there either. But it was a backdrop of prison that they placed in the visit room. It was something I brought to this film, which is quite poetic. You have a child with a dissected memory.

A large part of this idea of ​​water in relation to the child, in a way, is to [represent] Suffocate and drowning, and in another way, be baptized and transform into man, essentially, and determine what it means. The intermediary is this decreasing memory, these waves that enter and leave what an eight -year -old child holds and the collection of his life. It is trying to deal with that he has these memories of this type, his father, who has never returned. Then he associates this with these new memories of this type, with whom his mother does not have an excellent relationship, because she resists what this person really wants, which is a partnership. So, he sails in the space of thought that he is finally lucky to have a real father, but it is not real.

DEADLINE: Your short film is a Latina citizen offering a way to get a green card to a Palestinian man. Given all the news that takes place on immigration, how do you think your courts are going on in what is happening across the country?

Fernández-Ruiz: I did not intend it [related to what’s going on currently]. And I think that is what makes this experience unique. When I did this, I wrote from a perspective that seemed faithful to my own stories borrowed from my own childhood. I had family members who were marriages of green cards. My mother worked in a furniture store with a pile of Palestinians. This concept of the main characters being Dominicans and Palestinians has always been there. Once, I obtained this note from an employee of the Sundance Film Festival, and they gave me this note which was like: “It is not really … Do we really need this?”

When we made the short term, all of this was set in motion. And I actually think that it really allowed the story of ethnic narration and trans-racial narration by showing that it is what the world looks like. So often we tell stories that, I think, can pigeon us as a colorful person.

Janicza Bravo entered and told “white” stories until she finally does Zola. Or you have the opposite, where you have these stories that are told of this singular perspective which are specific to culture, and without training, I think that a filmmaker exerts too much on these cultural elements rather than trying to honor what experience is and what history is and what these characters are therefore through. So I think that with When the big people lieThe inter-ethnic and transnational narration is what makes it such a powerful and relevant story for everything that is happening today. I did not know that it would happen today.

I do not tell stories so that I can be a storyteller with a social impact. I think when you are black or Caribbean or when you are of a different place, there is this burden. Especially when you have our skin color, there is even more where people tell you that you have responsibility for the pantheon. Or to the annals of cultural history because we did not have the opportunity to be those behind the camera and to have the image we create. But I was not looking at the political landscape and I’m going to oh, I’m going to attack it.

DEADLINE: What would you like the public withdraw from your short?

Fernández-Ruiz: This is where it becomes risky. This film belongs to the political space in a way. We could look at it and ask, “Who are these people?” Where do they belong? ” And at the end of the day, Elvis is American. Lola came to this country and obtained citizenship, but she was not born here. It is not clear in the short film, but the point of genesis of my story is that my own mother is an immigrant who obtained his citizenship, and I had other family members who used their own, which is wild. But in the end, this film is really a story on a boy and his mother understanding how he needs to present himself in this world where it is just them, and there are other relationships that go there to a different dynamic. The heart of this film is that I am a boy, and my mother does everything she can to take care of me. I would like the public to think of their mothers. Now that they can discuss what is going on in the landscape of immigration and all the other problems that take place, in addition to their own personal relationships with their mothers, fathers or anyone.

Do you know what I say? Children face many pressures in situations like these, whether citizens or non-citizens. Regarding politics, there is an excessive simplification in the same way: “Oh, well, this person should not have come to this country in the first place. Keep the family together. Take them so far. ” Immigrants contribute to this country and its fabric in a way that we cannot see. So many things focus on the negativity of all this. Although it is not at the center of my process of doing it, it is always a film that tackled the conversation of the class, immigration and immigrants, as well as what they bring to America in a country designed for immigrants. I think that in relation to the innocence of a child and have to face these things, they must now compromise their innocence to respond to the things that their parents have done, basically. No one is a saint.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]