Up close with 'From Afar' and Lorenzo Vigas in Miami

Director Lorenzo Vigas, lead actor Luis Silva and the presenter

(Warning: text contains some spoilers)

There is a first time for everything. I had never earlier been at the presentation of a winning film at any of the world’s 3 premier film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Venice) when the director would be there in person. Sunday 6^th of March, at the MDC Tower Theater changed all that when director Lorenzo Vigas, and Luis Silva, one of the lead actors from the Venezuelan film “Desde Alla” (“From Afar”), winner of 2015 Golden Lion at Venice, and the first ever Latin American film to do so, presented their film at this year’s Miami International Film Festival.

I was with my buddy Jesus, who is of Venezuelan origin. I understand it must be a proud moment for all Venezuelans and Latin Americans in general (Latin American films in particular had a breakout year at 2015 Venice). Given that Venezuela has a near minimal cinematic output year to year, this being the first ever to even get a nomination at Venice made its success even more spectacular.

Prior to the screening, there was a brief introduction; Mr. Vigas mentioned they maintain strong ties with the Miami community – to me that underscored the importance of the Miami festival in terms of Latin American cinema, because that is definitely the area of emphasis and consequently draws a lot of the cast and crew you would have a hard time anywhere else getting close access to.

After the screening, the director had an interesting way of addressing the Q&A by posing a question himself first on why the audience thought Armando called the cops on Elder; he also asked if we thought Armando had fallen for Elder by the end of the film. He emphasized he had some thoughts while scripting, but now the film belonged to the audience.

After the formal Q&A, both the director and the actor were gracious enough to entertain further questions and pose for pictures with people who stuck around. Their humility and approachability were remarkable. I asked Mr. Vigas, that seeing how he indicated he may have had a skeletal idea of the story, but really felt the film was open to interpretation, I wondered who his influences were, and if Michael Haneke was among them. He said yes, and also Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Bruno Dumont.

(In his interviews, Michael Haneke provides insights on his own films that are at once loaded with historical context, and impossibly frustrating, as he impishly relishes in reiterating there is no single definitive way of deciphering the codes he provided. I couldn’t help remembering his interviews while sitting at the Q&A.)

I also asked Mr. Vigas if while making the film which has pretty strong content, they had thought about its reception in a traditionally Catholic country like Venezuela; he said that had not been a concern.

I felt that the presenter had a somewhat imposing way of introducing the film. It was a “breath of fresh air” (of course) from a country known for its “bad presidents” and beauty pageants (really?). Also he reiterated at least twice the significance of the Venice film festival – I guess he just didn’t want to make assumptions about the audience’s intellect. And that may be alright. In the process though, I found a ring of commonality that applied to Indian cinema as well. A cinematic culture that is now synonymous with Bollywood, had its first Golden Lion with Satyajit Ray’s second instalment of the Apu trilogy back in 1957 (see table), and the second Asian only after Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’.

At last year’s Toronto film festival I had to skip the screening of “From Afar”. Barely a week from winning the top prize at Venice, it had an early Saturday afternoon screening at the TIFF, and I started driving from Boston the morning itself. In a sense, I had unknowingly saved myself the opportunity to see the film alongside its creators.

Footnote -

Dating back to the Fascist days, the Venice film festival is the oldest of the big three; awarded its first Golden Lion in 1949; subsequently ran into doldrums in the late 60s, and no Golden Lion was awarded from 1969-79.

Golden Lion winners from outside Europe and North America -

Year	Film	Director	Country
1951	Rashomon	Akira Kurosawa	Japan
1957	Aparajito	Satyajit Ray	India
1958	Muhomatsu no issho (The Rickshaw Man)	Hiroshi Inagaki	Japan
1989	Bei qing cheng shi (A City of Sadness)	Hsiao-Hsien Hou	Hong Kong/Taiwan
1992	Qiu Ju da guan si (The Story of Qiu Ju)	Yimou Zhang	China
1994	Ai qing wan sui (Vive L’Amour)	Ming-liang Tsai	Taiwan
1995	Xich lo (Cyclo)	Tran Anh Hung	Vietnam/France/Hong Kong
1997	Hana-bi (Fireworks)	Takeshi Kitano	Japan
1999	Yi ge dou bu neng shao (Not One Less)	Yimou Zhang	China
2000	Dayereh (The Circle)	Jafar Panahi	Iran
2001	Monsoon Wedding	Mira Nair	India/USA/Germany/Italy/France
2006	Sanxia haoren (Still Life)	Zhangke Jia	China/Hong Kong
2007	Se, jie (Lust, Caution)	Ang Lee	USA/China/Taiwan
2009	Lebanon	Samuel Maoz	Israel/France/Germany/UK
2012	Pieta	Ki-duk Kim	South Korea
2015	Desde Alla (From Afar)	Lorenzo Vigas	Venezuela/Mexico

(Source: IMDB)