TIFF ‘09 | Adrián Biniez:  “Toronto is like going to the war with a fork”

by indieWIRE (September 10, 2009)
TIFF ‘09 | Adrián Biniez:  “Toronto is like going to the war with a fork”
A scene from Adrián Biniez's "Gigante." [Image courtesy of TIFF]

In Adrián Biniez’s “Gigante,” security guard Jara falls in love as he supervises staff through the closed-circuit cameras at a supermarket. First voyeur, then guardian angel, he protects and pursues the cleaning woman who has unknowingly captured his heart. The film screens as part of Toronto’s Discovery section. indieWIRE contacted the film’s director to discuss her career and the film.  We gave Biniez and others a free-form style interview to gather their thoughts on their individual projects…

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews indieWIRE will be running with the filmmakers screening in the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery program.

You…

We finished this film in Amsterdam 24 hours before the first screening in Berlin. It was a nightmare; zero degrees, infernal cold and I was so nervous ... I lost my voice…

Your Filmmaking Career and Process…

I started with music, I continued with scripts, then the shorts and now here we are.

“Gigante”...

Having a film at the Festival is like a ghost in a town because three hundred movies are screened in the city and some are wonderful. So, for me, Toronto is like going to the war with a fork. I wrote my script having a friend in mind for the main character. He was not an actor, but he said to me: “I can do this!“...after a year of rehearsals I reached the conclusion that he was a horrible actor; so I needed an actor. We started the casting and the first one who came in was Horacio Camandulle…so I am a lucky guy! As for Julia’s character, I wrote the film for Leonor Svarcas from the very beginning!

Your Influences…

God Bless John Ford and Joe Dante and Eric Rohmer and one thousand more filmmakers…

Your Future…

I see me in the future, being the Paramount Studios boss and saying to Spielberg: “Hey Steven! What about E.T and Schindler meeting at high-school?“

posted on September 10, 2009
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