Interview with Lluís Quílez Director Of Graffiti

Graffiti is hard to erase off, not just from the wall, but the mind too… Lluís Quílez’s Graffiti follows the love saga of Edgar, the lone survivor of what seems to be a nuclear massacre. His willful measure to sustain himself in the derelicts finds a new meaning when a singular word ‘Anna’ appears on the wall. The story then revolves around the two strangers who despite their physical barriers bring one another into the sanctum of their souls, all through the chat-like conversations sprayed across the wall. Graffiti, in its very unparallel-to-modern times’ setting, compels you to draw the comparisons to today’s times & reflect on the universality of the nature of love.

Whilst Graffiti continues to enthrall the audience world-over, Indie Shorts Mag had the pleasure to pick the brain of the man whose soulful direction brought to screen a Graffiti that is bound to remain indelible. Here’s an excerpt from that interview.

Indie Shorts Mag(ISM): Love is such a universal concept. Where did you draw your inspiration for the plot? Specifically from somewhere or someone, perhaps?

Lluís Quílez(LQ): Graffiti talks about idealized love and about how our fantasy and imagination can help us cover our most basic needs.

There is a long tradition of love stories that have grown through long distance letters or messages. I thought it would be a good idea to tell a story that could identify the conflicts of our time when talking to someone we have never seen but in a post-apocalyptic environment.

Nowadays, with the appearance of chats, social networks and instant messaging we are all able to identify with the situation in the film. Nevertheless, the tendency towards individualism and immediacy has also led us to a greater degree of isolation. I am certainly interested in this paradox produced by the use of the Internet.

ISM: Whilst isolation carries with it a strange allure. Wasn’t the filming in remote locales (Pripyat, Ukraine) a challenge in itself?

LQ: “GRAFFITI” was shot in the abandoned town of Pripyat, near Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It is an amazing and unique place in the world, as it has remained intact and uninhabited for nearly 30 years since the accident that caused the evacuation and closure of the nuclear plant. It is quite complicated to get into Pripyat to shoot a film due to the security measures that need to be taken in the “exclusion zone”. “GRAFFITI” is the first film production to be filmed entirely within the “exclusion zone”. Being able to film “GRAFFITI” in Pripyat was a dream came true, as I had been wanting to do so for years.

A crew of ten members, including the actor, went to Pripyat. We stayed there for 6 days, the first one scouting and then shooting all the exteriors, the rooftops and a few interiors. It was a tough and intense shooting, with no artificial lighting and no logistic support, we did it with a Red Epic camera and anamorphic lenses.

It was the perfect mix between a professional shooting and the “guerrilla” attitude, since all of us did all sort of tasks. It was a real challenge and for sure the shooting I have the best souvenir of.
Shooting in Pripyat is uncomfortable mostly for the weather conditions. We were at -15 Celsius and the snow reached our knees. The radiation matter is totally under control. Following a few simple rules there is no risk. However, we had to cross 3 checkpoints to get in and get out, where the army measured our radiation to make sure we were clean and we were not leaving with any radioactive particle.

ISM: Was the slow setting of the visual pace a deliberate attempt to convey the loneliness of the character? What were the other options that you explored to achieve the sense of abandonment?

LQ: I think the pace of the story follows the main character’s feelings. It was necessary to enter into his world and experience his routine in order to invite the viewer to feel the great changes he was going to experience throughout the story. Most of the viewers can’t believe the film lasts 30´, as they are moved by the story and they feel it has lasted much less than that. The audience response is very positive and the universality of the story makes it interesting for all ages.

ISM: To orchestrate chemistry between two individuals is difficult enough, how did you manage to do it on screen with almost no scenes involving the lead characters together?

LQ: Oriol Pla is full of talent and is an incredible actor, he was perfect for the role. I think he’s one of those actors who are capable of anything. He has no limits and that is very attractive for a director, we like to work with actors who are not afraid to try things and who don’t mind leaving their comfort zone aside. Both he and I knew that one of the great challenges was to create a love story where only one of the characters appears and all his reactions depend on the graffiti he finds on the wall along the story.

Oriol represents Edgar, the main character, in a very special way, he travels from tenderness to madness and sustains the whole short film on his own. We talked about what the years before and after the “incident” would have been like for Edgar. I worked previously on the “back-story” and on the psychology of the character with Oriol, but I also gave him space to create and surprise me on the set. In this case Oriol had to do an individual job to connect with the idea of loneliness and senselessness that impregnated Edgar’s life, so I proposed a game in which he had to be held isolated. It was our job to favor the environment for the actor to create the character and then capture what he has to give.

ISM: Your ingenuity is translated in the minimalistic storytelling you adopted for Graffiti despite its ambience being sufficient enough to convey the narrative. What prompted you to choose this style in narration? Does silence appeal to you more than dialogues?

LQ: I love minimalist cinema, and that it manages to create an exciting and meaningful story with very few elements. In this case everything lead me to create a story full of silence and with very little dialogue. I knew it was risky but if I could make it work, that way, I would have the viewer create a strong bond with the main character and create a close and intense feeling of empathy towards him.

ISM: Graffiti shows love as a primal need, perhaps even more important than all the other we presume we need to sustain ourselves on. Do you believe that in today’s time and age with globalization & digitalization, love exists as we know it? In the fragile world of broken marriages, relationships & childhood, love is valued above all?

LQ: Somehow in all my short films I represent love in its different ways, from infatuation to heartbreak. In the case of GRAFFITI I wanted to talk about the Platonic or idealized love for someone whom you can not see. I believe that love is the invisible strength that unites human beings and therefore it is one of the subjects that interests me the most to deal with in cinema, although not necessarily from a romantic point of view. When I create a story, the first intention is not for it to be a love story, but it is something so great that it inevitably appears strongly from beneath everything.

ISM: You’ve donned the hat of many! Assistant director, director, writer and perhaps more… Which one of these niches satisfies you the most, creatively?

LQ: I consider myself a director and scriptwriter. Although I was hired to direct a feature film and that shows that I can direct material non-written by me, I feel more comfortable telling my own stories. In Graffiti I also produced for the first time in my life and both the experience and the result have been incredible, in fact, I am also writing-directing-producing my next short film.

ISM: Having forayed into directing a feature film as well, what were the most notable differences you came across between short films & feature films? Personally, which do you find to be more challenging?

LQ: Both formats are challenging. Directing a feature-film is a huge task and everyone who has been through it knows it. In my case I wasn’t able to control the final result as much as with my short-films. I do not think making a short-film is easier than a feature film. You have to find a good idea and everything has to fit in perfectly and go in the same direction so that the message you want to convey comes to life. Being specific and original is complicated. But the great lesson I learned by doing short-films is that “less is more”. In the case of GRAFFITI, in which I’m the director-writer-producer, I could control the film from the beginning and it’s exactly how I wanted it to be. That is such a luxury.

ISM: Your films often examine the complex nature of human emotions, the underlying, unexplored dimensions that most tend to overlook. What part of human emotion do you find most interesting to capture on screen?

LQ: I like films that try to represent those things that are difficult to name. I think language is somehow limited, sometimes we can’t summarize all human emotions with words. If something can be explained in words, perhaps the best way to speak of that emotion would no longer be through cinematography. I think life is full of mysteries, in fact, life itself is a mystery and I appreciate movies that try to capture it. I like films that try to face the human being with those mysteries.

ISM: Graffiti has warmed our hearts. When can we expect another one coming from you? What are the future projects you are working on?

LQ: For my second feature I want to tackle identity in what I would describe as a psychological thriller with fantasy undertones. A mix between John Carpenter’s “The thing” and Polanski’s “Death and the Maiden”. It will follow in the same vein as my most recent shorts and I penned the screenplay myself.

I’m also developing a series project based on a new short film called “72%” that will be shot in 2017.

Indie Shorts Mag wishes Lluís Quílez the very best for all his future endeavours and thanks him for his time and the fascinating insight that he let us take a peek into. It is because of filmmakers like Lluís Quílez that movies continue to reach out to us, making us want to surrender to the spell that it casts.