Old school rebels and new age challenges, with 'A Bright Future' director Lucía Garibaldi
Lucía Garibaldi's latest film, 'A Bright Future', making its world premiere at Tribeca, offers a compelling exploration of rebellion and belonging through the lens of a South American neighborhood that feels both intimately familiar and strangely otherworldly. Our conversation with the Uruguayan writer-director delves into her distinctive approach to crafting a narrative backdrop that blends reality with surrealism, creating a world that resonates on multiple levels.
What's particularly intriguing is how Lucía presents her protagonist Elisa's struggle against societal expectations as both deeply personal and universally relatable. The director shares her creative choices behind the film's unique locations, deliberately selecting spaces that eschew the conventional in favor of the obscure and distinctive. As we explore the film's themes, she reveals how the pandemic subtly influenced her narrative, pushing audiences to reconsider relationships and question the absurdity of productivity culture.
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast and this is our conversation with Lucia Garibaldi, writer, director of A Bright Future, premiering this year's Tribeca.
Speaker B:We pay attention to, like to pick locations that never appear in any film, Uruguayan film, or Argentinian film or TV show before.
Speaker B:You know, those locations are like, like in this film and in no other films.
Speaker B:So this is, I think Elisa in a way is like an old school rebel.
Speaker B:It's like an old school, like she has ideals and ideas, bothers to the system, you know.
Speaker A:Pretty much to just jump right into the middle of things.
Speaker A:Bright Future is your sophomore feature, the follow up to the Sharks.
Speaker A:And for this one you've created this at times bleak, out of time South American neighborhood as the backdrop of the film that feels at the same time both recognizable and otherworldly.
Speaker A:How far from our reality did you aim for it to be?
Speaker A:So that it feels relatable and relevant, but at the same time fairly detached.
Speaker B:I love, you know, that sensation when you're watching a film that you, you think that is like a realistic, naturalistic film and as the story goes on, you start realizing that it's something a little bit twisted.
Speaker B:So we didn't have enough money and, but to make like huge bfx.
Speaker B:So we, we, we were like forced to think and ideas to build like another world and.
Speaker B:But also I like, I love that, that edge, you know, like to be like writing like, like in the middle that.
Speaker B:Not making it absolutely different from this reality.
Speaker B:And I love it because in the end I found that sci fi films are, most of them are metaphors for this reality.
Speaker B:So I like to be close enough to this reality.
Speaker B:I don't know if I'm answering your question.
Speaker A:I'm not 100% sure it's a question that can be answered.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:I mean, we were writing the script while Covid was like hitting South America and although Uruguay wasn't like heavily hit by Covid, we were surrounded by death, you know, and it was like a dystopia around us.
Speaker B:The world was.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I don't know, it wasn't like conscious.
Speaker B:It wasn't like you weren't aware of what we were doing.
Speaker B:If I see it now, I can, yeah, I can find some, some relations, connections between those times and, and the, and the fiction and the future and the film, you know, the fumigations, the necessity of the main character to be in touch with human, human things like resting, having conversations.
Speaker B:Don't want to be productive.
Speaker B:Wanting to lose time.
Speaker B:You Know, I think that that's all because of what was happening to us during COVID We were like super in touch with our existence, you know.
Speaker B:Now we are not.
Speaker B:We are working, you know, working, working, working, like, and taking like, oh, this can be a good idea for my film.
Speaker B:And like taking advantage of everything.
Speaker B:Especially if you are an artist that you.
Speaker B:If you write, you are always like inspiring and working in.
Speaker B:In the end.
Speaker B:And it's very difficult to be really like just existing, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Something you just mentioned how different parts of even the writing process can be unconscious at first.
Speaker A:Then you can think about it consciously or maybe even think of it as a conscious decision.
Speaker A:And the film itself is deeply rooted in this aforementioned South American experience.
Speaker A:From another thing we've talked about, the neighborhood setting to themes like migration, systemic control.
Speaker A:So how does your background as a Uruguayan filmmaker influence your vision of this dystopian society?
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What are the elements you think are the most specifically rooted in this cultural perspective?
Speaker B:We pay attention to, like, to picks locations that never appear in any film, Uruguayan film or Argentinian film or TV show before.
Speaker B:You know, those locations are like in this film and in no other films.
Speaker B:And these locations also are not like typical Uruguayan locations.
Speaker B:They are pretty unique here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And even the complex, the project building where Elisa lives with her mother, that complex, it was like a Russian design that an Uruguayan bought and built.
Speaker B:But besides that, I think there's like a sense of a very special sense of humor, sense of absurd, like really Uruguayan, maybe Argentinian.
Speaker B:And I think, I'm thinking that maybe in the US people get it also, you know, that comedy doesn't really travel well.
Speaker B:You know, sometimes it's like a very specific, rooted.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And so I don't know if for me it's funny that they are always eating solo Michel Wellington.
Speaker B:It's like absurd.
Speaker B:But I don't know, I think in Brazil people didn't get it.
Speaker B:It was like, what is.
Speaker B:But for me it made me laugh.
Speaker B:So I think it is.
Speaker B:There's like a tone, you know, in the film that is a very Uruguayan and unique tone that I think is like a good thing about the film.
Speaker B:But also it might be like something that.
Speaker B:Mary, maybe it's not that global.
Speaker B:No, baby.
Speaker B:That thing about building a sci fi film with.
Speaker B:With no many budget, with a low budget.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You have to think about ideas.
Speaker B:You know, you can.
Speaker B:You can't explain everything with vfx.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The cultural understanding of humor is extremely relatable.
Speaker A:Like whenever I'm seeing a Hungarian Film anywhere else in the world.
Speaker A:Like, sure, there aren't many Hungarian journalists out there, but if there are, like 8 to 10 in that screening, scattered around the screening room, whenever that few jokes come, you.
Speaker A:You just know where they are because they are the only ones laughing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think the important thing is, is to cause a reaction if they're not laughing.
Speaker B:I don't know, maybe if they hate it, it's going to be better than if they do nothing.
Speaker B:You know, the important thing to react with a film.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And not on the material side of things.
Speaker A:There are certain specifics, somewhat surreal details, like youth as a, dare I say, sort of currency.
Speaker A:Different species, for example, dogs being extinct.
Speaker A:And this is another contradiction that I want to ask you about, is how did you think of building these elements that made the world feel both alien and disturbingly familiar?
Speaker B:Well, the youth thing, if.
Speaker B:Is because I'm about to turn, I think, because I'm.
Speaker B:I'm about to turn 40, you know, and you start thinking about the whole.
Speaker B:All these things.
Speaker B:And I was watching Brazil, and I remember, like, a shot where a woman was like.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:Like that.
Speaker B:And then I was seeing the TikTok videos of women putting, like, stickers here, stickers here.
Speaker B:Then like a.
Speaker B:Like a thread, and then they do like.
Speaker B:So that was real.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker B:I think that's, like.
Speaker B:That is absolutely universal envy, you know, we envy youth.
Speaker B:We do.
Speaker B:It's really hard to escape from that feeling.
Speaker B:And so I was starting.
Speaker B:I don't know, I think I was starting to feel that, like.
Speaker B:To be, like, kind of obsessed with my wrinkles and gray hair and.
Speaker B:Because of the film was the seed of the film.
Speaker B:The initial moment when I started to think about the story was when I was walking alone in the street at night.
Speaker B:So I was thinking, imagining if I was the only and the last young woman here in this world, in this neighborhood.
Speaker B:That's how it came, you know, And I imagine, yeah, if you are the only, the last young woman, of course you can monetize that, you know.
Speaker A:Fascinating.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And even just the thought and the promise of the north functions as this promised land that everyone would aspire to reach, yet at the same time, no one ever returns from it.
Speaker A:What was it like navigating that balance between creating something that feels so aspirational versus cautionary when you're depicting this idealized destination?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because, yeah, north is cryptic, you know, like, nobody knows anything.
Speaker B:It's real, really.
Speaker B:They don't really know about that place because it happens all the time.
Speaker B:That I see people idolizing someplace, even myself, you know, thinking like, should I move to la?
Speaker B:Should I move to some place?
Speaker B:I don't, I don't know about that place.
Speaker B:I don't know what happens there, but we are still always trying to be somewhere else, you know.
Speaker B:And I was thinking about that kind of like cults that they.
Speaker B:They talk too much, but they don't say anything, but it sounds good.
Speaker B:You like to grab that ideas, but they don't really say anything.
Speaker B:That's how the north manifests like, that's how the north talks in this story.
Speaker B:So nobody returns, I think is.
Speaker B:Nobody returns because nobody wants to return.
Speaker B:Because it's like a society, like the individualistic society that doesn't care anymore about family and about relationships.
Speaker B:And they would just want to like be working and you know, being productive all the time.
Speaker B:They don't care about ideals anymore also.
Speaker B:So this is.
Speaker B:I think Elisa in a way is like an old school rebel.
Speaker B:It's like an old school.
Speaker B:Like she has ideals and ideals bothers to the system, you know?
Speaker B:Yeah, no, nobody wants people with ideals questioning everything, you know.
Speaker B:That happens to me a lot.
Speaker B:Every, Every a.
Speaker B:Like a rebel, you know, I'm always like bothering every.
Speaker B:Everyone and I, I'm feeling like old fashioned sometime sometimes, you know, like in my days, punks or, I don't know, rebels were like the coolest.
Speaker B:Nowadays it's like, it's like, come on, you're old and not like, stop it.
Speaker B:Stop with that ideas.
Speaker A:For our main character, Alisa, there is an extremely powerful moment of realization that simply saying no to something that others expect you to do is just not enough.
Speaker A:Do you have a parallel for this realization?
Speaker A:Have you had an experience, especially as a filmmaker, as an artist, when you just knew that saying something is not enough and you gotta make a statement somehow.
Speaker B:Whoa, what a question.
Speaker B:I think for women that happens like once a week, you know, like as a filmmaker.
Speaker B:No, what happened to me is like I said no to some opportunities, like great, great of I say no to the.
Speaker B:To heaven, you know, I was like a big disappoint, right.
Speaker B:I think because sometimes I regret that, you know, but I allow myself to have doubts.
Speaker B:But as a filmmaker, I'm trying to think about like if I ever said no to something and that I.
Speaker B:Nobody understood my.
Speaker B:My limits and do something anyways.
Speaker B:It's hard to distance myself from the.
Speaker B:The director of the woman director, you know, because I think sometimes women said say no and nobody listens.
Speaker B:Like, you have to be like a real for you, for everyone to listen.
Speaker B:That's what happened.
Speaker B:You have to be like, you know, overact, because otherwise people won't listen.
Speaker A:Six years have passed since your first feature, the Sharks, premiered at Sundance and won you the best director award.
Speaker A:I know it's always hard for one to reflect on their body of work, their filmography, as if they were able to look at it objectively.
Speaker A:But still, between that one and a bright future from your perspective, how has your overall approach and even way of thinking to exploring family dynamics and coming of age themes changed, evolved, developed?
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:Well, now I'm a mother.
Speaker B:Back then I wasn't.
Speaker B:And that's a relationship.
Speaker B:I think that this time I went like deeper in that sense because I'm starting to understand what is it, and I hope that I will go more deeper in the future about coming of age.
Speaker B:I think they're like, pretty different here.
Speaker B:We have like a genre film before in the Shark, it was like realistic one, but I think a bright future, despite being like a mixture between genre film and authorelle film, arty film, it is like a grown, like more classic script.
Speaker B:You know, the hero journey.
Speaker B:You can see, you can.
Speaker B:You can imagine all the.
Speaker B:The turns in the story.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And also I think there are.
Speaker B:There is like much more action in this one.
Speaker B:I think there's a grow, like in the skills of writing mainly and maybe, yes, like trying to break some rules of the way of telling things with a camera.
Speaker B:You know, I think this is going to be my last coming of age.
Speaker B:I love coming of age, but I think it's enough.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:Yeah, see.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it's enough because it's just like rebel female characters.
Speaker B:Because of what I was telling you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And now that you mentioned the, of course, the mother daughter relationship and the exploration of that and those dynamics, how you to a point wrapped that into these genre elements, sci fi as a whole.
Speaker A:But at the same time with you yourself becoming a mother, even though it of course differs from person to person, and I don't know how intentional one can be about where the stories they are writing and trying to tell might take them.
Speaker A:But do you see this entire situation taking you as far as storytelling goes further from reality or deeper and deeper into the psychological part of it all?
Speaker B:Both of them, I think, in a way.
Speaker B:Yeah, both of them.
Speaker B:Because sometimes you go like far away from the distance just to reach like a metaphor and to be like really close to the reality.
Speaker B:Because for me, this film is like.
Speaker B:It's like a metaphor.
Speaker B:You Know what if you are chosen to go some, some way someplace like, like Harvard, you know, and you realize that you don't want to go and you.
Speaker B:That you're going to disappoint your own mother, that you know, your mother wants to go there, your sister is there and your mother is saving money to be there and to be reunited.
Speaker B:So in the end, like the seed of everything, I think it happens to everyone.
Speaker B:I mean, it's really close to my experience of life and I think to many young people's experience of life.
Speaker B:And thankfully I became a mother and I could understand more the mother part of this relationship, you know, I could.
Speaker B:Like, like I was thinking like, hey, the mother is not real, that the mother doesn't realize what, what is going on.
Speaker B:She must know something.
Speaker B:She must be thinking like my daughter is doing something that is lying to me, you know.
Speaker B:So in that scene where they are in, in the bed, the mother is crying and the daughter is crying, I think they are saying some things, but deep down the mother says to her, I know that you're going to have a beautiful life no matter what you do.
Speaker B:So the mother already knows everything, you know.
Speaker B:And I think that fact of the mother knowing what is going to do, what her daughter is going to do, I think that is because I became a mother.
Speaker B:I realized that I'm like, we have a connection that you already know everything if you pay attention, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because the parent child relationship is like.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:To me it is like the ultimate conflict of interest, as in your parent.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter where your family is financially, Socially, they will 100% warned what they think is the best for you, but that just doesn't always intersect with what you want.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's really deep.
Speaker A:Yeah, it cuts deep.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Thank you so, so much for your time.
Speaker B:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you Aron, for your interest.
