Flying High: The Journey of 'Kites' and its director Walter Thompson-Hernández
Walter Thompson-Hernández joins us to discuss his film ‘Kites’, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. In our conversation, Walter reflects on the five and a half year journey that brought ‘Kites’ to life, describing how the project evolved organically rather than following a traditional scripted approach. Working without a strict script, Walter embraced a fluid storytelling method that allowed characters to shape their own narratives—a technique that mirrored the dynamic nature of the Rio favelas where the film is set.
We dig into Walter’s collaborative process with cinematographer (and previous guest in the show) Michael ‘Cambio’ Fernandez. Together, they navigated the challenges of shooting in an unpredictable yet inspiring environment, working closely with local talent to ensure authentic representation.
Walter also shares his philosophy on depicting the complexities of favela life without glorifying violence, instead focusing on hope and innocence—beautifully symbolized by the kites that dance throughout the film.
(Photo credit: Kemal Cilengir)
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast, and this is our conversation with Walter Thompson Hernandez, director of Kites, premiering this year's Tribeca.
Speaker B:I'm trying to get out of the way of the movie.
Speaker B:I don't want to get in the way of the movie.
Speaker B:And what I mean by that is that I think the movie and the spirit of the movie is so much larger than me.
Speaker B:It's so much bigger than me as a person, so much bigger than me as a filmmaker, and it's my job to get out of the way.
Speaker B:You know, we were just free to try anything.
Speaker B:There was no assistant director on set.
Speaker B:There were no producers.
Speaker B:There were no financiers.
Speaker B:You know, it was just such a beautiful, liberating experience.
Speaker B:And, you know, there was a lot that we didn't use, a lot that didn't work in the edit, you know, but there was a lot that also did.
Speaker B:Honesty, whether it's fantasy, whether it's documentary, doesn't matter, you know, does it feel honest?
Speaker B:And so that was kind of my, like, moral compass.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's like trying to understand how somebody who's not from that community could make something that looked really beautiful and honest.
Speaker A:Let's chat about this beautiful film.
Speaker A:Absolutely beautiful film.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:To my knowledge, it's been a long time coming, and finally today is the day, the festival premiere of PPAs or kite.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Where do you stand right now on the.
Speaker A:I don't know, scale of anticipation versus impatience and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:How do you reflect on everything that has led you to this moment?
Speaker B:That's a great question, man.
Speaker B:You know, I think for me, I.
Speaker B:I don't love premieres.
Speaker B:I don't love the experience of, you know, like, I don't make movies for the premiere.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, it's not.
Speaker B:It's not fun for me to be in room, you know, where I watch something I make, and I'm critical of what I made, you know, because I want to.
Speaker B:I want to make changes to the movie.
Speaker B:You know, I've grown as a filmmaker.
Speaker B:I've grown as an artist, you know, so it's hard to watch things in this sort of capacity, but I'm very grateful that I think someone's singing right now.
Speaker B:I don't know if you hear them singing.
Speaker B:It's really.
Speaker B:It's really beautiful, actually.
Speaker B:I think it's operatic.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker A:Well, we have background music as well.
Speaker B:Beautiful.
Speaker B:Beautiful, man.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:So I'm.
Speaker B:I'm excited.
Speaker B:You know, we.
Speaker B:We all, me and my friends in Rio and Brazil and cambio and all of us, we spent five and a half years working on this movie.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Which is a really long time.
Speaker B:And for me, it was my film school.
Speaker B:You know, I didn't go to film school, but I did make a feature movie.
Speaker B:And I learned so much about myself, so much about filmmaking, so much about, you know, what it means to be an artist.
Speaker B:You know, we didn't have a script for this movie.
Speaker B:It was just an outline and we improvised all the dialogue in the movie.
Speaker B:So I'm excited for people to see it, for people to connect with it, and more importantly, for people to see all the hard work that my friends did in front and behind the camera too.
Speaker A:Will you sneak out after the intro or wait a couple of minutes so that everything started well or maybe even stay for the entire screening?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, totally.
Speaker B:I'm do that.
Speaker B:I'm going to intro the movie, I'm going to watch a couple of minutes, and then I'm going to walk out into the lobby and then I'll come back and watch the ending.
Speaker A:And yeah, as you've said, this was a pretty long chess 18 project and the making of it.
Speaker A:And since then you've worked on even US based projects such as your latest Untold Shooting Guards for Netflix.
Speaker B:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:Which is a documentary or writing a book in the form of the Compton Cowboys.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:But what does it mean to you that your first feature film is set in Brazil?
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:I mean, I've been, you know, I speak fluent Portuguese.
Speaker B:I've always had a really special relationship to Brazil.
Speaker B:I have many friends who are Brazilian.
Speaker B:I spent a lot of time in Rio.
Speaker B:I've always been a fan of Brazilian cinema.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Whether it's like Bishochi, which.
Speaker B:Which is one of my favorite movies of all time, or City of God or Colombo.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There's a history of beautiful Brazilian cinema that I've always enjoyed.
Speaker B:And so for me, I feel very lucky.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, I'm not from Brazil, I'm not Brazilian.
Speaker B:But what feels really beautiful is that, like, I was able to make a movie with all my friends who are Brazil, who are from Rio, and to really sort of like, you know, we all kind of wrote this film together.
Speaker B:You know, like I said, there was no script.
Speaker B:There was never a situation where I was telling people what to say or how to say things.
Speaker B:I would essentially just ask people, you know, this is what I'm hoping to our actors, right?
Speaker B:I would ask our actors, you know, this is what I'm hoping to get out of the scene.
Speaker B:How do you think we should say that?
Speaker B:How do you think we should perform that?
Speaker B:And that was really important for me, you know, because it is weird, right?
Speaker B:Like, it would be really strange and really weird if me, being from Los Angeles would go down to a neighborhood in Rio and tell people how to live and tell people how to speak and how to sound and how to move their bodies.
Speaker B:So for me, it was really beautiful to sort of, you know, be on this five year sort of adventure where, you know, we essentially followed the real lives of my friends and created a movie around their lives, you know, around, you know, the rise in police violence that has been happening in Rio and about how beautiful kites.
Speaker B:And how beautiful kites.
Speaker B:Because that they remind us of, of youth and hope and promise, you know, and, and also what it means to, to have a guardian angel and what it means to have conversations with your guardian angel.
Speaker B:You know, all these sort of themes I, I compiled just having conversations with all my friends.
Speaker B:So I'm, I'm really excited for that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And since I brought up the Netflix doc, it's funny because thanks to you, working without a script, all improvised.
Speaker A:I guess from a filmmaking standpoint, it might not even be that different from.
Speaker A:Yeah, from documentary filmmaker.
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker A:So how did the vacancy of a script shape the way you approach the narrative side of it all?
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:That's such a great question.
Speaker B:I come from the documentary world.
Speaker B:I was a journalist at the New York Times for a lot of years, you know, and for me, it's like I call myself a narrative filmmaker who, you know, employs and uses documentary form approaches.
Speaker B:That's essentially what I do.
Speaker B:I say that because to me, the concept, the idea of discovery, of finding a story, of finding characters, of finding these things, to me is so exciting and it's so much fun.
Speaker B:And a script, you know, we just wrapped up my third feature.
Speaker B:If I go with it, miss me.
Speaker B:The feature version we just wrapped up.
Speaker B:I'm in post production for that movie.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We had a script for that.
Speaker B:And so that was an interesting process.
Speaker B:But yeah, for me it's, it's, it's all about discovery, you know, and, and Pipas was a five year odyssey almost.
Speaker B:You know, this where we, I had to find the movie in the edit.
Speaker B:You know, I thought the movie was going to be about these, these four beautiful boys and their love for kites.
Speaker B:And eventually it involved the guardian angel.
Speaker B:Eventually it involved a character named Duo, someone named Larissa Thiago Pedrosa.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:All these sort of characters that, that make up this Movie.
Speaker B:And it was just really beautiful to.
Speaker B:To find the story and to, you know, approach filmmaking.
Speaker B:I think for me, without any ego, right?
Speaker B:Like, for me it's like I am the director of this movie.
Speaker B:You know, you could say I wrote it right.
Speaker B:In different ways.
Speaker B:But for me, I was just like doing what was best for the movie and not what was best for my own ego.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I thought that was really cool.
Speaker A:And as for working with an almost entirely first timer cast as a first time feature director did this fairly new situation for most, figuring it out out together heightened the shared experience.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker B:No, I think it was really exciting for, you know, the only trained actor we had was Alexandre Rodriguez, who played Rocket in City of God.
Speaker B:You know, he's an incredible actor.
Speaker B:I've been a big fan of him.
Speaker B:We had him for four hours one day.
Speaker B:You know, we didn't have a script.
Speaker B:He was so cool.
Speaker B:Who just showed up.
Speaker B:We flew him from Sao Paulo to Rio.
Speaker B:My friend Tom, who helped me make the movie, is good friends.
Speaker B:Alexandra just showed up.
Speaker B:He was like, all right, what do you need me to do?
Speaker B:I said, okay, Alexandre, I need you for four hours.
Speaker B:You're playing a preacher.
Speaker B:You're playing a preacher who's trying to help a young man reform his life.
Speaker B:Another preacher.
Speaker B:He was like, okay, great.
Speaker B:My father was a preacher.
Speaker B:I know what to do.
Speaker B:And, and it was beautiful and it was perfect, you know, and.
Speaker B:And that's kind of what so.
Speaker B:So a lot of the people were first time actors and I think it was, it was, it worked out really well, right?
Speaker B:Because you know, we had a four or five person crew, right?
Speaker B:We didn't have 100 people on set.
Speaker B:It was five of us maybe.
Speaker B:And I think that to me feels so.
Speaker B:It feels so honest and it feels so, so organic, right?
Speaker B:Where it's like there isn't 100 people staring at people, right?
Speaker B:There's a camera and there's me and there's sound and we didn't have a gaffer, we didn't have a grip.
Speaker B:It was just us.
Speaker B:And I think that helped people kind of relax and grow comfortable around us.
Speaker B:And also, you know, we had five years with everybody.
Speaker B:So after five years, you know, you become really comfortable around people.
Speaker B:And I think, as opposed to having, you know, three weeks or four weeks or two months with somebody, we had, we had a five year relationship which was really beautiful.
Speaker A:And as we've already talked about, it's five years is a long time.
Speaker B:A long time.
Speaker A:Especially because, like, even if you would have had A script, you would have rewritten it surely along the time.
Speaker A:But how much did the script change or the non existing script, the story?
Speaker A:How much does it change?
Speaker B:Yeah, the outline changed so much.
Speaker B:You know, like, I originally told my cousin Cambio, my other friends, I was like, I have idea for this story.
Speaker B:It involved kids and kites.
Speaker B:Kids and kites, you know, that's it.
Speaker B:So the first time we went, my friends helped me find these really beautiful children who we got so close with.
Speaker B:And, you know, I was.
Speaker B:I was just like, look, just fly your kites.
Speaker B:We're going to be here.
Speaker B:It'll be fine.
Speaker B:And, you know, after five years, like, the kids became a part of the story, but they weren't the entire story.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There was a larger story about Duval, a larger story about redemption, larger story about what is protection and angels and kites kind of look like.
Speaker B:So, yeah, the.
Speaker B:The outline changed so much and, you know, the edit in the movie changed so much.
Speaker B:I remember watching the first rough cut, you know, and it was a completely different movie.
Speaker B:Completely different movie.
Speaker B:Like, the movie that we're going to watch tonight is completely different than when it started.
Speaker B:And I think that's such a beautiful thing, you know, to be able to follow a movie.
Speaker B:And what I always say as a director is I'm trying to get out of the way of the movie.
Speaker B:I don't want to get in the way of the movie.
Speaker B:And what I mean by that is that I think the movie and the spirit of the movie is so much larger than me.
Speaker B:It's so much bigger than me as a person, so much bigger than me as a filmmaker.
Speaker B:And it's my job to get out of the way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And now that you mentioned Kambio, who, as you know, I had the pleasure of chatting just last year, and cinematography wise, this improvisational angle seems like a dream and a nightmare at the same time, because it's like you have such an incredible amount of freedom, but, like, what am I pointing the camera at?
Speaker A:So how did you all figure that part out?
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:Yeah, we figured it out, you know, through trial and error.
Speaker B:You know, I think we.
Speaker B:We both grew a lot in five and six years, you know, in terms of our visual language.
Speaker B:And like, for us, it just felt so exploratory and it felt so free, and it felt, you know, free of restraint and free of convention also.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And, you know, we were just free to try anything.
Speaker B:There was no assistant director on set.
Speaker B:There were no producers, There were no financiers, you know, telling us what we had To.
Speaker B:It was just so such beautiful, liberating experience.
Speaker B:And, you know, there was a lot that.
Speaker B:That we didn't use, a lot that didn't work in the edit, you know, but there was a lot that also did.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And we had.
Speaker B:We had a tripod and we had Gambio's shoulder.
Speaker B:You know, that's kind of all we had for equipment.
Speaker B:You know, a rig sometimes fell apart.
Speaker B:But, yeah, it was a really beautiful experience that I don't think any of us will ever forget.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's the ultimate freedom.
Speaker A:And whether it's success or failure, it's all you.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Exact.
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And in addition to that, of course, there is a level of freedom already in the handheld.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's such a hypothetical question, but can you even imagine successfully shooting this one?
Speaker A:Not handheld?
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:I think there was, like, a sort of freedom of camera that, to me, really reflects the freedom of movement of the people in our movie, in our world.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There's a freedom of camera when we're around the children.
Speaker B:You know, there's a camera that.
Speaker B:That roams and guides and moves to the world more freely, just like the children.
Speaker B:When we spend time with the adults, we're usually on sticks.
Speaker B:And it's a calmer camera.
Speaker B:It's a quieter camel.
Speaker B:You know, the world of the adults isn't as free in movement as the children.
Speaker B:And I think he started to discover that, I think, subconsciously, as time passed.
Speaker B:And we were like, wow, when we're with the children, we feel really free to move the camera with the children.
Speaker B:And it roams and it dances almost.
Speaker B:But with the adults, we kind of found ourselves sitting quietly on sticks and on tripods.
Speaker A:And as far as the magical realism goes, bringing it to the familas might just be the most logical step, or even more so space for this depiction.
Speaker A:Because we have this idea, this perception of it being such a crowded place that you just kind of take these characters out of, end the story with it.
Speaker A:What made you realize that this setting was where these mystical elements belonged?
Speaker A:Or vice versa, maybe even.
Speaker B:That's such a beautiful and important question, because I think, right.
Speaker B:Like, I'm a person of color.
Speaker B:Like, my father is black, my mother is Mexican.
Speaker B:And I think for a lot of us, you know, my first experience in Brazil and traveling in the world is that people of color, communities of color around the world, whether it's Brazil or Los Angeles or, you know, Accra or the suburbs of France, wherever you.
Speaker B:Or Belgium, wherever you are in the world, and there's people of color.
Speaker B:There's these imaginative tactics and poetry and imagination and magic that we use to not just go through our day, but to survive.
Speaker B:And so for me, you know, I love the movie 7th Seal.
Speaker B:That's one of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker B:I enjoy that movie so much.
Speaker B:And I always wondered, you know, like in places like this favela in Rio, places like where I'm from, you know, southeast Los Angeles, right.
Speaker B:Whether it's crime and violence and beauty and love, all these sort of things coexist together.
Speaker B:Surrealism and magical realism already exists in our communities.
Speaker B:It's already a part of our fabric.
Speaker B:It's already a part of our lives, right.
Speaker B:If anything, I'm just pointing a camera at what already exists.
Speaker B:You know, these, these conversations with, with a guardian angel, right.
Speaker B:Might not seem real, but for people like Duvo and people who live in this community and people who, who live in other sort of maybe impoverished communities around the world, we talk to our guardian angels every single day.
Speaker B:We asked them for support, we asked them for guidance.
Speaker B:You know, we.
Speaker B:We are critiqued by our guardian angels, so to speak.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so I kind of wanted to see what that would look like in a place like, like Santo Amaro in this favela in Rio.
Speaker B:Because, you know, typically it's.
Speaker B:It's only been represented through violence, right?
Speaker B:Favelas are known as violence, unfortunately.
Speaker B:Violent, impoverished, all these negative things.
Speaker B:But for me, I never felt safer than in.
Speaker B:The favela, for me, is the most safest place in the city.
Speaker B:There's community and there's structure and there's organized chaos and it feels very safe.
Speaker B:So it kind of made sense to have a guardian angel walking around a favela.
Speaker B:For good reasons.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Because with the setting comes the age old question.
Speaker A:How do you depict the gang scene from a non violent, family focused perspective in a way so that you do not glorify or romanticize crime?
Speaker A:So I guess especially as we've talked about how you didn't have producers or financiers standing right next to you, what were your.
Speaker A:Probably not the right word for it, but moral guidelines in terms of getting it right?
Speaker B:Totally, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I asked a lot of questions, right.
Speaker B:I would ask all of my friends who helped me produce the movie there, who are from that community, I would ask them, does this feel right to you?
Speaker B:Does this feel honest?
Speaker B:You know, does this feel like it'd be a conversation that you would say in yourself, does this feel like something you would do?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I continue to ask that question.
Speaker B:Does this feel honest?
Speaker B:That's a question that's really important to me as a filmmaker.
Speaker B:Honesty, whether it's fantasy, whether it's documentary, doesn't matter.
Speaker B:You know, does it feel honest?
Speaker B:And so that was kind of my, like, moral compass, right?
Speaker B:It's like trying to understand how somebody who's not in that community could make something that look really beautiful and honest.
Speaker A:And last but certainly not least, may I ask what the kite represented for you all on set?
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The kites, to me are this sort of like, you know, it's like this expression of.
Speaker B:Of innocence, of purity, and of hope.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, every afternoon in every favela in Rio, dozens of boys and girls race to the top of the favela and fly their tights.
Speaker B:And it is the most enduring and most beautiful game I have ever watched in a movie I've ever seen.
Speaker B:Every afternoon.
Speaker B:And sometimes it's also adults.
Speaker B:It's not just children, right?
Speaker B:So when I see these groups of people flying kites, for me, it represents hope, and it represents beauty.
Speaker B:And it.
Speaker B:And it goes.
Speaker B:And it tells me that even in strife, even in conflict and in poverty, there's still poetry, there's still beauty, and there's still hope.
Speaker B:And that's what kites represent.
Speaker A:Beautiful.
Speaker A:Just like the film.
Speaker A:So, yeah.
Speaker A:Once again, Walter, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker A:This was such a pleasure, and anytime, Aaron.
Speaker B:I appreciate you, man.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:And, yeah, say hi for me to Cameo.
Speaker B:Okay, bro.
Speaker B:I will.
Speaker A:Take care.
Speaker A:Have a lovely fast.
