Albert Serra Likes to Create Chaos to Make Films, Like His Bullfighting Doc, “A Real Experience”

Spanish Auteur Albert Serra Always Gets Strong Reactions to His Films, and that’s How Hw Likes It. His Latest, his first documentary, Afternoons of Solitudehas been no digffrent. The Bullfighting Doc Won the San Sebastian Festival’s Golden Shell for Best Fall in the Fall and Continues to Toteur the Festival Circuit.

Right Now, Serra Is Attending the 15th Edition of the Luxambourg City Film Festival Where He is a member of the Jury Led By Iranian Filmmmaker Mohammad Rasulof that Also. (Everything everywhere all at once) and screenwriter paul laverty. The Festival Has Also Featured Masterclasses by British Star Tim Roth and Oscar-Winning Filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar.

Serra Likes to Hit Viewers with Images They Will Remember. “It’s All or Nothing. The Idea is that film have to be a real experience, ”HE TOLD Thr In Between Luxembourg Film Screenings About His Distinctive Film Style. “EITHER YOU LOVE IT OR YOU HATE IT. But Even if You Hate It From and Anthropological Point of View, There is A Lot of Information. ”

Serra Highlightned that a typer or spectacle, Such as Bullfighting, Can Get Veri Different Reaction from AudenCes DEPENDING ON WHERE IN THE WORLD IT TAKES PLACE. ”If this ritual exists in the Third World, We Say, ‘Oh, Very Nice.’ IT’s Seen As Something Pure, ”He Argued. “But if we see it in Western Society, We Say, ‘They Are Crazy. They are sadbs. ‘ But This Paradox is What Interes Me. ”

Serra’s Visual Style is All About Alowing Viewers to See and Notice Things they Couldn’t with the Naked Eye. “The Goal is to Really Get Inside and to Put the Camera and Reveal Things That You Cannot See With Your Eyes and Try to Understand Want’Teing on there,“ HE Explained. “I have innocence, A real Curiosity to be surprised, as in my previous films. I Want to be surprised WHEN I DO A FILM. ”

What does that mean for his fiction features? “I Want the Actors to Surprise Me,“ Serra Told Thr. “I Want to See Things I DON’T KNOW. For that reason, I Create a Little Bit of Chaos Dringing My Shoots – A Little Bit More than A Little Bit Os Chaos. ” HE LAUGHS. “I Want Something to Happen That’s Not in My Mind. I LIKE THAT BECAUSE IT Adds More Complexity. ”

Serra Shared that he USE Camera Operators with Assistants. “They take care of everything, Even the Tripod,” He Emphasized. “I Want Things to Happen in Front of the Camera, and I TRY TO CREATE A SYSTEM THAT IS ABLE TO CAPTURE WHEN THINGS HAPPEN.”

And Things do happen in Afternoonsincluding gory Things. “Do you think the Film can go to the oscars?” Serra Wonderned Out Loud. “Or is it too crazy? Is it too violent? ”

Time Will Tell. Grasshopper film recently account nortth American Distribution Rights for the Film, WHICH HAD ITS US Premiere at The New York Film Festival Late in 2024. It Wiln Open June 27 at. Followed by Other Cities. “Serra Trains A Patient and Poetic Lens on the Dazzling Pomp and Devastating Brutality of Bullfighting,” Grasshopper Said.

Talking to ThrSerra ALSO HIGHLIGTED “A Long Tradition of Appreciation” for Bullfighting in the Us, Mentation The Likes of Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway As Past Fans.

Some people leave a serra movie wondering about the filmmaker’s opinions on what he have put on the screen. And that is by Design. “What is Important is your opinion as A Spectator, Not Mine. Because if I have one, I prevent you from having youRs, ”he explained. “In cinema and in the visual arts in general, with images, there is Always An Inner Ambiguity, Because there are no rules for how to perceive an Image, Understand an Image. You make your conclusions. ”

What does this mean for Afternoons? “SPECIFICALLY CONTROVersial Subjects and Violate Images, I Think You Have to Be Even More Careful To Leave Space” for Viewers, Serra Said. “For that reason, the Film is very repetitive. It’s Following or Copying The Structure of A Ritual That Is Based On Repetition To Give You Space to Assimilate and To Feel. ”

Serra ALSO LIKES REPETITION AND Other Structural Elements in His Fiction Features. “I Use Moments that I Call Anti-Climax Moments,” The Director Tells Thr. “TheSe Moments Are Ones Where You Start to Have A Little Bit of A Physical [reaction]you start to move in your seat. I Think This Is Something Is Only Possible in Cinemas, With The Big Screen, Because at Home With The Smaller Screen, You Wurd Reject It. But on Big Screen, It’s So Detailed, Especialy in My Films, It’s So Complex. It’s Calculated in the Edit to Create a SenSation in your Body. It’s Something that [streaming] Platforms Will Never Do. ”

What does Serra Wanthe Anticlimax Moments in His Films Do for Viewers? “You start to Open Your Mind and Watch Different Things, or You Watch in A Different Way,“ and Really Take in the Experience, He Said.

Afternoons is Balanced to Include Various Key Elements of Bullfighting, Including Violence, In What Serra Called “A Calibrated Way.” Machismo is Another One of the Elements as the DOC repeatedly shows a Star matador and his hero-toshipping entouraage. “Narcisism is One of the Subject of the Film,” the Filmmaker Said.

“This Film is Challenging People,” Serra Emphasized About Afternoons. “Things are not that Simple, Things or Sensations Are Not that Schematic. Things have to be lived. You Cannot Reject An Experience Without Having the Experience, ”HE concluded. “From An Artistic Point of View, The Images Are Very Beautific. YES, they are strong, but they are beauty. So you have the pure cinematic pleasure of the beauty of the image. ”