There’s a running joke that Adrián García Bogliano is heading north in the Americas, and every film gets him closer to Canada. The Spanish-born director had worked on multiple low-budget films in his adopted home of Argentina before his breakout festival success, 2010’s Cold Sweat. He followed that with the supernatural Penumbra, before heading to Mexico for Here Comes the Devil, and the US with werewolf thriller Late Phases. For his latest, rather than heading to the great white north, takes him back to Mexico, where Arran (Francisco Barreiro, Here Comes the Devil, We Are What We Are) kidnaps a teenage girl. However, his
(A version of this interview previously appeared at AustinChronicle.com)
Richard Whittaker: So far, you’ve directed films in Argentina, Costa Rico, Mexico, and the US. What’s the difference between working in those different countries?
Adrián García Bogliano: There are so, so many differences A lot of things in common, but I think that the biggest differences, industrywise, in terms of how actors approach tha metarila, in the United States I think the actors are a lot more used to working in cinema. So it’s easier for them to do movies, but at the same time I think that they risk less than Latin American actors do. I think that’s something that Francisco is very good at. He really risks a lot. You see that he;s putting a lot intyo everything that he does, and I think that American actors tend to be safe. Also, the difference in terms of how to make a horror movie there and here, is that I think that Americans are maybe a little too self-aware. Which is good in some things, because I think that they have a lot more perspective on the history of horror and where they are standing. Where the Latin Americans, we don’t have a lot of history of horror. Mexico is probably the country with a bigger tradition, but many of those horror films that were produced here are very difficult to see. So people are not really aware of the tradition of horror in Latin America, so you have to make the rules while you do the films. That gives you some freedom that, when you come from a very specific tradition, I think you don’t have.
RW I was talking to Paulo Biscaia Filho about his new film Virgin Cheerleaders in Chains, and as a Brazilian, he’s got Coffin Joe and that’s it. There isn’t the tradition, so while there are Brazilian horror directors coming through, they’re feeling their way.
AGB: Absolutely, absolutely. When we released Cold Sweat in Argentina, it was the first release for an Argentinian horror film in 50 years. It was scary to have to full that void.
Continue reading Interview: Adrián García Bogliano on Scherzo Diabolico (2016)
