The Movie Awards and Me

Invariably, awards get mentioned or imagined whenever one has finished a film or screenplay. Everybody in the business, except for Woody Allen, wants to be in front of a packed auditorium receiving an award that recognizes his or her work and artistry. Also, such an award might help one getting another chance at movie making and get some extra income or funding.

When I was in film school, the first short had to be related somehow to a doorknob and the best one each year would get the Golden Doorknob award. The deal, according to Professor Skip Landen, was that one day someone would receive an Oscar and place the Golden Doorknob next to it. Anyway, I didn’t make a doorknob film, because that year we were supposed to co-direct with someone else. My partner and I decided he’d do the doorknob film and I’d do the next film. Thus, I was spared of stressing over awards until a few semesters later -- for the thesis films screening. By then, I had already won 2 awards, but they weren’t connected to any production in particular, just to my general achievements as a film student.

My thesis film was up for both experimental film and animation film, but I didn’t win either. It was somewhat of a let-down, but the overwhelmingly successful screening lifted up my spirits and made me forget momentarily about awards. Then, all of us were thrown into the real world, where we would move our films around, trying to get that big award that would jump start a career or two (like it happens to Kevin Bacon in The Big Picture). I did win 2 awards with my film: a minor award at a major festival (Chicago) and a bigger award (and cool looking) at a minor festival in Australia. This was not enough to jump start a career as a director, so I went into the work force (both of the paid and the unpaid kind).

I worked in a Hollywood film just around the time of the Oscar nominations for the previous year. Harrison Ford was cranky throughout the shoot and some people in the crew were saying that it was because he didn’t get the best actor nomination he was hoping for. On the bright side, we got to watch Oscar nominated movies while riding the bus because some people were Academy members and had to watch the films to mail-in their votes soon afterwards.

After this movie, I worked for free in 2 Mexican films as a post-production assistant, and I mention it only because my boss during that time got nominated for an Oscar recently (he was the guy waving a Mexican flag). Now, imagine what he could achieve if he paid his assistants.

The next step in my diversified career was to be the program manager and jury coordinator at a big film festival in Mexico and we had very nice awards (bathed in gold and quite heavy -- see picture below). The last day we needed to know who the winners were so everything could be prepared for the awards ceremony, but the jury wasn’t coming up with a result. I had to go to their meeting and see what was going on. It turned out that the German juror wanted to void the best picture award as he thought that no film in the competition had the merit (which was not the case, of course). After a long discussion, finally we convinced this juror to accept the others’ votes and we had a winner. I never thought that giving an award would be so stressful.

After the festival, my career turned in the direction of screenwriting and I found out that there are tons of contests and awards for unproduced scripts (and the most desirable prize is to get the script produced). So, once I had a couple of scripts, I started doing the contest and festival circuit with my works. Again, I was able to get a couple of awards, although nothing spectacular. Yet, it was very interesting to witness the consequences of getting an award. First, if you don’t have connections, and you don’t get a major award, nobody will read your script, so awards become a necessity for the screenwriter.

I got a letter from WorldFest Houston telling me that I had won an award (but that they wouldn’t say which one until the awards ceremony) so they were expecting me in Houston. I went there and had a very nice time. I enrolled in a screenwriting workshop and right away I was introduced by the instructor as “an award winner” for which I got an applause and immediate approval from my peers. This instant likeability is uplifting, but it does not make any sense: they had not read my script nor did they know what was it about. They liked me because of the award and because of the possibility that it could be one of the major awards. Days later, it turned out it was not one of the major awards, but at least my script got the chance to be read by someone at William Morris (or one of those agencies) and at New Line Cinema. But nothing happened afterwards.

Later on, I got an award at a Mexican festival and had the opportunity to receive it in front of a packed auditorium. At the party, people were asking me for autographs although they had no idea what I had written nor had they heard about me before (or ever since). Yet, they did not care, for the ephemeral celebrity status does not come from the quality of the work, but from the award that a couple of jurors decide to give (whenever they overcome the guy who wants to void the category, of course).

Eventually, I abandoned hopes to start a professional screenwriting career by winning the elusive major award, so I turned to independent filmmaking (and videomaking) once again, just in time to join thousands of other indie filmmakers who were choosing the same path. The overpopulation of works that try to get programmed at film festivals has made it very difficult for anyone to get screen time, let alone an award.

The very last time I attended a film festival with a work in competition, I had to witness probably the murkiest side of awards. This was in one of the nice beach towns in Mexico. The prize was very interesting: $10,000 US in post-production services, an aid that can be extremely valuable for the honest and modest videographer. The videos that were in the program were screened throughout the week and, supposedly, the jury would have their meeting on Friday night and then the awards ceremony would be on Saturday night. With the competition supposedly closed, another filmmaker arrived at the festival that Saturday morning, screened his film (which wasn’t in the program or the catalog) at around noon and in the evening he was collecting the award. Regardless of the quality of his movie, this was a clear example of the corruption that may happen at some of these events. Sometimes, German jurors who declare void the award are the better option.

I attended recently a special screening of Denys Arcand’s latest film and he was there to talk to the audience. This is a man who has won all the awards that are out there for movie making and scriptwriting, but who still has both feet on the ground and hasn’t lost any humility to be able to listen and talk openly to each person in the audience. After all, Mr. Arcand knows that the real prize in this business is to have a packed movie theater watching your film and giving you (and everybody else involved in the production) an honest and warm applause. Nevertheless, a woman in the audience asked him, “Please, Monsieur Arcand, next time that you win the Oscar, say something other than just ‘Thank you.’”

Eduardo Soto-Falcon

Lourdes Elizarrarás (actress), Laura Esquivel (novelist & screenwriter),
Pablo Torre-Nilsson, Gabriel Retes, Juan Antonio de la Riva (filmmakers)
and Mrs. de la Riva at the Cancun International Film Festival.

Intro: 25 Filmmaking Fun Facts About Me

Two Harrison Fords in case one gets sick or his hair catches fire.

1. When I was a preschooler, back in Mexico, the teacher thought I had some sort of mental deficiency, because my drawings looked too different to everyone else's. My mother discovered that the reason was that I was making narrative drawings (a sort of primitive storyboard) instead of descriptive like the other kids.

2. I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was 14. I don't remember a specific movie that made me realize that, since I had already watched hundreds by then. But as a kid, the movie that most impressed me was Superman to the point that I wrote and drew a parody called Supervampire. As I couldn't wait for the movie's sequels to write my own, I actually anticipated some narrative elements in my comics that were used in the films.

3. The first movie I went to watch by myself at the cinema was The Color of Money by Martin Scorsese and was very impressed. My recent film 2 Strangers and a Foosball has several references to it. For years I wanted to be Tom Cruise. But now, I rather be Paul Newman. Or Scorsese.

4. When I was 17, I wrote, directed and starred in a 30-minute political satire in English called Agitator. One of the guys I showed it to said, "I liked it, but I don't agree with what you're trying to say." He's now a leader of the ruling party in Mexico and he might be a senator or president someday.

5. I went to film school in the USA and my very first film (shot on film) was called A Dead Racoon on the Road to Success and was way too experimental. Most of the cast were Scandinavians.

6. In college, I didn't mind losing points by making my films twice as long as the maximum allowed or by not following other rules. In one editing exercise, the professor said, "This is the most impressive thing I've seen done for this exercise, but if this were a real film, you'd be fired." My whole take on that exercise was on not following the script, either in movies or life.

7. I imported a huge box full of Mexican clothing and paraphernalia to the USA to make a pseudo Mariachi extravaganza called Maraca Man. I played a bit part, the Charro Cantor. The film has references to both Fellini and Steve Martin.

8. My thesis film, 4 movimiento: destrucción, was in Spanish with no subtitles. The applause by the English-speaking audience at the premiere was so powerful, it gave me the chills. To date, I haven't experienced such a thing again, but I long to.

9. My thesis film was shown at the Chicago International Film Festival (a very important festival), where it won an award. The image of that edition of the festival was Anna Nicole Smith referencing cinema divas Anita Ekberg and Brigitte Bardot.

10. My very first job was as an assistant editor of one of the most important Mexican films of all time, Like Water for Chocolate. We had 100,000 feet of material. The D.P. of that film, Lubezki, has now been nominated for several Oscars. Incidentally, my mother was his kindergarden teacher.

11. Alfonso Arau, the director-producer, was extremely bad in paying people back then, which created too many difficult situations. Among them, we, the editing team, kidnapped the rough cut to force him to pay our salaries. Also, I once caught the explosives expert (who was owed a lot of money) snooping around the production office. He had demolition eyes.

12. I've only worked in one Hollywood film (plan to do it again someday) but it was a huge production: Clear and Present Danger. The action and battle sequences were so intense and had to be repeated so many times, that it felt like going to war rather than to work. I almost got into many fights, first with the boom operator, then with all the Mexican A.D.'s and finally with a bunch of American stunt players. Also, Harrison Ford almost ran over me as he was on his way to jump onto an helicopter.

13. Harrison Ford was given the opportunity to conceive and direct a sequence that was not in the script. I was the boom operator for that and alternatively called him "Mr. Ford" or "Harrison" depending on the urgency. This entire sequence did not make it to the final cut.

14. At 23, somehow I got the job of being the program manager of a huge film festival. For lack of personnel, I also became the coordinator of the jury and other renown celebrities of the Latin American film industry. It was an incredible amount of responsibility, but it was also very nice to pal around with the big boys and girls.

15. When the festival was over, I decided to join a group of famous directors and travel to Cuba, to the most important Latin American film festival. The top dog (Miguel Littín) of the bunch had forgotten to get his visa, so the Cuban immigration wasn't letting him in, so he started yelling "Call Fidel, he knows me and he'll let me in." He wasn't kidding.

16. At this festival, I was treated, along with less than a dozen people, to a private piano performance by Fito Paez, one of the most importan Latin American rock stars (who's also a filmmaker). For some reason, some Cubans in the street thought I was one of Fito's band members.

17. I returned twice more to Cuba for the film festival. In those trips, I met Fidel Castro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fernando Birri, Fernando Solanas, Grampa Munster (who complained about everything and really looked like a 150-year-old vampire) and so many celebrities as to compile a Who's Who list of Latin American cinema. I hung around with huge female stars, but only got a few kisses on the cheek (most of them from Soledad Silveyra, an Argentine mega star). Also, when leaving for the airport, I shared a cab with a Mexican star (Pilar Pellicer) and somehow we fumbled up the passports and ended with each other's. Fortunately, the migration officials were in a good mood.

18. I wrote several feature length screenplays in both English and Spanish, won a few awards and got a script read by New Line Cinema, but mostly didn't achieve anything, because screenwriting is both the easiest job in the world and the most difficult one (particularly when trying to get money out of it).

19. My most successful screenplay made it to the semi-final round at the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), but was discarded for being considered a genre movie and too expensive. Although it didn't get produced, I was able to cast the film with an outstanding ensemble of young actors and actresses and the script was enthusiastically read by everyone at the Mexican office of Columbia Pictures (Sony). Again, it wasn't taken as it was considered too expensive (they wanted to do extremely cheap movies).

20. When I decided to focus on short films, I wrote down my dream cast and my dream D.P. for my film El Paje and I got every one of them. The D.P. (Prieto) has now been nominated for a couple of Oscars. Nonetheless, I was not able to get funding. By the time my mother (instead of me or the government) came up with the money, I had to recast some of the roles and look for another D.P. Still, the cast was made up of all A-list people. In retrospect, maybe it was too big a film for being my first after college. On the shoot's first day, I had to direct 60 people, some of whom weren't sure even who the director was.

21. El Paje was screened at 12 film festivals, mainly those focused on Latin American films. It was also broadcast by a cultural channel during prime time. According to Nielsen, 100,000 people watched it in Mexico City. Later on, it was shown on cable to every country in Latin America and recently it was shown on a tiny Spanish-speaking cable channel in Quebec. In spite of everything, the only award I got for this film was a teddy bear (and I gave it to the producer, my mother).

22. My next film, Dhampira, was done on video and with a tiny budget, but again I aimed for an A-list cast. Barbara Mori, one of the most famous and most gorgeous TV actresses in Latin America, agreed to play the lead, but we weren't able to match schedules. The Mexican legendary actor Roberto Cobo did play on it. 50 years earlier, he had worked with Luis Buñuel, one of the greastest directors of all time and my idol, along with Fellini, back when I was in college. Cobo is one of the most excentric people I have ever met and also one of the most fun. Regretfully, he died a year later.

23. Dhampira was shown at 8 film festivals, mainly of horror and fantasy, and somehow it may be my most important work to date. It was shown on cable to the whole of Latin America and found a niche with the vampiric/gothic community in Mexico City, where it has become almost a cult movie. I got to attend some of those vampiric events, where I saw many weird things, besides my movie.

24. I haven't attended a film festival as a filmmaker (only as a regular civilian) since I moved to Canada. Nonetheless, my last film went to Cannes (although nobody watched it). I hope to come along the next time I have a film in Cannes. And I'll force people to watch it if necessary.

25. Several months before I decided to move to Canada, when my short Dhampira was programmed in the Transylvania Film Festival, a Mexican newspaper (Milenio) ran an article on me. Three fourths of the page were dedicated to my story, while the bottom part was dedicated to no other than Celine Dion, as a sort of flashforward of where I was going to end up. After 4 years in Quebec, Canada, I still haven't shared the page again with her. But I'm working on it.

Eduardo Soto-Falcon