By Eduardo Ledesma
Edition for graphic version: Belén Da Costa
Special for El Litoral
Martín Baintrub is a consultant-publicist with a long career. He knows national and local politics like few others. He is also a writer and has four books published. His novel “Rest in Peace” went beyond the paper: it became a script, then a movie, it came to Netflix and today it is one of the most viewed in the world, on the continent, and the most viewed in Argentina.
The film is based on his novel of the same name and was written and directed by Sebastián Borenzstein (The Odyssey of the Giles). Ricardo Darín, Chino Darín, Federico Posternak and Ezequiel Crupnicoff participated in the production.
Baintrub was the fifth guest of the audiovisual cycle Eduardo Ledesma Question 2024. And since the production proposes to reflect on contemporary issues that cross society, such as power, politics, gender, culture, art, etc., we spoke with Martín of all that, starting with the brightest side of his professional present: that of cinema.
How are you living this moment? You are on the lips of the world right now.
Yes, it is a very nice moment. Let’s tell people that this has to do with the fact that one of my novels was made into a movie. “Rest in Peace” premiered on Netflix and had a bang. The truth is that it is being seen all over the world and I am very happy.
Let’s put a number to that story.
It is first in all the South American rankings and is the fourth most viewed non-English film in the world. These are numbers that are difficult to assimilate. The film was recommended this week in the New York Times, it can be seen in any country in the world because Netflix made a simultaneous premiere. So this is a phenomenon that I did not expect, I did not imagine, I did not take into account what a premiere on the platform was going to mean.
How are you with all this?
I am surprised because this is a project that we have been working on for three years since I gave up the rights to the film. And for a year and a half we worked on the adaptation and I started getting the idea that it was going to be a film. I sold it to Kenya, which is the producer of Ricardo y el Chino Darín, which already gave it an important level and then I learned about the cast. With Furriel, Griselda Siciliani, Puma Goiti and each time it was a little more.
I never realized that this was not a movie that I would go to the cinema and see if it did very well, super well, a million people would see it. As soon as it was released, it had six million views, because the power of the platforms today, especially Netflix, gives it a dimension that is beyond any imagination of someone who is not from the stick.
What if now, in addition to being a publicist or writer, I call you a screenwriter, would you turn around in the street?
No (laughs). One of the things that happened in the adaptation of the novel is that I learned a lot about cinema. For someone who likes to watch movies and believes he knows and doesn’t, I believe that the screenwriter of the film, who is Marcos Osorio Vidal, made a very important contribution. There are things that are in the movie that were not in the book and that did a lot of good for the movie, and then there are others that when you are the author of the novel you do not want them to touch – for example the ending – which has another final. I would have resisted more, but I did what I could.
Several things were changed from the original story, what do you think of that?
I think it’s fine. In the end one is the owner of one’s novel, and unlike a novel which is an individual creation, a film is a collective creation. There are characters that are more important, such as the producers, the director or the actors. But a lot of people intervene, the technicians, the makeup artists and each one adds their two cents. So you have to lower your ego a little and say here there are a lot of valuable people who know and who are doing their part and you have to respect them.
What’s next for you in that sense? Are you thinking about something audiovisual with your other novels?
Since the film was presented I received many calls. There are many people who ask me about my other books. It’s funny because before people read the book and said: “Hey, it looks like a movie.” I think it’s something that comes naturally to me, but when I try to rationalize it, I think that today people have many stimuli that compete with reading. Without going any further, streaming platforms, Spotify, social networks, etc. So, I think we have to take that into account, as much as possible, and write in a dynamic way.
The chapters of my books are generally short, they fly by, they have a lot of images, and at the end, when you complete reading one, you can see that it generates that feeling that it looks like a movie.
What does writing give you that advertising doesn’t give you?
Freshness. First, because I have been doing political advertising for more than 30 years, and this is something relatively new, so there is something to say: “Hey, I am doing something that is nice and new.”
And the advertising? You have a lot of relationship with Corrientes but in addition to that, I imagine you have to be prepared. You read alot?
I think I am a sloppy reader, because I read things from different origins. For the political part, I read a lot of current affairs, I read the newspapers, I read newspapers from Buenos Aires and Corrientes. I try to be let’s say in political context all the time. Data, reports, I Google, I search, I collaborate with the governor in writing, important speeches, so it requires searching for a lot of information. And I do that, it’s part of my job and I do it.
As for reading that is pleasurable or that in some way influences what I write, I like to write something that is close to a political thriller. So, I read a lot of political thrillers, crime novels, etc. That is a reading that I make enjoyable.
Since you mention politics: Does the election won by Milei modify political advertising or will it modify it?
I believe that there will still be room for traditional communication, but any campaign team that wants to compete will have to incorporate that other digital territory. In fact, we who are very into teamwork, in general we are trying to do like the strategic planning of the campaigns. We develop offline advertising and try to get young teams to join, because they are much more familiar with the languages, etc., for online advertising, on networks, etc.
But everything under the seal of the consultancy Persuasión or do they make strategic alliances?
Here in Corrientes the Governor has a very good 2.0 communication team. They work well, very well, and they do not depend on us, but we work in coordination. We have a good relationship, we talk, we define objectives and we move forward. We also communicate with the governor of Tierra del Fuego, and he works with a very good 2.0 team from Buenos Aires and we also try to coordinate where we are going to go. That is something that I believe that if you do not incorporate it you will not be able to work.
Does the future candidate have to take note of drastic changes?
If someone had told me a while ago that a candidate who said that it was okay to sell children and organs and was going to say that politicians were “assholes” and that Congress was a nest of rats and that he was going to govern like that, I would have Thought, it doesn’t come. And if for some reason it arrives, it lasts half an hour, and no. He arrived and it seems like several months have passed and his image seems quite consolidated, so we will have to see, but it is new, it is new.
And what are you seeing here in Corrientes?
Corrientes has a management model that works. It has a stable economy with a fiscal surplus, where the salaries of public employees are paid regularly and maintain important updating levels. The Governor is very committed to a process of modernization of the province that has a lot to do with the generation of new and different jobs.
I see the government functioning well in a very difficult context in Argentina. It seems to me that Gustavo Valdés is a leader, a leader who has a lot of social recognition. You see the surveys and their numbers are stratospheric. Nobody knows the future but it seems to me that the Corrientes model is quite consolidated.
In general we usually start like this, but now we are going to end this way: if I say Martín Baintrub, who is he?
And now I would tell you that I am feeling like a writer. He wasn’t very convinced. When he filled out forms he wrote “publicist.” But basically I feel like a sensitive guy, a family person, a friend, very interested in culture and a hard worker.
