He has not been bad. Although “more people die on Sundays” (titled in English “Most People Die On Sundays”) is her first fiction feature film, she has made this one premiere so far in the United States (she did it last week in New York and she does so from tomorrow at the Eemmle Royal and the Laemle Town Center in Los Angeles and Encino, respectively) and in France.
It is a significant fact for a low -budget independent tape, with a low and Latin American profile that also handles an atypical proposal by presenting ourselves to an uncommunicative character and weight of weight that has to face both his personal demons and the loss of close members of his family, which forces him to return to his city of origin from Italy, where he is studying.
In that sense, Iair Said, who plays David (the character described), and who is also the director and the scriptwriter of the film, cannot stop feeling excited, although he ensures that the current situation of cinema in his country, affected by government decisions, does not allow him to have great hopes about the future of the industry in the same gaucho lands.
And that the interview granted to us a few days ago was carried out before the United States president announced the possibility that films made outside the United States were subjected to huge tariffs.
Iair, David’s character is not necessarily you, but I imagine he has strong connections with you. Do you also live in Rome?
No, I live in Buenos Aires. I have never lived abroad, unfortunately. The character does not have so much of me as it seems. But presenting it in this way gave me the possibility that, outside its family nucleus, it could behave differently than the one that behaves in its place of origin.
The same, when I wrote this, I did it to be able to travel, dreaming of filming a movie abroad, as if it were an impossible idea. And when it became possible, I understood that, in reality, what happens to the character is that it is not encouraged to express their pain or its emotions in front of theirs, while, outside, it has no problem externalizing a little more.
Before this, you had made fiction short films, but your previous and initial feature film was a documentary called “Frida.”
Yeah; It is the story I have with a aunt of mine who has no heir and who wants to die from the day he was born, while I want to stay with his apartment. It is a comedy mixture with a very dramatic drama. It premiered in 2018 and is still on platforms around the world. It is very rare, because it has many fans.
You are a little obsessed with the issue of death, right?
There is a concern. I hope that the movie that comes does not have so much to do with that, but it seems good to investigate the world of death through cinema, because it seems to me that cinema, in some way, serves to immortalize some characters that are not so relevant in society. The same thing happened with the documentary, which is still commented until today, because she was about a lady who lived alone in her home and who, despite this, transcended generations thanks to the cinema, which has the virtue of making people eternal to people who go unnoticed in everyday life.
Despite the genre he handled, the documentary also had moments of comedy, as you just said. And that is something that is maintained in “Sundays more people die”, which is a fiction job.
For me, the drama and comedy are feedback. I believe that, for a situation to be very dramatic, it had to have been very funny before, and vice versa. When you are in a wake, crying inconsolably, suddenly someone passes with a tray of sandwiches and think: “Which one like? One of cheese or one of ham?”
From the most absolute drama, you will become a mundane that all you are thinking about is whether you want it with mayonnaise or without mayonnaise. It seems to me that movies that express a little comedy in the drama serve to make the viewer exorcise the pain.
And what did this movie help you to exorcise? Because you expose yourself both physically and emotionally in it, although I understand that you had already appeared before the camera in your previous works.
I started directing because I wanted to act on something and nobody called me. I started addressing, and I was particularly very well with the first short, which cost me, say, 100 dollars, and with which I won 25 thousand dollars for an award that was given to me at an Abu Dhabi festival. After that, I told myself: “Well, I’m too director.” And I did another that was in the official competition of the Cannes Festival in 2015.
In relation to physical exposure, if you look, the only thing the character does is get the shirt. What happens with bodies like mine is that people are very surprised to see them, while, if you see George Clooney or Brad Pitt with little clothes, you do not say they are exposed. For everyone, it is like a discovery, because they are not accustomed to seeing fat in the cinema.
Another scene of the Argentine film.
(Big World Pictures)
I direct castings throughout the world. Now I am working with Peru, and I did it before with “El Eternalauta”, which has just been released, and with “the snow society.” It is very difficult to put dissident bodies in popular works. Therefore, for me, it was important to show another body typology.
My intention was also to deal with a grieving process, of course. I wrote the movie a while before my father died, three or four years earlier, but he was not in a coma or anything like that, as is the character of the movie. Anyway, there was something of the state of sadness that I was already going through, and for me it was important to show it.
In another interview, you said you don’t like films like “Call Me By Your Name”, precisely because they put the typical gallants in star papers corresponding to the ‘queer’ community.
It happens a lot in LGBTQ+movies, where the protagonists are perhaps more hegemonic than in the other films. But something also happens with the fat and fat. As casting director, I can tell you that people who go away as actors or as actresses do so because they are skinny, not because they are talented, although that does not mean they do not have talent.
My idea with this character, and also with that of the mother and the rest of the family, was to show bodies that are real and that, with it, also say something.
You didn’t want to present impeccable homosexual characters. As soon as he arrives in Buenos Aires, David begins to try to have intimacy with people who do not want to have intimacy with him. That seems a bit risky, because there are still prejudices about this community.
It is that I did not want to put any limitation or represent anyone. Actually, what that kid is doing is wrong, because it may seem fun, but ends up becoming harassment. However, for me, it was interesting to have a protagonist who would not immediately generate empathy, because that allows him to have more layers; You want it, but it also seems a moron. If not, everything is very linear.
Related news :