Acclaimed Argentinian filmmaker Santiago Giralt will be in Halifax for a month starting Thursday, November 7, and if you don’t make the most of it, may god have mercy on your filmmaking (and/or film-loving) soul.
The lauded independent filmmaker, actor, playwright and novelist was invited by AFCOOP and Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery to share his expertise, host screenings, while here Giralt will also begin shooting a new feature film, Lucy.
Giralt’s films—UPA! An Argentinean Movie, The L. Sisters, All The Lonely People, Before Opening Night and Anagrams—have drawn comparisons to those of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, because of their similar focus on relationships and intensity. “Since I was a child, I found in movies and books a way to live alternate realities and understand people and situations that are different from me. Movies and books have always been a way to understand others. As an artist I find an idea or a character that will follow me for weeks or months as I daydream. It is those ideas and characters that drive me to write a book or make a movie,” says Giralt. “I have many influences: Yasujiro Ozu, David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Woody Allen, John Cassavettes, Pedro Almodóvar—to name a few. But at the time of shooting my influences are inside of me, I look for my own vision. And when I see myself in a new way through my work I know I have succeeded.”
Pick Giralt’s brain at the following events this month. UPA! An Argentinian Film screening and Q&A (Friday, November 8, 7pm, free) at AFCOOP, 5663 Cornwallis Street, Suite 101. Giralt’s two-day workshop, DIY Feature Filmmaking Masterclass (November 9-10, 10am-5pm, $40/$50, at AFCOOP) and a screening of Before Opening Night (Antes del Estreno) (Thursday, December 5, 7pm, Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, free), reception to follow.