Filmmaker: Hugo Perez

Running time: 18:00

For more information visit: www.m30afilms.com

Awards:
• 2005 Showtime Latino Filmmaker Showcase Finalist

Official Selection:
• 2005 New York Latino Film Festival
• 2005 Los Angeles Latino Film Festival
• 2005 Miami Short Film Festival
• 2005 Boston Latino Film Festival
• 2005 Fort Lauderdale Film Festival

Julieta’s erotic fascination with Ronald Reagan keeps her from finding Mr. Right. Through the intervention of Mima, her downstairs neighbor, she reluctantly is introduced to Mima’s son, Ramon. Ramon is a shoe store manager who has his own particular fascination. Can this odd couple find a way to satisfy each other’s needs?

JULIETA Y RAMON, the first fiction film from documentary filmmaker Hugo Perez, is a darkly comic Spanish-language fable in the tradition of Almodóvar. It is a film that relishes all the quirkiness of Hispanic culture. It features an original nuevo tango score by Cuban composer Onel Mulet.

Hugo Perez is a filmmaker and writer whose work often focuses on his Cuban heritage. He has studied writing with Gabriel García Márquez, collaborated with Pulitzer prize-winning novelist William Kennedy, and served as a guest artist for acclaimed theater director and artist Robert Wilson. Perez latest short film, BETTY LA FLACA, won the 2006 HBO/NYILFF Short Film Award and was broadcast on HBO that winter. Perez's previous short film, JULIETA Y RAMON, was broadcast as part of the 2005 Showtime Latino Filmmaker's Showcase, which spotlights the work of emerging Latino directors. His writing has been featured in the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE and SALON, and his films have screened at venues such as MoMA and the Smithsonian. Perez is the founder of M30A Films, which has a number of narrative and documentary projects currently in production.

What inspired you to make this piece?

I felt that there weren't enough Latino films that I had seen that spoke to my quirky and darkly comic sensibility, so my initial impetus was to make the kind of Latino film that I would be interested in seeing. I wanted to tell a story that was true to my experience of the Latino culture in all its wonderful quirkiness and sometimes absurdity. In addition to that, I wanted to tell a love story that was both sentimental and perverse. Through Julieta and Ramon's peculiar sexual proclivities and their attempts to work through what initially seems like their mutual incompatibility, I wanted to comment in a humorous fashion on the lengths people go to in order to make relationships work. It's all give and take, right?

Briefly tell us about how you made your film or video: what camera and format did you use to shoot your piece, and what system did you use to edit it? What is your working process? Did you use any special techniques to make this work?

My DP and co-producer, Andreas Wagner, shot the film in 24pMiniDV using the Panasonic DVX100 equipped with an anamorphic lens adapter to give us maximum resolution in the 16 x 9 aspect ratio. When we wrapped, my editor, Francisco Bello, edited the film on a Final Cut Pro 5 system. If there was anything that characterized our production, it was the intimacy we created on set by using tiny crews (sometimes just me and Andreas, usually no more than five people) and our willingness to allow cast and crew to improvise and to contribute their own ideas during production.

Do you have any interesting behind-the-scenes stories about the making of this particular work?

One of the great discoveries and great pleasures of this film is Caridad Herrera (Mima), who at a late stage in life came in for the first audition of her life. While we didn't initially have an Afro-Latina in mind for the part of Mima, as soon as she walked in the door, we knew she was perfect. After we cast her, we actually rewrote the script slightly to explain the difference in skin color between her character and that of her character's son, Ramon. Caridad has had a very rich life filled with many interesting and exciting episodes that she regaled us with on the set, keeping us entertained for long hours while we worked through our shots. When it came time to create the film's credits, Caridad chose the alias Kadisha Laterl, which she felt seemed more glamorous. If you ever get the chance to meet her, you will be as charmed as the rest of us were.

What is the relationship between your work as a video/filmmaker and life in the New York metropolitan area?

I have been heavily influenced by the wonderful texture of the Latino neighborhoods in New York City with their bodegas and botanicas, domino tables in the summer, churro carts, lively public dialogue between anybody and everybody on the street. What's especially great is the diversity of Latino experience you find, the confluence of people and cultures from all over Latin America that meet and mingle in New York City, from Cuba to Colombia, Puerto Rico to Panama, Mexico to Argentina. Here in New York, Latinos come in all shades of skin color and Spanish is spoken with every possible inflection and dialect you could imagine. That vibrancy of life and richness of experience are a great source of inspiration to me.

What films/videos and makers have inspired or influenced your work and why?

Fellini, Almodóvar, Buñuel, the Coen brothers, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Chaplin, Keaton ... these are the filmmakers that have had the greatest influence on me. Specific films that have lingered with me are 8 ½, LA DOLCE VITA, BELLE DE JOUR, DELICATESSEN, TALK TO HER, and TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN.

If viewers are interested in obtaining copies of your work for rental and purchase, whom should they contact and at what address and phone number?

All rental and purchase inquiries should be directed to me, Hugo Perez, via e-mail: orpheus@m30afilms.com.

Or via mail:
Hugo Perez
M30A Films
302 Bedford Avenue, #449
Brooklyn, NY 11211