5 Questions with Diogo Baldaia

1&2) Can you talk briefly about your background? Do you feel it informs your work? Why or why not?

I’m from Maia, a city in the outskirts or Porto. I studied and lived in Lisbon and Brussels.

But how my background affects my work is a complex question. I try to work more in short films with feelings and expressions that come to me, and small expressions that I’ve lived, or friends of mine have lived. My work is like a sketchbook or something, I don’t know where it comes from.

MIRAGE is more about groups coming apart - we have a class, we have a team, and in the end we have New Years Eve. Everyone is dancing alone. Like a painting about growing up and the dynamics of groups in different places and falling apart.

I had all these ideas in an instant. It spoke to me and it made sense & I didn’t know why.

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? 

Shooting was the most challenging. I had to find the kids & then learn how to work with them. That was the most difficult.

I had the big idea of how I wanted them to be, but I had to be flexible to retain their authenticity. We had to put the kids in the zone—I’d have rehearsals, but not of the scene, just of them all being together. They weren’t an actual class, so we had to build a dynamic between them so they felt like a class. The kids contributed a lot of their own ideas, they really added to the film. 

4) What's a film that you saw recently, new or old, that you really loved, and why?

I liked GRASS  by South Korean director, Hong Sang Soo. 

5) What's next for you? 

I’m finishing an edit on a new short film. And I’m writing and producing a new feature.

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http://portugalfilm.org/film/miragem_meus_putos