5 Questions with Rafael Salazar Moreno
“Unfinished, 2017 (Mixed Media)” finds its struggling artist protagonist in a fight for her soul. The film by Rafael Salazer Moreno captures the plight of the uncompromising artist with vivid detail and emotion. We asked Moreno how the project came together, and about the eternal issue of making art vs making a living…
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I have been obsessed with films since I was a teenager. In high school in Spain, I was captivated by narrative films, but it’s been through documentaries where I have learned the craft of filmmaking. I’ve shot, edited and directed tons of short documentaries together with my partner Ava Wiland, spanning a range of subjects and topics, but for the past years, we have mainly produced documentaries focusing on contemporary visual art and artists. Unfinished, 2017 (Mixed Media) is my second attempt to refresh my passion for fiction after nearly 10 years of making documentaries.
2) What was the earliest seed of this project?
I was struggling with the same issues that many creative freelancers in NY face: financial stress, balancing making a living with finding the time to work on my own independent projects. I think I channeled all this frustration by writing this story, as a kind of conversation with myself, and as a way to soothe my anxiety. And it worked for a while…
And how did you go about developing it in the early stages?
During the scriptwriting phase, I was determined to find a real artist whose art I could incorporate into the story as a kind of character. I reached out to Mary Mattingly, a Brooklyn-based artist whom I had collaborated with in the past on a couple of short documentaries for the Art21 online series New York Close Up. Mary was immensely generous in letting us draw from her artwork to create the character of Elena, and allowing us to bring her sculptures and her studio into the film.
When I decided which of Mary’s artworks was going to be featured in the film, I re-worked the story so that every element in the film – from the artwork to the story, and the characters – were perfectly integrated. I wanted the artwork to appear like it was created as a reaction to the character’s conflict, while at the same time provide a kind of parallel between the emotional conflict of the character and the crisis caused by our capitalist mass production system, which disregards the environment and communities in favor of profits and growth.
3) I very much related to the way you conveyed the struggle of artists trying to make a living while being true to their art. It’s this eternal problem but it’s too hard to capture well. Can you talk a bit about the way you decided to show this conundrum?
Yes, sadly it feels like an eternal problem!
I think as an artist you are mentally prepared to struggle to a certain extent, but what happens when your partner has a different point of view about life? Or doesn't want to take that risk with you? Which doesn't mean that he or she is not supportive, it's just that they don't want to hustle all the time. I don’t know if this film helped me find an answer to this question, but I see it as a part of the process.
And conversely, what were you trying to avoid saying? Can you think of any scenes or lines of dialogue that you cut because it went away from the essentials of the story you wanted to tell?
I really wasn't trying to avoid anything... at least consciously. In the editing process, I cut a couple of scenes, mainly because of repetition but also because I didn't want to make any of the characters out to be the “bad guy.” So I wound up cutting a few scenes that I felt were siding too much with one character or another. I wanted to create nuanced and complex characters that didn’t fall into the common tropes of hero vs. villain.
4) I love the flowing rhythm and repetition of the conversations - it’s the same conversation over and over, this unending dilemma. I’m curious how you approached the scripting of similar conversations/arguments repeated? How did you work with your actors in terms of finding the right tone to have the same conversation they’ve had over and over.
I wanted to recreate this dynamic of ‘stuckness’ that can happen in a relationship when you have the same arguments and fights over and over again.
Working with Isa Feliu was amazing, we had tons of conversations and she put a lot of energy to understanding the character before we started filming, and Alex Mallis was an incredible partner in this process. Almost all of the fights were improvisations between them. Some of the ideas were in the script but we created variations and improvisations so we could cut together different conversations and fights about the same conflict, with different tones and in different moments and locations, trying to match some of the cameras angles so that they seemed as if they were the same continuous conversation.
5) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Ok, probably this is cheating because it’s not a film but I just went to the New Museum to see Mika Rottenberg’s films and installations and I love them. It was really inspiring. The way she uses real-life elements with a touch of surrealism and absurdist humor to talk about serious pressing issues is wonderfully unexpected… I would love to do that in my films.
Bonus Question) What’s next for you?
I am directing together with my partner Ava Wiland a new episode for the PBS show “Art in the 21st century,” and also writing a new short to shoot in early 2020.
Contact Info:
Personal Website: http://www.rafasalazar.com/
Production Company Website: https://www.ravafilms.com/
Instagram: @rsalazarmoreno