Luis Basurto is an Andean filmmaker who has stood out throughout his career for his intention to reconstruct that part of our history that not many of us know. On this occasion, he shows us his talent in the film El viaje macho, which tells the story of Carlos Espejo, who has served a long sentence in prison and is released to realize that his life ended in the blink of an eye. eyes.
The whole plot is developed in Huancayo and, although it has only recently reached national screens, it has already been presented at international festivals in Ecuador and France, where it received very good comments. The film was financed with funds from the Exclusive Feature Film Contest for the regions of the country financed by the Ministry of Culture.
The essence of the film is to portray a historical and violent process, in which the people who were not involved were those who really suffered the consequences of the internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000. The Republic spoke with Luis Basurto to provide exclusive details about his experience regarding your latest film project.
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– What is peculiar about El viaje macho?
I consider that not much because it is an independent film that was made with solidarity efforts, but if something about the film should be highlighted, it is that it was recorded entirely in Huancayo, a city different from the thousands of stories in the capital, and leaving aside that feel folklore that most movies are made in the Andes. Perhaps also the visual proposal in narrative that has another peculiarity.
– How was the film El viaje macho born?
The project was born from a concern that arose in 2006 or 2007, when I began to write the script about the reality that I had lived in the city of Huancayo about the consequences for people who were affected by political violence. Those of us who were in the middle of the entire conflict experienced the hard part of terrorism, but we were neither the Army nor the Police, but we suffered collateral damage.
Carlos Espejo, a character in the film, is a reflection of that reality that happened at that time. His case is similar to that of many many others, who were wrongfully blamed or disappeared. All of this is what I wanted to portray in the city of Huancayo, the place where I was born, grew up and went through all that process of violence, with the intention of reconstructing the past memory of our history.
– What anecdotes did the film leave behind?
Pretty and ugly there are many. One of them may be that when we started recording, a very strong rain started. The lines of the train, which were almost 200 or 300 meters, he took them and we had to stop filming to see when we would shoot again because much of the film was on the ‘male train’. As there was no possibility of retaking, we had to make a chroma of the entire train and we worked hard day and night in a giant hangar that the Huancayo to Huancavelica railroad provided us. The same thing happened with the Huancayo bridge, which carried away the rain; one only has to assume those conditions because they were climatic issues.
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– What are your expectations with El viaje macho?
When you make a movie, you think about the best, like showing it at festivals and movie theaters, but the work is very hard. There must also be the motivation to carry out the project, but my main motivation is that people have the opportunity to go see, since the cinemas are open. We all know that if in the first days things do not go well, they take us out and what I hope is that they go to see her so that later they can express their opinion.
– Why did you think of Magaly Solier for this film?
When we wrote the script, it was not intended to contact her to do the scene she recorded, because time was very short and I considered that it did not make much sense to summon her, because she was already very well known and it made no sense to call her for something so small . However, the dramatic essence of the scene asked me for an actress who has the dramatic and cinematographic weight.
Just, curiously, I met his representative and asked him if he wanted to participate. So, she said that she loved everything and within six days we were already working with Magaly, although she appears a little distant in the film. I thought of her because she is one of the most representative Andean actresses in film, so much so that we are preparing with her to record the feature film Nostalgias and other projects in 2022.
– How was your passion for cinema born?
He was born watching the films in the Lima film library, which were in the Art Museum, because it was very close to my house and then studying at film school, specifically in the courses I took with the Chaski Group, with Alejandro Legaspi, who They showed me the social sensitivity that can be had in the cinema by itself.
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– Who do you admire?
To a large part of my family because they are people who work very hard to achieve their dreams and goals. In the cinema, I admire all the independent filmmakers who go out of their way to make their films and have them displayed on every screen and window possible. I am very admirer of all the work that goes into making a film project.
– What is the artistic project with which you most identify?
I identify myself with each of the jobs that I have done. From the short films I made in 1942, my feature films, to El viaje macho because in each one of them I infringed on the whole experience. It is difficult for any of the films to invent or generate a lot of fiction because they have a high percentage of direct and close knowledge. So, I identify with all of them. I am a bit of the character of each of my films because in some way I have lived and felt them. For all that, it is difficult to choose one and I feel that I am building my own look with each work I do.
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