Lying in bed, smoking and in a bathrobe. It is the image of a man, in his early forties, waiting to connect with someone from his computer. After clicking on the chat again, anonymous genitals appear in the foreground in search of pleasure. They are the first impressions of a visit to a random video calling website, commonly marked by ridicule and rejection. However, what relationships are woven in their invisible world, beyond prejudices? That is one of the big questions answered by ‘La carn’, the new film by Joan Porcel that is born from the play, with the same title, by the choreographer Lluís Garau.
After his latest films, dedicated to influencer and Spanish activist Samantha Hudson and the artist Júlia Colom, the Mallorcan filmmaker Joan Porcel (Palma, 1994) begins to work on filming a story that talks about sexual relationships on digital platforms. Through the portrait of Lluís Garau’s creative process and the participation of different anonymous people from the web, the film explores the limits between fiction and documentary. The footage, produced by Charli Bujosa Cortés, of Mansalva Films, “It could hit theaters between the end of the year and the beginning of the next,” according to the filmmaker’s forecasts.
Regarding the film, what other collaborations will it have, beyond that of the protagonist?
This documentary is a choral story that talks about the Internet as such, as a concept, as a physical space and, in reality, the only character that drives the film is Lluís. All other people listed are anonymous people on the Internet. There we have the task of documenting what we are doing, working with real people in the Internet world, with archetypes of users who decide to spend time during the play and the actor’s free time when they connect to the chat.
So have the unnamed characters in the movie been contacted via chat?
It is a search that is done entirely through the Internet, striving to try to preserve the maximum freshness of the interactions, because we want to faithfully report what happens in certain spaces that are not visible or stigmatized. For the first time, we can say that an entire generation, now in their thirties, has shaped their personal identity through the Internet.
Throughout this entire process we did a casting on Instagram to open ourselves to people who wanted to participate, but, in the end, all the contacts have been made through an application called Dirty Roulettewhich is an evolution of the Chat Roulettewhere there is no type of personal verification. Chat Roulette It has become a platform that is highly monitored at the level of regulations in terms of what can be done and what cannot be done, which did not help us with theatrical work.
All contacts have been made through an application called Dirty Roulette, which is an evolution of Chat Roulette, where there is no type of personal verification
After investigating different platforms that worked with this random video calling system, Lluís found Dirty Roulettewhich does not monitor calls. Therefore, although it has somehow become a far west Without rules, it allowed us to find a whole cast of people who made conversation, who wanted to have sex and chat with Lluís. So we decided to shoot the film with this platform.
Will this search that escapes the norm and surveillance be reflected, in some way?
On the one hand, there are entire sequences that we have decided to record through the application, something that always has to be avoided when we talk about a film with certain production work. But we decided that a large part of the film will be recorded through the webcam because it gives a point of view that conditions the way of understanding these types of conversations. We want the person who watches the film to be able to perfectly understand what it means to connect, create and maintain a human bond with strangers that is emotional, sexual and vital. Beyond this, I think that the entire direction of photography is very focused on understanding how having a camera watching us works.
With this project we have decided to transport ourselves to adolescence, where there were no smartphones with Internet all day. Right now everyone has a camera that is pointed at them twenty-four hours a day and we are sure that someone is behind it. We have normalized it and perhaps this film can sensitize us that what may seem strange to us, such as spending hours connected with strangers, perhaps we should also apply it with our cell phones.
This film can make us aware that what may seem strange to us, such as spending hours connected with strangers, perhaps we should also apply it with our cell phones.
It seems that this digital generation connects a lot with his previous cinematographic work, because what we could call biopics or identity narratives, as in the case of Samantha Hudson or Júlia Colom, have a lot to do with social networks, where the main use is usually to tell personal stories. Could this have led you to make this specific type of film?
I don’t think that all films repeat a pattern, but it is true that they are contemporary artists of my generation and that I have been lucky enough to be able to accompany for a while. With Samantha Hudson it was a year and a half, with Júlia Colom almost two years and with Lluís Garau almost three years. In some ways there has been a very parallel moment, always from direction, with the artists I portray and with whom I want to make films. I am doing biopics of very specific moments of these artists, which are like biopics live and do not allude to the past. In fact, I think that, surely, if I were commissioned to make a film about an established artist, I would not have so many tools. A film in the past tense is much more complicated than a film in the present tense.
Furthermore, that is why I have chosen to make a film with a team of young people, where we can allow ourselves to use this film as an apprenticeship in how to make films with equals and not with a department head who has seventy films behind him, or with A production company is constantly putting pressure on us. There is always a very hierarchical structure in the way of making films, but on this shoot we can have a good time from a professional perspective. For the first time in a long time I have seen a team that was having a good time working and the new cinema is not only what we produce, but also doing things in a different way.
‘La carn’ seems like a film to get out of your comfort zone, as a filmmaker.
Completely. My other films with Samantha Hudson or Júlia Colom have a way of making that has a lot to do with tracking and timing, since they were shot at very specific moments for the protagonists. On the other hand, in The meat We have already lived that moment during these two years following the theatrical work of Lluís Garau. And now we are here, on a fifteen-day shoot where we have really decided to play, create spaces and recreate moments from the actor’s life, go a little further.
On the one hand, we record moments that have a lot to do with the choreographic part of the piece, that is, focused solely on the movement of the dance. On the other hand, there are also other moments that have more to do with the recreation of their adolescence focused on chatting with unknown people on the Internet and everything that has to do with the sexual development and growth that occurs through the network.
The project was supported last year by the D’A Film Lab, a program to promote emerging film talent. What were those days like?
Yes, it was something that came at a time when we were still looking for financing and had a first version of the script. We were in Barcelona for three days. It is a laboratory very focused on film pre-production and film communication and marketing. There we worked on the target audience to be reached, how a media campaign would be carried out, how a possible release of the film would be worked on, etc. They also helped us a lot with the legal issue, the rights and the bureaucratic and legal needs that a project like this could have. It was less creative, but very interesting because at that time we had not thought about these issues as much.
And just before that process, he recorded a teaser promotional of the play.
It all started years ago, when Lluís and I met. The embryo of ‘La carn’ was born from his final work at the Escola Superior d’Art Dramàtic (ESAD) in Barcelona, where he presented the first version of the work, a half-hour performance that left me amazed by its freshness and innovation. After that first performance, we made a video to promote it, but I soon realized that we could go further and turn it into a short documentary film. Shortly after I began to follow the work in cities like Madrid and Malaga, and everything ended up being transformed, three years later, into a feature film.
Furthermore, when we started I couldn’t have imagined the support we are getting. I think it is a milestone because, although I came from making very small films, with very specific financing and always with the support of IB3 and Filmin, we had never managed to obtain aid from all the public institutions that offer financing in the Balearic Islands, and finally that of the Ministry, through the ICAA [Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales]. I believe that this film will mark a before and after in the way of betting on new creators and young filmmakers who are looking to make new cinema.
Because? Because, increasingly, on the lists of subsidies in the Balearic Islands, there are always the same names and the same production companies and, for the first time, there is a young team that, practically in its entirety, are around thirty years old or younger making a first rate movie. That this is taking place here, it is being filmed here and that it is turning into a new wave that is born here is surprising.
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