04/08/2021 - We round off our series of chats with the three Spanish production professionals who are taking part in this year’s Match Me! programme, run by Locarno Pro

Following our chats with Cristina Fraile (click here) and Cristina Hergueta (click here), we talked to Carlos Pardo Ros, the head of production company DVEIN Films and the third Spanish participant in this year’s Match Me!, run by Locarno Pro.

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Cineuropa: What is DVEIN Films’ editorial policy?
Carlos Pardo Ros: Ever since I started working in film, more than 15 years ago, my aim has been to create contexts in which I can conduct research, produce and film together with the filmmakers with whom I’ve learned to watch and make movies. My training and experience stem from working in a group. Me and the rest of the filmmakers with whom I share this idea, we’ve spent many years working like this. That’s why, in 2017, the need arose to create a platform together, through which we could look for funding for our projects, find a structure we would feel comfortable with and be able to get other filmmakers on board with our outlook on production as well as the creative process. Therefore, together, we decided to found DVEIN Films with a collective focus, via which we all got involved in the films being made by the others. That’s our main ideology.

Have you tried to make your films as co-productions with other countries?
It’s an avenue we’re exploring, and we also hope that our participation in Match Me! will be useful in this regard. With Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, we’re setting up an international, European co-production with Portugal and France. We believe it’s an interesting path for our films, as this way, we can find producers in the international arena with a sensibility that is similar to our own and find alternative means of funding.

What advice would you give to someone who has a screenplay and wants to turn it into a film?
That before trying to write or develop your film, you should look for the people you want to work with. It’s healthy to surround yourself with points of view and energies you can share in and add to. Once you’ve got that sorted, the trek through the desert that is getting a project off the ground becomes easier and more pleasant.

Have you been tempted to make the leap to directing?
I’m currently finishing my feature debut, H [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlos Pardo Ros
film profile]. In fact, even though I wear a producer’s hat, I consider myself a filmmaker, and my method of involving myself in all of our films doesn’t stop at production duties – just like the rest, as they get involved in the production side as well.

What are you hoping to gain from a rendezvous such as Match Me!?
Locarno is a festival we hold in high esteem and whose programming policy holds great interest for us. In fact, the first short film that we produced, Violeta + Guillermo by Óscar Vincentelli, was premiered there. I think this rendezvous is going to give us the chance to meet film professionals from the international arena, and hopefully we will be able to complement one another. We hope to be able to find partners who will accompany us throughout all stages of the movies that we currently have in production or development, and thus boost their chances of getting funded and distributed. We think it’s a golden opportunity for us and for the projects we’re developing, as they all have an international scope.

What particularly appealing elements would you single out among the projects you’ve got on the boil right now?
We have projects on the go at all different stages. In the final phase of post-production we have H, which takes a peculiar and rather extreme look at the San Fermín celebrations in Pamplona, using my family history as its starting point. It’s a film made in an unconventional way and with a different narrative, based on key concepts, rather than on characters or people’s psyches. We are also finishing off Soy vertical, pero me gustaría ser horizontal by María Antón Cabot, our first medium-length fiction title. It’s a fantastical melodrama in which two antagonistic women from different time periods (one is from the present day and the other is from the 1950s) make friends with each other in Benidorm. In addition, we hope to be able to broaden the circulation of the short film Blood Is White by Óscar Vincentelli, which has just won a prize at FIDMarseille, where it enjoyed its international premiere.

Lastly, I would like to highlight Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes by Gabriel Azorín (Los mutantes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), our most ambitious project, with which we have already taken part in Ikusmira-berriak (the residencies of the San Sebastián Film Festival) and the forum at the Seville Film Festival, where we won the top prize. It tells of the impossible encounter between two Portuguese boys who go to spend the afternoon at some ancient Roman thermal baths, together with three of the soldiers who built them. Although there are more than 2,000 years separating them, they all share one fear: that of losing their friends forever. We hope to find international partners who can help us to get things moving on it.

(Translated from Spanish)