Mexican producer Julio Chavezmontes, one of the piano Films founders, returned to the Cannes Film Festival with a multinational production: The Disappearance of Josef Mengeledirected by Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov (four times nominated for gold palm) and had a gala function in the prestigious festival that was cheered standing after the exhibition.
Chavezmontes has co -produced multinational films that have won the Golden Palm, the Jury and Management Prize.
Having been selected from the approximately three thousand films from all over the world that applied to be considered represents, says the producer of films such as The triangle of sadness“A great honor because it is still one of the most competitive festivals in the world.”
Chavezmontes knew about the existence of the book of the French journalist Olivier Arguez on which the novel is based when his French partner Charles Gillibert was approached. Julio was intrigued by the premise of the book, awarded in 2017 with the Renaudot and whose Spanish version can be achieved under the Tusquets label and in comic format, and acquired the rights together with his partner. “It is a very important story to tell us, because I believe that Mengele’s transit as a fugitive through our contine region that allowed him to avoid justice, but how in the end the trial of time was something that was imposed. ”
Who was Josef Mengele?
Josef Mengele was known as “The Angel of Death.” He was a doctor in the Auschwitz concentration camp, during World War II, where he infamously experienced humans under the idea of Nazi racial superiority. Once the allies defeated the Germans, Mengele fled to South America.
“I think it is very important to reflect on those sinister characters at a time as vulnerable as the current one, where there is a worrying and clear resurgence of the extreme right around the world,” says Chavezmontes. return”.
In The Disappearance of Josef Mengele They had the interest of exploring Mengele’s complicity with several regional governments that allowed him to remain unpunished. “And also the effects of time and decades of his life later. The masks he used and how in the end this character was left with nothing. It is obviously something that was done very seriously, as the theme demands it, because it is always a balance, something very delicate, isn’t it? It is something where one wants to be truthful and wants to have a point of view and of course avoid anything that can be interpreted as an invitation to the empathy. It is.
The film was filmed in Riga (Latvia) and Uruguay. “In Uruguay it was in co -production with very dear friends who are called Simagón, through Sandino Saravia, who is a Uruguayan producer who has been living in Mexico for many years. It is a historical recreation, and doing so with the budget of an independent film because it always implies looking for many supports and collaborators, who are the ones who make it possible. And for us without a doubt the participation of Simagón was absolutely vital.”
The director’s search
Julio and Charles looked for a director who could have a vision that did justice to the novel. And they found him in the Russian filmmaker Kirill, who has directed and won… “He made us an incredible proposal,” recalls Julio. “He understood very well the idea not only to present how these networks of complicity that allow Menge to stay a fugitive, but also the idea of seeing the effect of time, the disappearance of the character itself.”
That, says Julio, seemed fascinating. “I think Kirill is also a director who has a lot to say about the extreme political figures. He is widely known for having been a dissident in Russia, an opponent to the Vladimir Putin regime who has persecuted him and who has tried to insult him with false positions, even for his resistance, right? So, I think he has a lot to say about this subject.”
Julio considers him a great director. “It is one of the best directors in the world. The truth is that our interest and support in Kirill is going from afar. We distributed his movie Leto in Mexico, which was one of the first international films that distributed piano and since then we are admirers of his work.”
The independence of Julio Chavezmontes
Julio Chavezmontes is undoubtedly uni of the most successful independent producers in the world. Experience, intuition and personal convictions are the amalgam gathered in its film projects.
“The truth is that the projects are looking for personal conviction for telling things that speak to me, and in doing so I do it with the confidence that if I find that the movies work for me there will be many other people to whom the same will happen to them. And from there implies an immensely arduous work of development, financing, production. And the peculiar of the work of a producer is that there is always an absolutely creative component, there is an absolutely logistic component, there is an absolutely logistical component, there is an absolutely logistic component, there is an absolute component. Then there is an absolutely financial component.
– And in that sense, now that you touch the financial issue, is it profitable for you to produce this type of films?
-Yes of course. That is, in the end they are films that have an audience, without a doubt, they have an international market, they are films that are sold to many countries and that have different financing mechanisms, right? And almost all are designed in such a way that one knows that it will be profitable in consideration to the markets where it is going to be sold.
– What are your expectations with this film at the festival?
– Well look, the fact of being at the festival the truth exceeds all my expectations. That is, I insist: I think it is very important not to lose sight of what the Cannes Festival is, the level of the contest, how extraordinarily competitive it is to be. I believe that in Mexico we have become accustomed happily to be a festival that we see closely because of the extraordinary generation of producers, producers, directors that Mexico has given in these last twenty years, which have frequently gone to the festival. But I insist, it is not an easy starting point. We are talking about a festival that receives almost three thousand films and whose official selection, I do not have the fact in my hands, but it should not be in the fifties. So, we are talking about a percentage of a percentage of possibilities to enter. And whenever one enters a festival as Cannes is a reason for celebration, pride and is something that exceeds expectation. I think it is a great movie that we are very excited to get to the public.
–Imagino that in terms of getting distribution helps a lot that you have there the official selection logo of the festival.
-Definitely. The Cannes Festival is one of the world’s big film platforms. That is, I think it is something where the public fond of cinema understands as a great distinction and artistic merit and the value of such a film, of such a contest. It is something that helps many people in many countries of the world find out about the existence of the project and know what it is, where it comes from.
–And here in Mexico, on the issue of distribution of this type of films, how are you going to piano?
“It’s going very well.” The truth is that we are very lucky to have Esther Bernal in our piano team, which has done a great work. It is important to understand that our first objective with these films is cultural and scope, that is, that people have access to films that I consider to be part of the country’s cultural heritage. And what we have always done is to make a distribution strategy from a lot of analysis, of many data, to be able to make increasingly efficient circuits, circuits designed in maximizing the number of spectators per copy, of bringing the movies closer to the viewer that we imagine as the goal.
– Is there lack of rooms for this type of films?
-Definitely. Since you ask me, I think that a great pending subject is the construction of spaces, right? It would be very important to be able to imagine the possibility that a wide network of cinetecas, cinetecas that have similar complexes, if it is not identical, to which Mexico City enjoys. Because I think those are true public incubators. It is necessary that the public has the possibility of accessing cinema. I have always thought that the Mexican public is of immense generosity and that it has great interest in the cinema and a great curiosity. Many times I feel that it is a matter of price and that what is needed are spaces that are of public training, where tickets are affordable, that is, that they are built with another logic. I cannot expect Cinépolis or Cinemex to stop operating within a market logic and charge less for their tickets, or that they alter the form, that is, the rules of their business. But I think what is essential is that we can build spaces that operate with the logic itself, which is the case of the cineteca or the independent rooms, which it seems to me that they are increasingly important. And I know that it is a complex situation that the government faces, but one would like to be able to find the possibility that more independent rooms are considered and promoted in budgets, more cinetecas, because it is the right to financial culture, access to financial culture is a human right and it would be ideal to be able to achieve it. And, in addition, I think it is a very good investment because when these rooms are made and these spaces with a price accessible to the wide public, they are always full. The assistance at the Cineteca breaks records every year, is one of the most frequented rooms in the country and I think the same would be seen on many other sides if that budget existed. And I also believe that our independent rooms, which go against wind and tide to exist, if they had support to stay and be able to update, they would also shoot. So for me it is a matter of building public training spaces.
*Javier Pérez He reports, chronicle and interview, as well as film critic and coverage of cultural issues. Directs Hole. Nobody wants to accompany him to the cinema: he does not stop eating popcorn or talking about anything else.
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