Rodolfo Castillo-Morales is a Mexican filmmaker and programmer. He has participated in a number of fiction and documentary brief movies, video artwork installations, characteristic and documentary sequence, and has photographed documentaries with administrators from Mexico, Spain, El Salvador and Serbia.
He was the programmer of DocsMX and co-creator of Plataforma MX in Mexico Metropolis. At this time he’s the Programming Director of the Guadalajara Worldwide Movie Pageant (FICG) and the FICG Cinematheque in addition to Common Coordinator of DocuLab: Documentary Laboratory. At present, he’s making ready two documentary options as director, author, and Cinematographer.
IDA: Please inform us just a little about your self and your occupation or ardour. When did you first begin working within the documentary area?
My first massive likelihood to affix the documentary area was in 2009-2010. I used to be invited to work as DoP at LA MAROMA Producciones in Mexico Metropolis with Inti Cordera. They have been additionally the group behind DocsMX and have been in want of a translator and subtitler, and that’s how I first acquired concerned within the competition world; the next yr Pau Montagud and Inti invited me to affix the programming group and right here I’m, 15 years later. Earlier than that, I studied Historical past and Cinema labored on commercials, and made a number of impartial brief movies. I additionally labored as a courier, bartender, waiter, and dishwasher after I was youthful.
IDA: You put on many hats as a programmer, curator, filmmaker, and producer! How does your curatorial apply inform your filmmaking or vice versa?
It’s a two-way highway, as a result of I feel that among the best methods of turning into a filmmaker is by watching as many movies as potential, and I’m privileged to have to look at hundreds of movies a yr, learn many tasks, and be near nice filmmakers. And programming it’s so much like enhancing, you might have the items -the films-, which you must discover a solution to put them collectively and make them converse with one another so as to create a program or a curation that has an identification and sends a message, complementing one another, so in actuality one facet is all the time inspiring the opposite.
IDA: You’re at present in post-production in your third characteristic movie. Are you able to inform us just a little about it?
It’s a collaboration between plastic artist-filmmaker César Aréchiga and me, which we had the very uncommon likelihood to movie within the northern mountains in Jalisco, with the wonderful Wixárika individuals; it’s a sensorial movie, with little or no dialogue centered on the ritual facet, which somewhat than making an attempt to inform a narrative, we needed audiences to affix the ritual and stay it a bit as we did; we’re additionally making ready a transmedia cinema model of the movie with a stay efficiency.
IDA: You may have been the director of Documentary programming on the Guadalajara Worldwide Movie Pageant (FICG) and FICG Cinematheque since 2019. What thrilling adjustments have you ever seen within the area prior to now 5 years?
The rise in younger individuals all for documentary cinema that are discovering methods to inform tales in numerous, thrilling and poignant methods. The know-how has given a hand to democratizing entry to technical instruments that enable individuals to find new narratives and factors of views; in Latin America, we at the moment are going through a brand new breed of documentarians who’re erasing the boundaries with fiction movies, which are working with transmedia, with social networks, and new narratives, however all the time with the social dedication, which is current and essential in our area.
IDA: You may have served as a juror and decide for a lot of movie festivals and awards globally. What are a number of the key parts you suppose filmmakers ought to be mindful when submitting their works to festivals and trade occasions?
One of many essential parts to submit a movie to a competition is to get to know what kind of movies that competition has programmed, the curatorial type within the newest years of such competition and perceive as a lot as you possibly can, whether or not your movie will match within the competition’s type; in fact, that isn’t all the time a precise science, however it a primary step into discovering good matches on your movies. It additionally helps the financial facet, as a result of it helps you submit much less however, higher. Get to know your movie, the style, the type the size, and the narrative, and attempt to discover festivals that match along with your movie.
IDA: Do you might have any recommendation for rising filmmakers and curators within the area?
That you just decide to your craft as a lot as you possibly can, to look at tons of movies, but additionally to learn extensively, to hearken to as a lot music as you possibly can, to attend museums, to exit and stroll round, and to speak to individuals, even when you don’t appear to have something in widespread with them; our work it’s a illustration of actuality with a variety of creativeness, so we should domesticate each the truth and the creativeness.
IDA: What’s subsequent for you? Are you engaged on something you possibly can share with us?
Now we have a brand new movie in growth that revolves round a metropolis, its music, and its musicians and we’re already working in the direction of the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Guadalajra Worldwide Movie Pageant (FICG), coming in June 2025.