“Bite Me!”
Written and directed by Sergei Safuillin
- First of all, congratulations for your remarkable short film!
How were your first steps as a director?
Well, I was very lucky to be surrounded by very experienced crew so all I have to worry about is to make sure that I got all the coverage I needed to tell the story. Of course like any other project nothing couple be really perfect.
On a day of shoot the sound operator who was supposed to work with us could not deliver the tech specs we agreed on, so we had to look for a replacement on that day which gave us extra 3 hours of rehearsal and less 3 hours of real shoot. Another challenge is that when you work with kids you are allowed to ask them to work for only a certain time and i was very worried that we could have not enough tune to shoot all the scenes.
Working with dogs also has some limitations. So after all I had to test all the possible limitations on set one could think of. But we made it happen and i am very proud of it.
- What does cinema means to you?
The cinema is a form of collective art that allows a film director to reflect on some story or life event that particularly matters to him or her using a very unique color pallet made of actors' performance, music score, sounds effects and all types of visuals.
- Which directors do you think have influenced you in your work?
Christopher Nolan is probably the one who influenced me the most. I really admire the deepness and multitude of the stories he chooses to tell us, devotion and the amount of work he puts into filming process.
- We would like to know more about the choice of your shots. How has the process been of the selection of each of them?
I have chosen to shot my film using only the POV shots because I wanted the audience to feel what it is to be a victims of a domestic violence when you do not have a place to escape or to go to and ought to suffer from those who you might trust the most.
- Your movie has a great reflexive approach. How did the idea come about?
There is so much ignorance and lack of empathy these days. People think that if something bad doesn’t happen to them then it doesn’t exist or matter. Silence is the biggest crime the modern society is accountable for when it comes to domestic violence and animal abuse.
The idea was to play with audience assumptions and let them feel the human pain even though victim would turn out to be someone else.
- What was the first film that achieved such an effect on you?
Probably I the first movie was Titanic, I could not stop crying.
- Do you have in mind the making of a feature film?
Oh yes I do. I have a few great stories in mimd and working on the script right now. I expect the first feature fiction film I am going to make is going to be a mystic psychological drama about the artist who is desperately trying to finish his painting.
Meanwhile I am finishing the editing of a feature documentary film "Beats of the Street” about street musicians of America and a pilot of reality-tv show “Divas Drive” about women who are test driving cars while exploring different cities. All those projects are aiming to be sold to Netflix or other streamers.
- Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak with you!
We will be attentive to your next jobs!
Madrid Film Awards I Press Team