TÓXICA: An Interview with Flavia YL

Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making ‘TÓXICA’. How did you start, and how did you learn to make films?

My artistic journey started as a writer. When I was a kid, I used to fill journals and read all the books we had in my house. My artistic perspective started growing filled with music, films and dancing. My parents were very artistic, and they took me throw that path. They took me to experience different forms to express myself, so I went to learn ballet, painting and how to play instruments.

They made a small room for me at the back of their shop, and I started to be a creative, it was like my own artist cave to experiment creativity. So, I studied different disciplines till I decided I wanted to be a full-time artist as a writer, and I went to different colleges and workshops.

Then I moved to London and started a career as a writer and translator, till I received the information of a master in Madrid at Escuela de Escritores. I went to live there, and I started to see that my writing was very visual. Afterwards, with other audiovisual artists we started imagining that my writing could be something else, something more physical, a play, a performance, a film.

I always was a big fan of the underground scenery and independent types of films and music. So, I saw it clearly with my colleagues, that are my audiovisual mentors, that my writing could move forward.

 Alejandro, who is the director of photography of my first film ‘Tóxica’ made me enter to that world going to different sets to watch what was going on there. I basically learned in the field with him and other friends. I collaborated with a lot of film settings and photography sessions.

And there comes my right hand, my eyes, the incredible Francesco. He showed me the beauty of the light and the details. We are very good friends, and we bond perfectly in our crazy projects together.

I also had excellent professors at school and in workshops that opened my vision as an artist.

Making films isn’t a lot different from writing a novel or a piece, it’s a construction. The difference between both is that being a writer is a solo project and making movies is a teamwork with a lot of artists with different perspectives of the same theme. It’s like playing as a child with other children.

For me, being a director is like a game. I have the mattress, the story, and then, with their professional views in each field the artists are going to lead me to the bigger picture. If we find artists that are passionate about what they do, its easy. If they are free, they are going to do the best of them because they are not caged. Artists are not meant to be caged. That’s why I love the magic of the set, because we have an idea constructed in papers and schedules but the truth is on the set, everything happens there.

My team is a fan of doing what they feel in real time, so, that is why I think my movies are experimental in every sense because we allow ourselves to be ourselves. That is how I learned to be a filmmaker, with a lot of work but also listening and watching their artistic journeys.

Of course, I have got inspiration from famous artists of different disciplines, but I feel grateful of learning and improving myself with the experience of seeing everybody be free, and work and create with an only purpose, art itself.

Tell us about ‘TÓXICA’. How do you describe it?

“Tóxica” is a big experiment. I wrote a book, that has stories assembled. The first text is called “Momento Capsula”. It is a way of describing a psychedelic experience and how to connect that experience to the real world. My professor Javier from Escuela de Escritores suggested me to choose an object to talk about it, to tell that everything is happening at the same time as the fractals of psychedelic experience.

So, I wrote about a couple that couldn’t get out of that lysergic rug. They don’t do it till the end, when she enters to the void that connects her to the underworld. We decided all this with my assistant of production, Ignacia. We realized that this couple, Ivy and Iron, couldn’t get out of this toxic relationship and we related this with the Greek myth of Persephone.

Persephone was the child of Demeter. She was raped and taken to the underworld by Hades. Demeter did an arrangement with Hades so that Persephone could be half of the year on earth and the other half in the underworld.  

Demeter is the goddess of agriculture. When Persephone is on earth, nature grows, because her mother is happy. And, when she is back to the underworld, everything dies and becomes evil, dark and poisonous.

We decided Ivy was going to be a Persephone that comes back from a long time being in the underworld. She doesn’t know how to be good anymore, she wants something, and she gets it. If she fails in her mission, she tears out the soul of their victim after turning it into a plant and takes it to the underworld with her. She fills herself with the energy of her enemies souls.                       

I made a comparison with contemporary love and toxic relationships. This myth led me to describe it as a metaphor, to compare it when everything starts to be dark in a relationship, when it starts to crumble. I think “Tóxica” turned into something more than a movie, it expanded like plants.

We made the posters of the movie with Francesco, and these pictures are the finale of her returning to the shadows and how she lets the body. It was an expansive and experimental creative journey with all my crowd.

Please tell us about your favorite filmmakers.

I have a lot of favorite filmmakers. “Tóxica” has the influence of Gaspar Noe in “Enter the void” that is my favorite film. That movie made me love the neon lights and the drones.

John Waters films inspired me to make trashy effects and don’t let the screening be just in the screen, creating more and seeing how the concept can open up and be infinite with the perspective of other artists. The scenes are a vow to Ingmar Bergman and the faces of “Persona”.

I love Godard and Buñuel and how they explore the woman body. Of course, the non-sense of David Lynch and the mystery of the unexpected. And my favorite is Pasolini with his craziness of doing whatever he thinks on the set without thinking about the judgment. I can talk about a lot of filmmakers that made my life easier as a person and an artist.

My inspiration is not only based on filmmakers. My first love is David Bowie with his glam rock outfits, rock-and-roll and the experience of being an artist who committed everything he was and possessed. And, of course, Baudelaire and his poetry like a witchcraft. Poetry is a spell that turns beauty into reality. We use the movement and the motion blurs to find poetry in the image, even if it’s not recited.

If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?

If I was given a good budget I would love to do my first long movie, after finishing my third project “Retórica”, which is another short movie, the one that ends the sequence of “Las Neuras” (Tóxica, Satírica and Retórica)

I wrote a short story for a magazine in Argentina when I was 23. This story became something else, so I have been working on it to turn it into a long movie since then. It’s been 10 years of texts and recordings. That is why I am experimenting with short movies to achieve this project one day.

It is a text about a family that has a meeting after their father’s funeral at the house they were born. The story takes place at the table with small talk while they are dining. It is a very experimental thriller. Inside their heads you can see the unconscious, the dark secrets, the misery of human beings and how they hide everything to belong to a clan, to be part of something, in this case a family.

The film is thought to see also de decadence, the intervention of foreign people and how their believes are taken as sacred because “they know more”. It’s a story of revenge. It has an atmosphere like my short movies but more spooky, blue and dark with ironic comedy.

Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?

I’m ending the postproduction of “Satírica” and also I’m on the preproduction of my next short film “Retórica”. This one is going to lead “Satírica” and it’s going to finish “Las Neuras”. I think that finishing this tryptic is a good training for my ambitious next larger project.

I’m going to make a pre-production plan. The script its basically finished. I must do the plans, mood boards, screenplay and see the locations, train the actors physically and emotionally to perform the script.

Another step is to plan everything with production and make a schedule to film in less than a month. Then, postproduction to do vfx and a good blending of everything. This is the summary of how I would approach this project.

What was the hardest part of making ‘TÓXICA’.

The hardest part was doing the leap from being a writer to become a director of my own projects. Everything was hard and messy at first to work with a lot of people that you have in charge. But everybody was so happy and comprehensive. I’m in love with the project and the artists that are part of it. I would lie if I said it wasn’t easy. My team was the best team ever. They were focused creating on their roles.

Of course, there is people that doesn’t like the project, but I don’t work with them anymore. I prefer a calm set than amazing professionals that work just because they are paid. I could be a dreamer, but I need compromise and love for the project. For me the objective is to create. It is to give the project what it needs. So, when people are reunited to create it’s a place of celebration. There are arguments of course but is it part of the process.

I didn’t study cinema at the academy. One day I will do it, now my movies are my school.

When I started being a writer, I was freer to do things I wasn’t supposed to do. I remember I used to write a lot more of poetry without judgment. Now that I know how to write I read as a writer, looking to structures, frasses and rhythm.

I prefer now to be freer with my audiovisual projects and let the scenes have their times, be more playful and artistic. Also, as a director of actors I started to do acting myself a year ago and now I feel I can comprehend more the emotions of my actors and be clearer of what the character needs and how to express it.

If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?

I’m in postproduction of “Satírica”. I think it’s going to go to distribution soon.

Then I’m preparing my next short movie “Retórica”. As I said it is a tryptic of one piece that is going to be called “Las Neuras”.

“Retórica” is on a pre-production. I have the actress and the places and I’m preparing the characters with the script to start the rehearsal with my actresses. Then come five days of shooting on set to film the short. That is a good training for my first long.

“Retórica” talks about three sisters that live in the same house, and how they try to maintain a type of personality to be part of the clan, but inside they are totally different. They feel differently and they move differently. We are going to see both sides, how they behave and how persuasive they are till they get what they want. It’s a story of love like the others but a different type of love. A committed love, a fidelity love.

It’s also a more experimental film in terms of performance and dance. For example, one of my characters is a ballet dancer of the Colon, Natalia, she filmed with our dear Argentinian filmmaker Leo Favio; she is my muse. I want her to exorcise the aesthetics of being a ballerina, the precision and the fact that she must be always perfect. I want her to break that structure.

It’s a project that is going to be more sensitive in most of the parts. I feel it’s going to be very promising and expansive, as we want to talk about things that everybody lives. Things that are universal, that are hidden. I see it as Jodorowsky’s psycomagic act. It’s exhausting to be someone else you don’t want to be just to make other people happy. That’s what my next movie is about.

This event makes us more proactive and encourage us to generate more audiovisual content. Thank you for this opportunity and we are thrilled to be part of this amazing festival.

Stay tuned for more!

Greets you attentively.