Jorge Granados Ross

Some Ruins, Jorge Granados Ross (2019)

Jorge Granados Ross is a Mexican filmmaker. He worked in commercial film production in Los Angeles and Mexico City, before enrolling in Columbia University's MFA program. Granados Ross's short film Unas Ruinas (Some Ruins) premiered at Morelia International Film Festival.

Jorge Granados Ross participated in an exclusive interview with Filmatique as part of Talents 2020.

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FILMATIQUE: Unas Ruinas (Some Ruins) follows Carlos and Ofelia on a road trip through Mexico as their marriage deteriorates. The couple unexpectedly encounters Elisa, one of their friend's daughters, who is also traveling with her boyfriend Daniel. As the two couples spend more time together, the cracks in Carlos and Ofelia's relationship become even more visible. What was the seed that sparked the idea for this project in your mind?

JORGE GRANADOS ROSS: I have always been interested in the portrayal of family relationships and more specifically the process of deterioration when small or mundane elements can bring to the surface repressed emotions which were previously hidden under the skin. For this specific project, I grabbed some simple elements from people that surrounded me or from my own experience as a starting point. Then I went on to develop the story of Carlos and Ofelia with the support of my incredibly talented co-writer, Neda Jebelli, and my mentor, Eric Mendelsohn. Of course, there were films that I used as an inspiration, like Voyage to Italy or Certified Copy, but I try not to watch as many films during my writing process as I feel I might get pulled easily towards a different direction from my original idea.

FLMTQ: The film features impressive performances from experienced and non-professional actors alike. Can you discuss your casting process for Some Ruins, and how you worked with the actors to bring their characters to life?

JGR: Luckily, the casting process for this project was easier than any other projects I've previously worked in. I was certain of which actors I wanted to work with for this film and there wasn't a formal casting process involved. I had met Maria Evoli and Dario Yazbek Bernal, who are incredibly talented actors, during my teenage years and after I told them about the project and sent them the script they were kind enough to jump into a small project, when usually they are used to being principal actors on major feature films or TV shows. As for Arcelia Ramirez and Odiseo Bichir, who are very important actors in the film and theater world in Mexico, I contacted them directly and after having coffee and discussing the background story of these two characters for hours and hours, they were interested in bringing their story to life. It was a tight schedule as both of them were doing a play together and their shows were programed for every Friday to Sunday, so we had to fly them to Oaxaca Monday morning, start shooting just two hours after their arrival to the airport and wrap on Friday morning so they could fly back to Mexico City and arrive to the theatre on time.

We never had any formal rehearsing period as I wanted to keep their emotional impulses as raw as possible. What we did prior to shooting was to talk a lot about our personal experiences and find situations that resembled or came as close as possible to what the characters were living throughout the film. We brought these feelings to the surface and then jumped into shooting to see how they would react in such circumstances. Because we were shooting with a limited amount of 16 mm film, we would run the scene once or twice just before rolling camera but just reading the lines to keep the scene as raw as possible. After a take or two, we would let go of the script as now they had the scene in their head as a guide—I would encourage them to follow their gut on where the character would go instead of the lines on the paper. The rest of the characters that appear in the film were cast during the shoot. The waiter, Jose Miguel Ross, is a cousin of mine that lives in Oaxaca and was kind enough to fill in for my missing actor and the hotel clerk was actually the clerk from the hotel where the cast and crew were staying.

Some Ruins , Jorge Granados Ross (2019)

FLMTQ: You have quite an interesting background, having worked in commercial film production in the United States and Mexico before enrolling at Columbia University's MFA program. How would you describe your journey to becoming a filmmaker yourself, and how did your past experiences inform the way you approach directing on set?

JGR: My approach on set has always been very similar, where I love to allow as much freedom as possible to the actors to bring out whatever they think best for their character, despite what the script might say. I am very open to them finding new paths that lead to the same goal, while having a guide so we don't travel to a completely different film. I started my studies in journalism but I always had a passion for film that I was afraid to follow due to the pressure of living "from the arts." But once I started my studies I realized I would never be completely happy as a journalist and decided to switch.

Film school was very formative for me as I hadn't been much of a film buff as a teenager, so I was able to discover and watch as many films and directors as possible, every day for four years. I moved to Los Angeles after graduating and started working in very different places, where I was lucky enough to find mentors in people like Emmanuel Lubezki and Rodrigo Garcia. Moving back to Mexico, I started working in advertising for a small in-house agency and production company owned by Coca-Cola. It was very freeing because they gave us very small budgets but the whole team was comprised of people in their early 20s, full of energy, and we were willing to try anything to make our ideas become possible. Here I was able to develop my "producer muscle," which would come in handy for future projects. But after some time I knew I still had a lot to learn, specifically about writing, so I decided to continue my studies at Columbia University's Film MFA. And now, after four years, I'm on my way back to Mexico where I hope I can start working on a project of my own very soon.

FLMTQ: Are you working on any new projects, and if so, can you tell us a bit about them?

JGR: Before this pandemic started, I was prepping another short film to be shot in Mexico during the summer—in fact, we would probably be shooting around this month already, and I'll try to come back at it as soon as it is safe to begin production. The film similarly deals with the deterioration of a family in the aftermath of a man leaving his wife and children—but this time the world of the film involves an unusual element. Collective panic by the people surrounding the family due to strange sightings of lights in the sky parallels the feelings of the two children as they discover the fact that their father has left them behind. For this project, it is the first time I'm using a child's point of view to tell the story and it has proven to be quite challenging but also very fun.

I'm also finishing a feature script which I hope can become my first feature project and I recently finished producing another short film for Colombian director Mariana Saffon titled Entre tú y Milagros.

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Interview by Ursula Grisham
Head Curator, Filmatique