Victoria Rivera

Verde, Victoria Rivera (2018)

Victoria Rivera is a Colombian screenwriter and film director based in New York City. Her short documentary Skull + Bone, about New Orleans's Northside Skull and Bone Gang, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, Palm Springs, New Orleans, and Bogotá, where it won Best Cinematography. Her most recent narrative short Night Swim premiered at Tribeca, Telluride, Palm Springs, where it won Best Student Short, and Bogotá Shorts, where it won Best Fiction Film. Winner of the Student Film Award from the Directors Guild of America, Rivera's short Verde premiered at FICCI - Festival Internacional de Cine en Cartagena de Indias, Palm Springs, Latin Reel, and Bogotá Short Film Festival, where it won Best Director and Best Production Design.

Victoria Rivera participated in an exclusive interview with Filmatique as part of Talents 2020.

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FILMATIQUE: Verde traces a subtle shift in the dynamic between two sisters—Emilia and Martina—when a boy Martina's age arrives at their house.  Too young to be consumed by these aspects of adolescence, Emilia's understanding of her sister's nascent sexuality is left open to interpretation.  What led you to gravitate toward this script by Neda Jebelli?  Can you discuss what you see as the importance of registering the ambiguity and confusion of young female desire onscreen?

VICTORIA RIVERA: The script was originally written by Neda Jebelli, an American-Iranian writer who set the film in Tehran, where she spent her childhood years. I was amazed to find that my own childhood, despite cultural and geographical differences, felt exactly like the one she depicted. We worked together in adapting the script to take place in Colombia, making sure to keep the specificity and richness in details that made it feel so sensorial.

Verde aims to give an honest and intimate look into seemingly small—but never insignificant—moments in our childhood, that come to shape us. We often look at Firsts. First kiss, first love, first broken heart. But the Lasts are left to fade in our memory. I wanted to tell the story of the last time two sisters took a bath, and how that came to be. After all, these are the small ways in which we learn to be our own selves. Emilia's understanding of her sister's emerging sexuality is limited and although she doesn't totally understands what she sees, she understands that her relationship with her sister will no doubt change, now that her interests seem to have shifted.

FLMTQ: The film is very attuned to behavioral gestures, the sisters' bond articulated through small moments of intimacy, which heightens our awareness of this rupture when it occurs.  Can you discuss your casting process for Verde?  How did you work with the young actors, and specifically Samantha Medellín, to bring her character to life?

VR: Finding Samantha was a gift. We did three rounds of auditions with our amazing casting director Carlos Medina, and if I remember correctly, Samatha arrived through a family member of hers who was auditioning. When we met I asked if she had any previous experience acting and she said "Yes, I was in a school play and was cast as tree #3!" We spoke for some time and I was immediately taken by her, quickly realizing she was not only whip smart, but wholly empathetic and authentically herself. I was then delighted to see all this carry through in the scenes we read, making Emilia into a version of herself.

Our rehearsal process consisted mostly of play. We wanted to make sure the cast felt comfortable and safe with each other, to give room for vulnerability and build trust in each other, as well as in me. We focused on the emotional beats and shifts in the scenes instead of rehearsing lines, talking through key moments and finding things in our own lives to relate them to. This created a language and understanding that carried through to set, allowing our cast to feel completely immersed in their characters and comfortable with their relationships to each other. Each cast member made the character their own, and the real bonds they had formed through the rehearsal process came through in their work on screen.

Verde, Victoria Rivera (2018)

FLMTQ: The film's aesthetic is also quite distinct—from the light, airy interiors of the house, to the lush tropical gardens, and diffuse natural light cinematography—lending the film an almost tactile, feminine quality.  Can you elaborate on your aesthetic approach for Verde, as well as your collaborations with the film's set designer and director of photography?

VR: I was lucky to work with a small crew of trusted friends on this film, starting from my creative producer and close collaborator Camila Zavala, who helped me assemble our amazing team and was involved in every step of the process. Our production designer Valentina Amaral is a close childhood friend who immediately took notice of the richness in detail in Neda Jebelli's script. Valentina created a beautiful soft palette inside the home, letting the lush green setting from the natural world come to the foreground.

We were able to spend time in the location beforehand and find the settings for each of our scenes, sourcing much from the actual house where we were filming. I know Soren Nielsen, our DP, very well, being that we're married haha and we've worked together before. Knowing that we'd be filming with kids, we knew we wanted to work with natural light, to allow a certain flexibility in the workflow and a faster pace that wouldn't require a lot of time between setups. We knew we'd need a location teeming with natural light, and we were lucky enough to find it!

We referenced many of my heroes, such as Lynne Ramsey and Lucrecia Martel. We spoke of the film feeling like sense memory: vivid in sounds, sight, and touch. Like sticking a finger in jelly, or wet summer hair clinging to a t-shirt. When we are kids these senses are everything. We overthink less and explore more, so we wanted to create frames that felt more observational and allowed for the cast to inhabit them freely.

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

VR: I'm currently in post-production of a short film called Lucia that I was lucky enough to work on with some of my same collaborators, such as Camila Zavala and Soren Nielsen, as well as form new, exciting partnerships with producer Barbara Twist and production designer Juliana Barreto. The film tells the story of an 9 year old girl living in an illegal foster home, on the day of her much awaited pickup day. It's set in somewhat of a fantasy world, blending social realism and gothic undertones. I'm also in development of my first feature script, Malpelo, which was awarded a screenwriting grant by the Sloan Foundation and has been supported by Film Independent's Producing Lab, Fast Track Financing Market and most recently, by selecting me as a 2020 Screenwriting Lab and Directing Lab Fellow.

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Interview by Ursula Grisham
Head Curator, Filmatique