“I was travelling from Uruguay to Argentina in a ferry, when I discovered that we had two parallel lives and that this ship was a fantastical ship which could connect these two parallel lives. It made me realize that this could also connect any two possible lives. It is an idea which I have had since ten years.” This is how Director Alex Piperno from Uruguay described the genesis of his debut feature film Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine, which had its Indian Premiere at IFFI yesterday January 17, 2021. He was addressing a press conference at the festival venue in Goa, along with Co-producer Araquen Rodriguez, on Day 3 of the 51st edition of the International Film Festival of India.
The film portrays the beauty and mystery of fantastical encounters among contrasting places and situations which are apparently unconnected with each other. The Director explained: “It is about encounters and the fantasy which one may have in staying in another place. If you find a door, you open it and go and sometimes you find it there is nothing else on the other side. So, it is about the frustrating yet liberating feeling of understanding that there is nothing else but what we are surrounded by.
Speaking about Uruguayan films, he said they are a mix of a variety of films. “I believe there should not be one national cinema, there should be many national cinemas.” He was hopeful and looking forward for shooting a film in India in the near future.
Piperno said that being a foreigner in one’s own film is a nice experience for him. “It is fun to make my own film a foreign country for myself.”
When asked what drives him to make films, this is what he had to say: “I keep collecting different ideas and images and the moment I am able to put them together without understanding why, I really enjoy this moment of being a spectator of that process ”
Araquen Rodriguez, co-producer of the film said that it was a real challenge to shoot the film, shot in two continents in four different countries over a period of two years. And now that we are here at IFFI, it makes a lot of sense and feels like a really big success.
‘Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine’, speaks about a young sailor discovering a door mysteriously leading to an apartment in Montevideo while aboard a cruise ship out at sea. The boy confronts a group of Asian farmers who finds an abandoned shed in the valley, attributing it supernatural powers.
DJM/SC/PK/IFFI-