La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis (The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis), interview with Francisco Márquez and Andrea Testa

Film still of La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis (The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis) © Federico Lastra

La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis (The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis) is competing for the Caméra d’or in Un Certain Regard. The first film by Argentine filmmakers, Francisco Márquez and Andrea Testa, tackles the theme of the lack of “normal” people’s involvement in emergency situations .

What inspired you to begin work on this film?

Our film is an adaptation of the novel by Humberto Costantini, an Argentinean author who was an active member of the revolutionary left wing in the 70s here in Argentina. The first thing that attracted our attention was that the book’s approach to the military dictatorship, which in our country was especially bloody with 30,000 people disappeared, wasn´t from the point of view of a militant or a soldier, like it was historically in Argentinean cinema, but from that of an office worker who lives waiting for a promotion and watching his children grow up, alienated from the political situation that is bleeding the country. Francisco Sanctis is part of the so-called “silent majority”, a sector of the population that, because of their passivity, played a key role in the consolidation of the military project.

The film isn´t seeking any kind of judgment about this segment of the population, it would be unfair for us to do that because we didn’t experience that time of paralyzing terror. Instead, the film tries to bring into question how we relate as individuals to the social reality that surrounds us. During the process, there was a phrase that accompanied us a lot “It is not about what history has done with us but what we can do with all that history has given us”. In this way, the conflict of our main character is very topical and universal.

Please describe your working method and the atmosphere on set. Anecdotes welcome.

We started the shooting with intense work upstream. With the low budget that we had and with the type of film that we wanted to make, it was essential to forecast. That doesn’t mean that the reality of the set hasn’t changed us at all. We created a shooting schedule that would respect the chronology of the film as much as we could. That was very important for us, so that we could accurately calibrate the dramatic arc with the main character’s emotional work. But that was very problematic in terms of productivity, because we had to kill all our interior sets in the first week of shooting. To top it all, we had three weeks of rain out of the five weeks of shooting. Because it was intermittent, we were able to keep filming, but we also had a wet floor in several scenes.

In one of the film’s very important scenes, the rain was so intense that we thought we would have to cancel the day. Our main character had to call his wife from a phone booth, probably a farewell call before his journey to death. We were all under a small tent, waiting for the pouring rain to stop. When everything looked like it wasn’t going to stop and we had to end the day, the rain suddenly stopped, we heard a strange sound and the sky turned completely green. We looked up and a huge meteorite was crossing the night sky of Buenos Aires. We all remained rooted to the spot, looking up at that phenomenon in silence. Once it had ended, we applauded and got ready to shoot one of the most important scenes of the film.

Please share a few words about your actors

Diego Velázquez is our main character, he is in almost all of the scenes. He is an actor that has had an important career in independent theatre in Argentina. He has also recently had an important role in an Argentinean TV show, an adaptation of a novel by one of the most important writers in Argentina, “Los siete locos” (The Seven Madmen) by Roberto Arlt. Diego is an actor who is deeply involved in the creative process.

His job was very difficult because his character has information that worries him but that he has to hide at the same time. He had to contain his emotions whilst expressing them at the same time. Diego is a real cinema enthusiast, and we talked with him a lot about the aesthetics of the film which he understood very well. He had to adapt his acting to the atmosphere.
Those who have seen the film emphasize that the military dictatorship in it is offscreen; we believe that it is inside Francisco Sanctis’ body.

What are your views on the state of the film industry in your country?

First of all, at the moment, a significant number of films are being produced in Argentina. The aid from the government, through the INCAA (Argentine National Film Board), makes an important contribution to the making of these films. The problem is with the distribution. People in Argentina want to watch films made here, but the government doesn’t promote an active policy for that. It’s paradoxical because the State invests in films that then have to compete with Hollywood blockbusters. We are convinced that better protection in the distribution of national cinema is necessary and for that, it is inevitably necessary to confront the powerful interest of the American majors. Until now, no government has been willing to do that.