Yo no soy un hombre, ni un poeta, ni una hoja, pero sí un pulso herido que sonda las cosas del otro lado. Federico García Lorca: Poema doble del lago Eden, 1930
Sergi Castellà (born 24 May 1984) is a Spanish film director and screenwriter based in Red Hook, New York. Born in Barcelona, Sergi studied drama and began his career in television before transitioning into film. He has directed two short films: Tu Niño (2021) and Un Trabajo de Verano / A summer job (2022). Tu Niño premiered at Filmets 2022 (Badalona) winning an award for Best Production and has since won Best Experimental Short Film at Hollywood Shorts Fest, Best Short Narrative at Dumbo Film Festival, Honourable Mention at Hong Kong International Short Film Festival, Best Narrative Short Film at Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival and showed in Odense at OFF23 and many other film festivals around the world. Un Trabajo de Verano / A summer job premiered at New Orleans Film Festival 2023 and won Best Narrative Short Award (Oscar®-qualifying category). Sergi’s films explore themes such as personal growth and cultural in betweens. They are typically marked by poetic overtones and sometimes magical realism as well as a cathartic use of music. He has directed commercials for Nike, Adidas, Hermès, Loewe, Aston Martin, Audi, Lexus and Hyundai amongst others. @sergicastella
Sergi, what inspired you to tell this particular story about a son trying to connect with his distant father? Moving to Los Angeles in 2017, 12.000Km away from my home (Barcelona) and my family. That gave me a new perspective into our relationships that inspired me to write this film and start challenging them so we could all grow with it. How did you first come across Yiyo, known as one of the best flamenco dancers in the world? And why did you decide it was him you wanted to portray the main character in your film? My friend Ilduara told me about El Yiyo when we were discussing this idea. He is from Badalona, a city next to the neighbourhood where I grew up, and he is one of the most beautiful flamenco dancers I've ever seen. I also tend to work with non actors in my practice so I got really excited about the challenge of working with him. My friend Lourdes got us in touch and the rest is history.. El Yiyo and I had a very special connection since the beginning and I feel very honoured we got to work on this film together.
Can you speak to the significance of using flamenco dancing and the "taconeo" as a visual and auditory motif throughout the film?
The main character of the film is feeling culturally far from home and flamenco was a clear way of visually bringing that to the character. Flamenco is also a spiritual form of art, and the rhythm of the "taconeo" from his boots helped me walk his character into the spiritual transformation he experiences in the film in a musical and visual way. I was also very fortunate to work with Paco (El Niño de Elche) who created the right tone for the soundtrack, giving the depth I was looking for to the journey of Tu Niño.
How did you come up with the artistic vision for the film, with such stunning visuals, and how were you able to bring it to life on screen?
I wanted the film to be a bit of a journal of the character's experience in LA so I could explore his cultural clash with the US. So we took him to the places where Cris Trenas (Producer) and I used to go to and shot him in ways that felt poetic to us. Most of the crew were my friends from Barcelona who came to LA to help me shoot it: Julieta Lasarte (AD), Cris Quer (Stylist), Teresa Montanuy (PD), Uri Barcelona (DP), Alberto Ojeda (Steady)and that made the process pretty authentic because we were all having the same experience as Tu Niño. William Blanc (Cream) and the producers at Agosto gave us some money and Caviar helped logistically so we could shoot 35mm on Panavision. ¡Un sueño! (A Dream come true!)
