Luciano Cáceres, who stars in the apocalyptic horror thriller “The nest”with its premiere this Thursday in cinemas, evaluated that genre cinema in the country “grew up a lot” from the impulse of the festivals, the demand of the platforms and, above all, because “being a little scared is something that becomes a universal interest”.
The co-production between Italy and Argentina encompasses a plot of confinement in which the characters played by Cáceres and the Italian Blu Yoshimi They face a film thought within science fiction prior to the coronavirus, but which after the pandemic looks like a film with a theme from the near past.
The plot follows an 18-year-old girl (Yoshimi) from an upper-class family and a volunteer played by Cáceres who get locked up together in a shelter during a quarantine while outside a viral outbreak turns people into zombies.
“There is a very emotional work behind it to make this madness credible, because we don’t see anything that happens outside, and all that had to be sustained without even showing a window what was happening.”Luciao Caceres
Italian debut feature Matthias Temponiwith a script written in 2015, “The Nest” is an apocalyptic confinement thriller that was designed in Rome as a science fiction film but after filming in the first half of 2020 in full isolation due to the coronavirus and being released now, it loses a bit its original character to become a pandemic film.
The parsimonious pace of the first half of the film, in which they introduce the calm volunteer who is medically assisting the young woman, infected by a bite, contrasts with the second part of the film, in which a game of mistrust and intrigue guide the plot. towards its resolution through a great work of art direction, photography and makeup.
“The script came to me in May 2019 and related it to science fiction, but in 2020 the filming set was with all the sanitary decoration that was happening in the pandemic. All that seemed so strange to me to be with all the time chinstrap, latex gloves and the entire process that the character went through to sanitize occurred upon entering the studio in Rome and was even more extreme than what happened in the film.Beyond the fact that the virus is different, what it is doing is very visionary. wrote Temponi years ago”recounted Cáceres in dialogue with Télam.
The actor, who in the last Martín Fierro won the award for best leading role in the telenovela “La 1-5/18”, explained that “preparing for the role was different from everything else” because since he could not travel to Rome because of the sanitary restrictions, she had to rehearse via videoconference with her co-star and the director.
– How was the method to make a film about a pandemic during a pandemic?
– Who would have thought that we were going to be in quarantine after reading that script? It took me about four months to be able to travel between permits from one side to the other, with closed borders and no flights to Europe. You couldn’t even move from city to city in Italy in the first half of 2020: those who were in Rome were the only ones who could be there. Until all the permits came out and after being stored for five months in my house, I came to a first quarantine in an apartment in Rome until I could start working. And the entire rehearsal process during those five months consisted of working on the script three times a week with the director and the actress via Zoom. Both had been infected, so it was counting the quarantine of each one from a distance. Then, when we arrived and after having a couple of rehearsals, we directly started shooting. I was in a Rome without tourists… I had been to all the tourist places before, but it was full of people. In this case, after filming I was going to have an ice cream at the Trevi Fountain just because there were no tourists.
– In a confinement film like this, the central thing is the interaction with your co-star, how was the work with her to consolidate a duo that needed to carry out the entire story?
– We were very close because we lived together for seven weeks and all the previous one. Besides, we were the only ones who could have contact. It was all filmed chronologically, so that was good. It was very intense, it is a film with two actors, an acting duel, which proposes to be an accomplice in all this delirium and make it believable, which I think is quite well achieved. In addition, it was decided that the film be made in Spanish to expand the market because the Italian language is only spoken in Italy, so there was a lot of work with the actress and her Spanish. We were living scene by scene almost: quarantined from a distance and without knowing each other, talking three times a week, telling each other every day.
– How did you find that calm and parsimonious tone of the character, which adds tension?
– It’s a bit of the complicity of the genre, counting little by little who this guy is. There is a very emotional work behind it to make this madness credible, because we don’t see anything that happens outside, and all that had to be sustained without even showing a window what was happening. For me, the film has to do with the relationship of two strangers with totally different interests and how a forced coexistence will bring out the best and the worst in each one.
– Lately you had several roles in horror movies, what interests you about the genre?
– I have fun working in different genres. It generates a lot of interest to me because it is key when it comes not only to create a character but also to work on and understand the genre, and one does not do as well in a horror one as in a soap opera. There is something that is changing, because you have to be an accomplice of the genre beyond what you think your character does.
– Do you notice that Argentine cinema is going through a moment of expansion in terror?
– The genre has grown a lot and there are many filmmakers who are focused on it. On the one hand, the growth of the (Buenos Aires) Rojo Sangre, which is increasingly installed as a festival and then the number of festivals in the world, which means that it is no longer a minor genre. Great directors are directing the genre and with a lot of production and structure. The platforms are also interested in terror. Being a little scared is something that becomes a universal interest.
