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Meet the Filmmaker: Guillermo Roques, “Eugene & Anastasia Lovestory”

Eugene & Anastasia Lovestory | https://vimeo.com/errequeerrevideos

PoqWARXWxR2R0wrIs7uKQh7LzIZ_60uzqd_LJpM9G_oMeet Guillermo Roques. Guillermo will be screening Eugene & Anastasia Lovestory, a short film starring married couple Eugene and Anastasia, at the February EFP. Eileen sat down with him in advance of the screening to learn more about his unique film and discuss the other projects he currently has in the works.

EA: Why did you become a filmmaker?

GR: I consider myself more a scriptwriter than a filmmaker. But, because of my origins (Spain) and the lack of a solid cinematographic industry in that country, I had to start filming on my own to see how the stories looked like in a real screen. That was about 8 years ago. After that I’ve become more involved with filmmaking, mostly documentaries.

EA: What are we going to see at the EFP? Has it screened elsewhere and what are your plans for it?

GR: Eugene & Anastasia Lovestory was a request done by Eugene and Anastasia. They were going to get married last year and they asked me to film a short story with them, so they could screen it during the wedding. I sent them 3 different storylines. They picked up one. I sent them the final script and then we shot in one day and a half . I had to edit it in one week.
Maybe the most curious thing about this video is that Eugene and Anastasia are originally from Russia; I’m from Spain, as well as the other two crew members that worked on the video (Rosa, as scriptwriter, and Luisa, as producer assistant). We tried to film it in an American style and was based in Denver. So you could easily consider this short-film as a Spain-Russia-USA co-production.

EA: What else are you working on?

GR: Right now I´m working on a documentary with a local photographer (Greg Friedler), and trying to adapt to an “American context” a few scripts awarded back in Spain.

EA: Tell us one weird thing about you and/or your movies?

GR: I usually work with really small crews. Sometimes just by myself. I love all kind of cinematographies (classic Hollywood cinema, South-korean mainstream movies, Neo-realism, Romanian, Check, Greek movies, subjective documentaries -like Mekas or Marker, etc). I think that cinema is a universal language but also a very diverse language. For me, this is one of the best things about it. That´s the reason why some of my works differ so much one from another. I would love to express myself in as many diverse ways as cinema language allows.

EA: Where can people go to find out more about you and your work?

GR: I don´t have a website. I have some of my most recent stuff uploaded in vimeo. For example this two documentaries: https://vimeo.com/76120048 and https://vimeo.com/28949002.

EA: Is there anything you’d like to say about The Emerging Filmmakers Project?

GR: I think that The Emerging Filmmakers Project is a great initiative. It is always refreshing to see what everybody else is doing and to network with people that have the same interests and the same passion.

Eugene & Anastasia Lovestory will screen February 20th at The Emerging Filmmakers Project.