Alfonso Burgos Risco | Interview
CCMA : What initially sparked your passion for filmmaking?
Alfonso : From a very young age I have been involved with creating images and telling stories, although during my early years, mainly with drawing, painting and words. I have always felt that with images powerful enough to convey many complex ideas to another person. When I came to the University I met and was seduced by the idea of creating stories in time, always attending to an artistic image, which also led me to an evolution from illustration to animation. When I developed my PhD on the boundaries of documentary film (realism) and animation film (fiction) to try to describe and analyze documentary animation film, my passion for cinema found its true place.
CCMA : How do you approach securing funding for your independent projects?
Alfonso : This is the question that obsesses you the most when you try to get your projects off the ground. I think that as a director of independent film projects I can speak from experience rather than from theory, because I don't think there is a formula that you can apply infallibly (although in commercial cinema the paths are clearer). I must say that I have been able to develop my projects in the public university environment, which has its advantages and disadvantages, although I probably tend to work more and more freely and looking for a new way (each time) to move forward with the next project. I have found very different situations, from a formal and determined institutional support to carry out projects with tighter costs -like 'Pedro Cano - Travel Notebooks' to medium projects -like 'The Memory of the Hands'- to ambitious projects -like 'The Bonding Frontier'-, having a more personal experience and closer to auteur documentary auteur cinema with 'The loneliness of those who do not exist'. I think the key is to be clear about who your audience is going to be, who your partners can be and what your project can offer to make them want to finance it, but always with a balance between the three dimensions of cinema; art, business and spectacle.
CCMA : What strategies do you utilize to get your films seen by a wider audience?
Alfonso : Here the classic formulas always work positively, that is, if you can develop a great marketing campaign and your project is exhibited in good theaters and on digital platforms, we could consider that your audience horizon is quite broad. Although with independent films it is difficult to reach all those goals. Because of my connection to the university, I usually look for an academic dissemination that is still limited to this field. I usually use the linking of the project to social agents, either by the theme or by the characters in the project, they may consider it of interest and take up my cause, my point of view. Participating in festivals or competitions also adds visibility, but you have to take into account that the project can compete in these scenarios. I would keep one key for the project to work by word of mouth, that whoever has seen your project can speak well of it to someone else: you have to tell a story that deserves to be told and that excites, that entertains, that can make you laugh and cry at times. If the viewer has a good experience with your film, he or she will talk about you.
CCMA : How do you leverage social media and online platforms to connect with your audience?
Alfonso : I sincerely see the communication potential they can have, but for me they are not a related medium. The creation requires a development time and an internal tempo of the project that I find difficult to see in social networks. I don't have profiles in many of them because I consider that it is not worth the investment of time required to keep up to date, although I see much more useful video on demand platforms, free or paid, but that allow creators to show their projects without limitations of time or format. In the end, everyone has to find their own voice and the most efficient way to work, so it's easy that what doesn't work for some of us, works for others. To connect with the audience I always prefer a film club session or an open and sincere dialogue about a project and its themes, I speak in a physical or virtual situation, because I feel that the networks promote delayed dialogues that are often unmanageable and generate the bureaucracy of communication. Networks also generate directional hierarchies in the communication with your audience that are not my preference, I prefer less technological ways because the experience of projecting in a room, the reception of the audience and the dialogue about the work at the end have something unique that I have only lived with intensity in person.
CCMA : What are some of the most valuable lessons you've learned in your filmmaking journey so far?
Alfonso : That what makes the difference is to do and finish the project with passion and illusion, giving 200% in each project. I usually say that I try to make my projects telling a different, authentic story, being sincere with the subject and trying to give a positive sense, trying to include something new each time and as a whole, thinking that it's the last film project you're going to do. It's exhausting, but it makes a difference.
That you must treat all team members with respect and admiration, leading the work and being grateful for the work of others. Filmmaking is a team art that shines much brighter if the talents are aligned.
CCMA : Are you currently working on any new projects you'd like to share about?
Alfonso : I am working on a documentary animation project about the Battle of Teruel, an episode of the Spanish Civil War. It is very interesting everything that happened in this small town in Spain between December 1937 and February 1938, where Robert Cappa or Ernest Hemingway among others passed through and where personal tragedies overlapped at a time when temperatures reached -18 degrees Celsius. My intention is to recover the formula of documentary animation to bring to life the personal experiences in this context along with interviews with expert historians who can give a human vision of the drama of war, in what some have defined as the Spanish Stalingrad.
CCMA : In your opinion, what are the biggest opportunities and challenges facing independent cinema today? How do you plan to adapt your approach to distribution as new technologies emerge?
Alfonso : I think that today there are many opportunities and many creators making very interesting projects, but I think there are still many filters and lack of support for independent films. This on a more immediate level, because on a general level I think that in these times there is more and more tension on cinema about its dimension as a business, its profitability, and we are seeing films that fail at the box office, exhibition struggles in theaters and platforms, exhaustion of commercial film models... I mean by this that we are in a moment of transition, of evolution. Perhaps from now on it will be more difficult for very expensive productions to go ahead -at least without clear guarantees of return- but possibly we are heading towards a change of model.
On a more personal level, I think it is important to maintain a line of work, style and narrative over time, without turning your back on technological possibilities, but not letting yourself be carried away by fashions. That's why, to the extent that I see coherent to incorporate certain technology to a project, and it asks for it in a certain way, I take advantage of it. I run away from technology for technology's sake, applying it without thinking about how it can be coherent with respect to the story you are telling.
It is becoming less and less complex to be able to show your work and for it to reach an audience, it is easier for them to follow your work and for it to remain there for those who want to enjoy it. Maybe the new challenges for me are in 360º cinema or Virtual Reality, because they require changing the narrative and focusing the viewer's experience in a totally new sense than what we were used to with the projection screen. We are in a fascinating time in which many different aspects are hybridizing, from the influence of Cinema in advertising or video games to the very influence of social networks or AI in Cinema itself. I think the most interesting thing we can do is to live this stage by creating and exploring these constantly expanding boundaries....
