TELL US ABOUT THE INITIAL IDEA FOR THE PROJECT AND HOW IT WAS DEVELOPED INTO THE JOY?

FELIPE BRAGANÇA THE JOY is a film about youth in a city full of violent energy, ghosts and danger, mixed with the ideals of pleasure and paradise. The idea was to talk about the feelings of our generation and our teen imaginary, mixing realistic elements with a poetic and free-minded narrative. I did research on blogs and social websites, and read a lot of juvenile adventure literature of the 19th century during the screenwriting process, to find the dreamy atmosphere I was looking for.

MARINA MELIANDE THE JOY is the second part of a trilogy about modern youth and the teenage reality of our days, that was completed after our first feature (a no-budget, experimental film called THE ESCAPE OF THE MONKEY WOMAN shown in Competition at the 2009 Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present), and before the third installment, which is now in post-production (called NEVERQUIET). We’ve been working on THE JOY for the last three years, thinking about nowadays’ youth universe and the ways to represent it on screen, in a poetic and innovative way where joy could actually have a leading role.

HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH THE ACTORS?

MM We love working with non-professional actors and mixing professionals into the cast. It was a pleasure to discover the identity of each character in the process of directing, especially in a film with a group of teenagers as protagonists. We spent three months looking for the perfect actors to work with. We really lucked out with Tainá Medina, a 15-year-old, who had the energy we needed to create our “super-hero” Luiza, the protagonist. After casting was complete, we started a five-week intensive workshop with the actors to find the kind of acting we had in mind for the film.

FB In the beginning, the actors didn’t have direct contact with the script. We conducted rehearsals based on improvisational exercises to create intimacy between the boys and girls. After that, we started working on the dialogue and specific scenes as they were written in the script, but in a method where we, the directors, used to read the dialogues to the actors like a “bed time storytelling”. The idea is to make them feel the dialogues as part of a fluid poem, and not a closed document to be followed.

TALK ABOUT YOUR CINEMATIC INFLUENCES FOR THE JOY.

FB THE JOY is a film about the capacity to create poetry from a world full of nostalgic and apocalyptic ideals. Many filmmakers and films were important for us in creating the atmosphere and narrative. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s work, like “Tropical Malady”, was very important to us. There was also Jia Zhag-ke`s “Unknown Pleasures”, Terrence Mallick`s “The New World”, Miazaky Chihiro`s “Journey”, and the classic teenage films from the 80’s directed by John Hughes. And of course, my partnership with Karim Ainouz (Suely in the Sky / Love for Sale), as a screenwriter and assistant, was influential for us; especially in the intense way he works with professional and non-professional actors.

MM We always talked about mixing classic cinema genres with contemporary cinema references. We would discuss mixing Pedro Costa’s work with John Hughes’, or Jia Zhang-kes’, or Nicholas Ray’s. The timing, the climate, and the texture of the film were all thought to be in this interface surface of the images: between the vanguard language research, the critic reading of classical youth, and the teenage genres films and their universe.

TALK A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR DEVELOPMENT AND PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE IN FILM. HOW WAS IT COLLABORATING ON A FILM?

FB I am now 29 years old and I’ve directed thee award-winning shorts (two with Marina), and an experimental digital feature (THE ESCAPE OF THE MONKEY WOMAN) presented in Locarno last year. As a screenwriter and assistant, I’ve worked with Karim Ainouz since 2005 on films and a TV series. I am now collaborating as a screenwriter with some of the Brazilian New Wave directors. I’ve worked with Marina since we were in college and I think my way of creating characters, images and intensity with the actors, combined with her great capacity of organizing ideas and rhythm, is a complementary partnership.

MM I have been working as a director and picture and sound editor since 2002. I made two award-winning shorts and edited more than 40 films. Between 2007 and 2008 I studied and worked at the audio-visual studio laboratory Le Frenoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains – in France. The fact that I am a film editor and Felipe is a screenwriter allows us to divide the directing duties in a natural and collaborative way