Interview: Catarina de Cèzanne - Director of "After Link" (Question 3)

ROFFEKE: The team includes British Rebecca Pilkington in the art department (“Eternals” and “The Danish Girl”), the propsmaster Hungarian Ilka Selmeczy (“Dune”) and Head of Locations Tony Frew (“The Poor Things”, “Gladiator”, “Mister Mayfair” and “That Good Night”), for sound, Sérgio Botelho (“Duros de Roer” and “Um Filme do Caraças”). Briefly, how did you manage to bring together such a diverse and experienced group of creatives?

CATARINA: Everybody is desperate for work, especially now that A.I. is taking over. It is not a secret that Portugal's unemployment rate has reached historic lows, and most local professionals leave the country in search of better opportunities. Therefore, I knew that finding local crew members would be incredibly challenging, especially for an indie low-budget film.

Meanwhile, many foreign film professionals are looking at Portugal to work because of the weather and the low cost of living outside of the capital. I believe there has been some progress in building potential film hubs and studios as well, depending on foreign investment.

So, in 2023, I designed a Crew Call Out poster and spread it across facebook, instagram, LinkedIN and Stage 32; and in less than a few weeks, I received more than fifty replies. I’m not an influencer and I’m not super popular on social media either. I honestly believe the success of this Call Out was due to the fact that everybody loves Sci-Fi and found it, overall, a cool project idea. People online only knew the tone was Sci-Fi, mysterious, and that it tackled a modern topic, “A.I.” and the existential theme that they both end up stuck between the opposite sides of the screen.

Our Art Director Rebecca Pilkington, who worked on The Danish Girl, The Cure for Wellness, Kingsman, Eternals and many other titles, is now in Portugal available to work. We can say the same about Tony Frew, who is also based in Portugal now and was our Locations Manager and used to work on the first Gladiator and Mister Mayfer. Our Hungarian props-master Ilka Selmeczy is based in Spain, also very close to Portugal and available to work in both countries. We also had crew members from Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. Our production designer, Gastão Travado, was incredibly valuable as well and is based in Lisbon. Some of our crew flew to Portugal to work on set, while others worked in our post-production from home, such as Hazem Amin, Heather Pettit, Matthew Robson and Làszló Adams. I recommend them all, and I am deeply grateful for having them all in my team.

For a first-time unknown director, the idea of bringing together an international team from so many different countries looks impossible. The key is communication; after capturing their interest, listen to what everyone's individual needs are and try to match them. Some might need to include a portuguese film in their resumé to expand their work territory, others might see it as a test to evaluate some other person they want to join venture with, others might just see this as an opportunity to expand their network, others perhaps want to move on from drama and are curious about doing Sci-Fi instead, others perhaps only want to have their first time working in an international team with long-run professionals. As a director, I am not trying to convince them of my success; instead, I need to make sure they’re listened to and that I can confidentially offer what they actually need. It will never be about “my” success but about “our” success, together.

(Look out for more of Catarina's answers to my questions:
Question 4 - In another interview, you say that at first, After Link "was supposed to be an interactive film, and we'd still like to try to make it. It's possible with the technology we have now. The idea would be for the person to be able to access scenes from the film that were cut, talk to the actors in real time, access certain content that the viewer only knows exists through the Easter eggs that we hide in the film. The goal would be for us to build a community of sci-fi and horror through this real-time interaction with the audience." You also mention that "Heather Pettit, who works in video games, created our ghost."  If you were to make a video game of After Link, what would be the objective of the game, the game mechanics, etc?

Question 5 -  I like your explanation of why you set the film in the 90s, maybe because I grew up in the 90s: "Because our generation is a haunted generation from the 90s. We grew up playing in the street, climbing trees, and suddenly came the Internet, MSN, Hi5. It was a very rapid progression, and we forever have this nostalgia for that world that will never come back. I miss the things that were palpable. It was essential that it be a retrofuturistic film because it's the style I want to grab, if possible, into all my films. It marks our generation, which we feel is a lost generation." Setting your film in the 90s, essentially makes it a period film. What challenges did you face (or what "aha!" moments did you have) in ensuring that the film was true to the 90s?)