Perverse Uchronia* / Regina Coyula

Jorge Enrique Lage interview with Miguel Coyula (fragments) 7

Miguel Coyula: So after editing it in Miami [the novel Red Sea, Blue Sea] I sent it out to Union Publishers and also ICAIC Publishers, but this is already four years ago.

The universe of this novel, post-apocalyptic, with genetic manipulation, strongly influenced by the science-fiction anime, later became Red Cockroaches and right now Blue Heart.

…In Blue Heart, Fidel Castro has undertaken an experiment in genetic engineering to construct the New Man and to save his life’s work, his project. These experiments result in failures: they result in individuals with psychological disorders, but very intelligent, which, once they are rejected by the regime that created them, they unite to destroy it. In this alternative future the system is very similar to that in China, which continues to say it is socialist, but behind the facade is brutal capitalism.

[I have been filming Blue Heart for] five years. What I don’t have in money I put in in time: hours in front of the computer to virtually build the universe that could never be built in physical reality, in ordinary filming without permits and extras.

Every time I have approached institutions to ask for money they have rejected me. The people who have become patrons of my films have approached me on their own. This is important, because when it is you who knocks on the doors, you have to be willing to accept compromises.

It is very difficult for me to sell a project because the script is constantly changing. The script is no more than a map, a skeleton without flesh, and this skeleton could change itself into an unknown creatures because, being a long process, I end up using mutations of everything that happens around me to integrate that into the narrative. It’s about filming with the same freedom as a writer have, having an idea and writing.

…more and more I choose not to go out into the street: I record the actors against a green screen

In the street, once you set up a tripod you have ten or fifteen minutes of impunity before they come to interrogate you. You may have more time, but you have to have studied the location and rehearsed the actors to be able to film very quickly. It’s the only want to have any certainty when you are filming without permission. And if the location is very complicated you have to resort to digitally unifying the different scenes and actors. The film crew is just me and my partner, Lynn Cruz. So because I don’t have the money I have to put in the time.

*From Wikipedia: Uchronia refers to a hypothetical or fictional time-period of our world, in contrast to altogether fictional lands or worlds. A concept similar to alternate history but different in the manner that uchronic times are not easily defined (mainly placed in some distant or unspecified point before current times), sometimes reminiscent of a constructed world. 

Site Manager’s note: Once all the fragments of this interview are translated (by different volunteers) we will unite them in order, in a single post.