18/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: The Argentinian filmmaker talks about the genesis of his latest feature, working with both professional and non-professional actors, and his discovery of the film's theme song

(© Dario Caruso/Cineuropa)

The Message [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iván Fund
film profile] by Argentinian director Iván Fund premiered in the competition at the 75th Berlinale. The intimate drama, shot in black and white, is a co-production between Argentina, Spain and Uruguay about a young girl who can talk to animals, and offers an intriguing approach to the concept of community and family. We asked the director about his definition of family and how he choose the main theme of the film. 

Cineuropa: Have you been inspired by real people? 
Iván Fund: Not for the part with the animal medium. But I am very lucky that my cinema family is almost my real family. I have a real bond with all the people who appear in the film. We know each other very well, so it was very easy and very interesting to put this real bond between us on the screen. The animal communication topic is something that comes from a childhood dream, that a lot of us probably have. We all dreamed at some point about having this chance of talking to animals and feeling part of this great creature community. I wanted Anika to be a bit like a Disney princess, a princess in the middle of an economic crisis and dusty roads. She is someone with a very unique gift, but in the world she lives in, it amounts merely to earning a little money to make it to the end of the month.

You leave a doubt as to whether the characters are really related to each other. Was it a way to question the classic conception of family?
Yes, exactly. When I write a screenplay, I start to figure out what kind of people the characters are, even though I won't be able to tell the absolute truth about them. I just start to guess who they are and try to express them in the best way possible. I don't want to define them. It feels like in a friendship, where you can't say what a friend really thinks or feels deep inside. Moreover, my idea of the family structure is close to the one of Hirokazu Koreeda. I think that what family really means for me is the act of being present. The characters are always balancing between truth or lies. You're never sure about their real relationship, but their feelings are very noble and very true. I believe they are saying the truth, but I wanted to give that chance to the audience to figure out what to think for itself. 

Can you say more about the cast of the film? 
Mara Bestelli and Marcelo Subiotto are both professional actors, with a lot of experience. I worked with them in my previous film Dusk Stone [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iván Fund
film profile], too. We met on that project and became friends. Anika Bootz, who plays the girl, is ten and my step-daughter. She's been living with me since she was two, so we've been in pre-production for this film for eight years! She's acting in a main role for the first time, she had some smaller parts in other films. In front of the camera and behind the camera, the cast and crew, we are a very little team. We've been working together for a couple of years now, and we know each other very well. So it's interesting the way that can translate in a fresh way onto the screen. Besides this trio, we also had non-professional actors who appeared in the roles of the pet owners. We actually found them through an open call. We asked people to send us pictures of their pets, so that we could include them in the film. 

The film is somehow a road movie, too. Where did you shoot?
We shot in Entre Ríos, in the landscapes of my childhood. It is very practical, because you can find very diverse places there and make it seem as though you shot in a very large area. For me, the film is definitely a road movie, since drama is by definition a journey, someone being on the road. 

Why did you choose the song “Always on My Mind”? 
It's a great song. I found out recently that it's the song with the most cover versions in the world. It became our song more by chance. When we rented the van we used for the shoot, at some point Anika pressed play on the CD player and that song started. It was a great scene. I ran out to get the camera and recorded it. I figured out it was just right as a comfort song for the character of Anika. It had the necessary contrast with the tone of the film. But at the same time, it was very emotional. We were lucky enough, once the film was almost finished, that when the Spanish co-producers came on board, they could figure out the rights for it.