We spoke with Paraguayan director Marcelo Martinessi, whose second film, Narciso [+lire aussi :
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interview : Marcelo Martinessi
fiche film], screened in the Panorama section of the Berlinale. The film is based on the book of the same name by Guido Rodríguez Alcalá and follows Narciso, a man determined to change the way people perceive music and life in Paraguay in 1959.

Cineuropa: The film is based on historical events such as the death of Bernardo Aranda and “Case 108”. What did you keep true to reality, and where did you exercise creative freedom?
Marcelo Martinessi: My starting point was a work of fiction, which had already made its own decisions about what to take from reality and what to leave aside. Although the book had a very interesting plot, I needed to make changes to the structure and some of the characters so that it would work better as a film. For example, Dracula is barely mentioned in the novel, whereas in the film he has a strong narrative and dramatic presence. I also decided to give radio a central role — a public and private space with many rich environments in which to tell the story.

For me, two themes run through reality, the book and the film. The first is the social fabric: not only the actions of the dictator, but an entire system of silence, complicity and interests that still resonates today. The second is something particularly striking: the radio news, filled with homophobia and discrimination — broadcasts that are, in fact, taken directly from press reports from the late 1950s. The rest of the elements have been shaped to fit the film. In the end, we chose not to mention Alfredo Stroessner directly and called him El Rubio (a nickname he disliked), integrating him into the atmosphere of the film.

Often, when an artist portrays a difficult period from the past, they are also trying to say something about the present. Was it your intention to establish that dialogue with current events?
I think it’s very clear that we are at a moment when authoritarianism is resurfacing strongly in many political projects. Personally, I make very few films: this is my second film in eight years. I wouldn’t make a film that remains in the past. I wouldn’t make a historical document for its own sake. Of course, I enjoy watching documentaries and reading about history, but I believe cinema today has enormous potential to act as a bridge: to recount what happened and help us reflect so that it does not happen again. I feel that there are many countries where certain achievements are at risk, and I think it’s important to understand that the methods have changed. Today, I don't think there’s a way to make people disappear by throwing them out of aeroplanes, as happened during the dictatorship. Instead, they disappear through miserable public health systems, poor education, and the dismantling of social programmes. They are erased little by little, their lives not taken, but they disappear as people.

What are your hopes for Paraguayan audiences, for whom this is part of their history, and for viewers unfamiliar with it? What do you hope they take away from the film?
One of the biggest challenges for me was ensuring that the story wasn't confined to Paraguay —  that its universality and its reason for being could be understood anywhere. I have high hopes that the film will travel and connect with different audiences, as I felt very strongly here at the Berlinale. In Paraguay, there is great anticipation for every new film, because the film industry is still emerging. Within that anticipation lies the possibility for cinema to be understood as a space for asking questions and reflection, not just entertainment. There, cinema has focused mainly on entertainment due to the lack of cinemas and audiences, and more reflective cinema is still uncommon. With films like this, we hope to help build a different kind of audience.

The film tackles many issues such as politics, LGBTQ+ rights and music, and doesn’t easily fit into a single genre. If you had to describe Narciso to someone who doesn't know it, how would you describe it?
I approached the film as a Paraguayan noir, without using all the traditional codes of the genre. Instead of a “femme fatale”, Narciso is an “homme fatal”, someone we get to know through the eyes of the other characters. Some have described the film as a claustrophobic thriller, and I like that description. I feel that The Heiresses [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], my previous film, was very orderly, with a single storyline that was very easy to follow. It worked very well for audiences and film festivals, and that success gave us the freedom to experiment. Unlike Europe, which has a larger industry, in Paraguay we could propose something more unruly and free, and I felt it was necessary to embrace that possibility.