BEAUTIFUL YOUTH

Director's Statement

The film combines images made by the film crew on 16mm negatives with images the actors took of themselves with their own amateur devices (mini-DV/iPhone/web-cam). Of the total film, 80% of the images were shot by the film crew and 20% were taken with amateur devices.
In a world flooded with the production and consumption of all types of images, if my aim was to capture that reality meticulously, I could not ignore the production and consumption formats, places and forms of those images. Each technology implies a psychological distance. It is the distance of the observer with respect to the one being observed. In this film, there are some scenes in which this distance does not exist because it is produced by the actor himself (the observer and the one observed overlap).
In this film, Ingrid was essential. She not only played the main character but also set the tone for all the other actors’ performances. She was not just a member of the band; instead, she was the musician the others followed.
To play the part of Natalia, I wanted an actress with a broad dramatic range. An actress with a strong personality capable of bringing a variety of nuances to the character. Someone with a lot of light, joy, and friendliness but also with a dark, determined, and decisive side. She needed to be partly naïve and partly mature. Very few people possess all these qualities. It is very hard for any actress to truly create a performance with two starkly different poles. Ingrid is quite intuitive in her technique. She has huge natural talent. She makes acting look easy because she is extremely self-assured. Fortunately, she is not satisfied to just do a scene; she aims to achieve excellence, to give her very best.