‘When Big People Lie’ Director Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz: Interview

AS A CHILD, You Usually Don’t Have the Option to Possess Your Own Agency. Howver, in the case of a Young Dominican American Boy, he must Choose between telling the Truth or Lying to Protect the Livelihood of Those He Loves. Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz’s Big People LieCo-Written by Pablo Cervera and Produced by the Afi Conservatory, Follows an Eight-Yaar-Old Boy Named Elvis (Kaden Quinn) Whose Mother, Lola (Sasha Merci), Has Arranged a Lucrative For-Profit Mortay Money Woes. When an immigration agent (Diane Sargent) coma to the legitimacy of the Union, the Future of Elvis and his mother’s life of poverty hangs in the balance.

Big People Lie Has the Rounds at the Telluride Film Festival, the Indy Shorts International Festival, The New York Latino Film Festival, the Boston Film Festival, the Sony Filmaker Awards and the Hispanic Film Festival showcase. Here, Deadline Speaks to Fernández-Ruiz About His Experience with the Immigrant Struggle and the Importance of Cross Ethnic Storytelling.

Deadline: Where did the concept of the short come from?

Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz: It came from so many borrowed narratives of People I GREW up with. The reality is, i saw it in my own home – Green Card Marriages. I try to be real protective over, but that the heart of it. There was this industry of People who were in Boston in the ’90s. It was like, if you need Money and Your Job wasn’t cutting it, this was going to bring you an Extra $ 5k. SO, I THINK THAT WAS REALLY THE START OF IT – LOOKING AT Something I Experienced and Feeling the Need to Crack that Open.

Deadline: There’s not a lot of dialogue in the film. How did you find caden Quinn and Work with Him to Convey Such Heavy Concepts?

Fernández-Ruiz: I GOT A DOPE CASTING Director (Alan Luna). He is Also a Producer (of some of my Other Projects). He just cracked open the whole world. That was the tough thing; I had in mind these People I have already gone to lunches and dinners with. Sasha (Merci) and of Had Already Met; She’s Dominican, SO She’s in My Community. Faruk (Amireh), i Asked a Friend if they know People who were Palestinian and Could Connect me with saying. She introduced with to a stand-up chomedian, and i was charmed by his energy. But, in terms of finding kids, i didn’t know any kids here in la.

SO, Our Casting Director Put Out this Massive Call. It was around 700 Kids or so, and we boiled it down to about 200. And a lot of this kids are good but get to the final 10 was important Because of saw all of the kids in person and tok say over afi. We Sat Down with Sasha, Where I Asked Her to Help Me Choose, Sine Whichever Kid We Picked Was Going to Be the Child Who Played With Her. We Needed that chemistry. I HAD MY DP (MKO Malkhasyan Miko) Record All the Interactions so i Could See in Real time what the chemistry beuld be like.

Kaden came in, and he spoke About his Grandfather, Who Had Passed Away, and He Got SO Emotional. He Sucked All the Air Out of the Room. This Kid Brought so much gravity to the piece. He was so raw, and he shook sasha to her core. SO, Watching Those Two Interact With Each Other, That’s Wen i Knew.

Deadline: Kaden’s Character, Elvis, Has a Lot Going on. He’s Afraid and Going to Lose Memories of His Incarcerated Father, while Also processing his mother with other men, this is a sham arrangement for Money. He tends to like to be the situation in the ocean. Can you talc more about what elvis is going through?

Fernández-Ruiz: There’s a lot there. My Father was incarcerated. I have Photographs of My Faater and Me. He’s in a jumpsuit that he looks Fly in – he rolled up the sleeves. The Photo That We Took (at the prison) was us inside of a library study, by this fireplace. I do? And in (looking back at this Photo), i is that that the study looked opulent but also plastic. I do? But it was a prison backdrop that they put in the visitation room. That was something something brought to this film, which is quite poetic. You have a kid with a lapsing memory.

SO MUCH OF THIS Idea of ​​Water in Relationship to the Kid, in One Way, is to (Represent) Suffocting and Drowning, and in Another Way, Being Baptized and Turning Into a Man, Essentially, and Figering Out What Means. The in-between is this this lapsing memory, these are that are that are doing in and out of what an eight -ear-op Holds and the collection of His Life. IT’S TRYING TO PROCESS THAT HAS HAS THECE MEMORIES OF THIS GUY, HIS FATHER, WHO Never Came Back. Then he pairs that with the new memory of this guy, with whom his mom dosesn’t have a great relationship, Because she’s resisting what this person really wants, what is a partnership. SO, he’s navigating the space of thinking that he’s finally getting the chance to have an actual Father, but it’s not real.

Deadline: Your short features a Latina Citizen offering a means to get a green card to a Palestinian man. Consider all the news going on the about immigration, how you want you think your short play on what’s going on around the Country?

Fernández-Ruiz: I didn’t intend to be (related to what’s going on currently). And i think that what makes this experience unique. Twen i made this, i was work from a perspective that felt true to my own borrowed narratives from my own childhood. I HAD FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DID GREEN Card Marriages. My mom happy to work at a suppliture with a bunch of Palestinians. That concept of the leading characters being dominican and Palestinian was always there. Once, i got this note from a sundance film festival Employee, and they gave with this note that was like, “This isn’t really … will we really need this?”

Be made the short, all of that stuff was set in motion. And actually think that it really empowered the story acroSs Ethnic storytelling and cross-racial by showing that is what the world look like. SO OFTEN WE TELL STORIES THAT I THINK CAN PIGEONHOLE US AS PEOPLE OF COLOR.

Janicza Bravo Came in and Told “White” Stories UNIL Eventually She Did Zola. Or you have the opposite, where you have the stories that are told from this single perspective that specific to culture, and with the training, I think a movie over-focus on those cultural as opposed to trying to honor what Experience is and what and what Characters are, Thelefore Going Through. SO, I THINK THAT WITH WITH Big People LieCross-Ethnic, Cross-National Storytelling is What Makes It Such A Powerful and Relevant Story to Everything That’s Going on Today. I didn’t know that all this stuff would be happening today.

I do not tell the story so that I can be be a social impact storyteller. I think that you’n you’re black or caribbean or when you’re from a Different place, there’s this onus. Especilantly you have you out skin color, there is more that People are just constantly teling you have had a responisibility to the pantheon. Or to the annals of cultural history becuse we have haven’t had the opportunity to be the Ones Being the Camera and Owning the image that we’re creating. But i wasn’t look at the political landscape and going oh, i’m going to tackle that.

Deadline: What Wold You Like Audiences to Take Away from Your Short?

Fernández-Ruiz: This is where it gets dicey. This movie does Belong in the political space in a way. One Might Look at it and Ask, “Who are these People? Where do they Belong?” And at the end of the day, elvis is american. Lola came to this country and obtained citizenship, but she wasn’t born here. That’s not Clear in the short film, but the genesis point of my story is that my owing mum is an immigrant who got her citizenship, and i had other family who used toirs as a point of sale, which is Wild. But ultimately, this movie is really a story about a boy and his motherstanding how he needs to show up in this world just say, and there are the relationships arc to a different dynamic. The core of this film is that i’m a boy, and my mom is doing everything she can to take me. I WOULD LIKE AUDIVENItors to Think About Their Moms. Now that they can discuss what’s happy in the landscape of immigration and all the other isher that are unfolding, in adding to the person’s personal relationships with their mothers, fatherrs, or whover that person is.

You know what i’m saying? Children Face Numerous Pressures in Situations Like These, Regardless of Whether they are Citizens or Non-Citizens. When it is comes to policy, there’s an oversimplification of like, “Oh, well, this person should have come to this count in the first place. Keep the family together. Immigrants Are Contribution to this Country and Its Fabric in Ways that we can’t see. SO MUCH IS FOCUED ON THE NEGATHER OF IT ALL. While it was at the center of the process of making it, it was always a movie that brohaache the conversation of Class, immigration, and immigrants, as well what they bring to America in a country design for immigrants. I think in relation to a Kid’s innocence and Having to face things, now they have to compromise their innocence to the answer for the Things that they did, basically. Nobody’s a Saint.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)