What drew you to make a short about this encounter between the main character and the cashier?

I think ultimately it is the “insignificance of an event”, and how tragic it can be, that drew me to make this film. How something can mean so much and after many thoughts lead to just a small gesture. In this case, a boy intrigued by a rumor and a cashier giving a candy for free. Yet these “insignificant events” start creating a rhythm from which we follow the characters through the neighborhood. Bit by bit, we learn and construct ideas around them and their world. It becomes the window from which we can project other themes like statelessness, longing for connection, class relations etc. The idle sister on the balcony, the cashier and the supermarket, the stores of the wholesale district. They are part of the world I wanted to create more than the actual encounters that are fleeting at best. The relationship between the characters and the places that surround them becomes so important. This is I think what the film turns out to be about, a homage to the many lives in El Once neighborhood through the lens of my recollections.

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What do you think the future holds for short films?

I think that in a certain way, every short film is an attempt to answer that question. Or at least the ones I admire most. What I found important in the process of making Pinpin was to explore the relation between digressions and what is strictly narrative. Allowing the camera to wander and to be in places that don’t add directly to the plot of the film. Often in short films, things seem to be streamlined and hyper focussed on what pushes the plot forward. But for me rather than making a film that “works” I was interested in creating something that lingers. To create the feeling of doors opening up… So from this perspective, I would say that the power of the short comes from its experimental freedom to play with narrative, ideas and aesthetics. But inside your question I sense maybe a more urgent one: what is the place for the short film in the future? Is it the festival? Is the VOD the place? The theater? The museum? Or just a link on Vimeo or stored in an external drive? In many ways, this defines what a short film will be like. It is not the same to see something in a theater than in a gallery, or on a laptop. As COVID-19 took hold of the festivals around the world and many got cancelled, the theater and the festival came into question so the experience of a film changed. I felt suddenly the need to make different versions for online than for theatrical presentations. At the cinema, the director decides when the film starts and ends. Even when the lights go on. On a laptop the director decides when it starts, but the viewer can scroll through or quit. In a gallery, someone can come in at any point and leave at any point. In each form of presentation, the film cannot be conceived the same way. So when we ask the question about what the future brings, an answer can be found in the multiplicity of versions. A film is not only a film, but it can be a multiplicity of films, that all live somewhere in the universe of its material.

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