"El diablo fuma" wins the award for best first feature at the Berlinale

The 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, the Berlinale, has awarded this Saturday as Best First Feature El diablo fuma (y guarda las cabezas de los cerillos quemados en la misma caja), the first feature film by Ernesto Martínez Bucio, alumnus of the fourth promotion of Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola. This is the first film developed in EQZE to achieve recognition at the Berlinale.

How are you feeling at the moment? Good. Very happy. Trying to come back down to earth and start thinking about our new projects. El Diablo Fuma still needs a push. We need to do certain things for the upcoming festivals, but it’s already out there, so we need to think about the new films. I’m with my family now, spending many hours with my parents because it’s been a long time since I could live peacefully with them.

What did you expect from the film’s participation in a new section of such an important festival as the Berlinale? I wanted the film to begin its journey in a competitive section because these sections always get the most attention. This would benefit the film, allowing it to reach a bigger audience. That was my expectation, but I didn't know how things would go, it being a new section. It exceeded my expectations, to be honest. Berlinale made a smart move to create the Perspectives section. They gave it a lot of promotion, and we had good media coverage. This is really helpful, especially for a film like ours, a small, intimate and honest production but which also has quite a daring narrative and aesthetic proposal. I think we’ll be able to get a good commercial release. People connect well with the film. I think we should have more confidence in the audience, they're smarter and more sensitive than many people realise.

Duas vezes João Liberada, the film of Paula Tomás Marques, one of your fellow students at the School, was also part of the selection. Yes, that’s right. It reflects well on EQZE. They’re definitely doing something right in that incubator of new film worlds. I didn't get to see the film, but I’m sure it’s fantastic and I’m delighted it was at Berlinale.

Was the School essential for the development of your project? Without a doubt. It was fundamental. My main project for the Master’s was rewriting the film’s script. We already had authorised funding from FIDECINE and pre-authorised funding from EFICINE for another version of the script, but I felt it wasn’t the film I wanted to make. So I decided to apply to EQZE, and I was lucky to be accepted. And I was even luckier still when Michel Gaztambide was assigned as my tutor. Michel is a great teacher, an excellent script doctor and an even better person. I already consider him a friend. Karen Plata joined the tutorials, because we co-wrote the script together. So, our four hands tweaked the text so many times that we don’t remember who wrote what scene, and so the film came into being, and which I always say is co-authored. And all the classes I had influenced the directing I did later on. At EQZE I realised it was possible to make another kind of film, one that seeks to push the boundaries of film language a little. I felt I had to ‘unlearn’ how to make a film to create the film’s own language, with its own rules. Every teacher I had gave me an arsenal of tools that helped me shape El Diablo Fuma. I fondly remember the classes given by Mariano Llinás, Xabier Erkizia, Ramón Andrés, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Carlos Muguiro, Radu Jude and Michel Gaztambide. I also met Mikele Landa, a fellow student in the same course, a very smart, sensitive and talented person who became one of my best friends and a great ally. Mikele was our script supervisor for the film, but she was involved in a lot more than that. She went to the rehearsals with the kids, was by my side at each take, explained how to pluck a hen, and we laughed and cried together.

And what now? Well, enjoy ourselves a bit, and do some work too. And feel proud of what we’ve achieved. The film took us almost seven years to make and we have to continue to promote it, but we also need to start letting it go to fall in love with another project. I hope this will open doors. We’ve started working on a film project in Basque Country. I say ‘we’ because I always work with my team, with Odei Zabaleta (DoP), Karen Plata (writer) and Isabel Muñoz (sound technician). It’s a big challenge, but we’re excited about taking it on. I want to give classes too, to share some of the knowledge I’ve acquired. And to continue editing. I’m an editor and I love collaborating with other directors. I recently had the opportunity to set up a Txintxua Films project with Koldo Almandoz as director. It’s a series in Euskera, Zeru Ahoak, which is expected to be released soon. It’s back to work. “There’s always work to be done”, I once heard Mexican director Lila Avilés say, and it’s true.