A Day to Remember

Maybe it wasn't a life changing event, but I know I will always remember that day.

I was about six years old, and I lived in Antofagasta. When I was a kid, there wasn't much to do around my neighborhood, so my childhood was sometimes boring and uneventful. I didn't have all the technology or all the new things they had at the capital.

I remember around that time, my parents were separated and did not speak to each other. My younger brothers and sisters were not born yet, so I felt a little lonely, in a big sunny town with nothing much to do. Since my parents were not together, i didn't want to be at home all day, it wasn't much fun. We had recently moved from our old house to a new condominium and therefore I didn't have many friends yet.

But this day had a special kind of magic. I didn't want to be alone, so I went to visit a kid in the neighborhood, we were becoming friends little by little. That day he had received a present: a box full of Disney movies. I think I had watched one or two but I don't remember them.

He lets me choose. I choose "The Sleeping Beauty", because it had a creepy witch on the cover. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I will never forget it. The colors, the princess, the handsome prince, the wonderful classical music, the terrifying witch. It felt like magic, really. No other Disney movie has that feeling. It's still my favorite movie and I think it will always be. It had such a big influence in me since then. Sometimes it's the little things as a kid that stick with you forever.

A Subject you've enjoyed studying this semester

First, this has been the semester that I have had the most time, because I have to attend nine subjects. In addition, being in year number four university I feel a little tired and unmotivated. In spite of that, there are some subjects that really have achieved that enjoyment, particularly the elective of musical composition.

Musical theory is a subject that has always interested me since I was a child, when I was in the conservatory studying violin and music theory. I especially liked to print opera scores, listen to the music on my computer and follow the music as if I were reading a book.

This we have learned through the viewing of movies and the subsequent analysis of scenes with special attention to the relationship of the music with the visual and sound elements that are seen on the screen.

In musical composition we have seen basic notions of musical theory (such as the pentagram system, harmonies, counterpoints) as well as the history of music from the baroque era until the twentieth century and see how music has influenced the language of cinema.

An expert on your field

A while ago, watching different films I came to Fassbinder. He was a German film director, screenwriter, actor and film producer, part of the New German cinema movement, a period on German cinema which lasted from the late 1960s into the 1980s.

He was the son of a military doctor and a translator, who divorced when Fassbinder was only six years old, being taken care of by the mother. In his films, the paternal figure is almost non-existent.

After making his first film, Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (1969), Fassbinder does not stop working, performing in only 15 years makes almost forty films. His films are on the one hand a portrait of Germany before, during and after Nazism as well as an image of a hypocritical society.

Personally what I admire most of this director is that he was able to make a cinema with a clear political awareness of his context without leaving aside his aesthetic vocation: his films are melodramas almost always starring by strong womans, representing the figure of the antihero, where the way of telling the story takes on a meaning as important as what is being told.

Fassbinder dies at 37 years old after a cocaine overdose, in 1978.

My favourite festivity

I think since I was a child, Christmas has been my favorite festivity of the year. The birth of Jesus is celebrated every year at twelve o'clock on the night of December 24, with a Christmas dinner, special decoration and the delivery of gifts.

The first antecedents of the festivity date from year 200, to be fixed in the First Council of Nicaea (325) that 25 of December is the official date of the birth of jesus. Then with the passing of the years, the party became more and more popular until becoming now what we all know.

Every year I usually dine with my family something special as stuffed turkey and then wait until it is time to open the gifts.

What I like most is the spirit of Christmas: colors, music, food, dressing well to eat with the family and all those things. The only thing I could say against is that as I get older, there are less gifts that I get compared to the small children in my family.

My favourite piece of technology

I remember when I was 9 or 10 years old I asked my dad a compact analog camera, a very basic type. Also I remember that the wanted: to take photographs of landscapes, no familiar portraits, because I found that everyone did that, and people went bankrupt the fund, which was what really mattered.

Now I have about 10 cameras, including analog cameras, digital, Hi8, etc, being the most

used my cellphone's camera because I'm always carrying it (the iPhone's camera gives very good results) with which I get around 1500 photos per month.

I'm a big fan of photography and video. I really enjoy using a camera. In my opinion taking photographs on a particular moment allows me to not forget (I have terrible memory and I think that photography allows me to not forget things).

Why I choose Filmmaking 

I remember during my life had thought of many professions. Veterinary and surgeon in primary, then architecture, law, engineering, and many more. Weeks before applying to university, journalism. But if I was sure it was something that fascinated me so much the art in general.

During my last year of school I dedicated myself to watch classic Hollywood movies like Casablanca. The moment I decided to study film was after seeing Dr. Zhivago (1962) directed by David Lean. Each shot was so beautiful, and much more to the story that illustrated: a great romantic drama set in the Russian Revolution. That was what I wanted to do with my life, tell stories through the magic of cinema.

Now I am in my fourth year of career, time in wich I doubted whether it was the right choice but the minoriry of the time. I like what I'm studying.

In the future I would like to work as a filmmaker in some area that excites me as a writer, cinematographer or director; although work on television is not an option to discard.