Interview: Nara Normande on ‘Guaxuma’, the Award Winning Animated Short Film

Nara Normande ’s beautiful animated short Guaxuma shares the story of a blossoming childhood friendship that is cut short. The award-winning animated short film mixes several animation techniques all connected to sand.

Nara was born in Guaxuma and later moved to Recife, where a new generation of Brazilian directors were about to emerge. In 2014, she co-directed with Tião a live-action fiction, Sem Coração, that received the Illy Prize of Best Short Film at the Director’s Fortnight. She takes time off to talk about how she made Guaxuma…

indieactivity : Give a background of your personal experience with the story, writing, and production?
Nara Normande : Guaxuma is a film about my childhood and my best friend at that time. One year later Tayra had an accident, the scrip came to my mind and I wrote it. It was a long process until finding the best way to produce the film, to find the necessary budget and the team I wanted to work with. Seven years after the first draft, we had the premiere of the film.

Related Story : Nara Normande made a Quadruple Oscar-qualifying animation in ‘Guaxuma’

indieactivity : Did you start writing with a cast in mind?
Nara Normande : To record the voice over, I had one actress in mind that is very sensitive and also a good friend of mine, Maeve Jinkings (“O som Ao Redor”, “Aquarius”), and I first called her to make the voice of Guaxuma. But with the time I realized this story had to be told with my own voice. She became my coach during the recording process and had an important role to help me arrive at the different levels of emotions I wanted for the film.

indieactivity : How long did you take to complete the script? (Do you have a writing process?)
Nara Normande : The first draft was written in one night, it was an intense process as if I had something to take off me. All the essence of the film was already there. But then, while working on other projects at that time, I was getting used to the idea of making this film, maturating it. I took a notebook and started to write everything I remembered from my childhood, to write notes from autobiographical books and films I liked, to paste old pictures on it, etc. This process just finished 7 years later in 2018 when the film was ready. During this time, I was making constant and subtle changes in the script

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indieactivity : During production, what scene (that made the cut) was the hardest to shoot?
Nara Normande : I remember one scene that we shot at the beach when the full moon was rising. It was really insane! We came one day before the shooting to observe the position of the moon rising, then we came back the next day to place the camera in the right position. When we started to animate we had 30 seconds to animate her hair between one shot and another to get a fluid movement of the moon. I really wanted to animate her hair while the moon was rising, I believe the effect is different when you animate in the real set – I’m not really into post-production. I think it worth it.

indieactivity : What works better in this latest production that mightn’t have worked so well in the last one you did?
Nara Normande : My last film called “Heartless” is a live-action short film, quite different from Guaxuma – an animated one. But both films were shot at the same beach and we had to deal with the weather and the forces of nature all the time. So when I arrived to shoot Guaxuma 4 years later (to shoot a stop motion at the beach it’s even worse) I already had lots of tips from the shooting of my last film.

indieactivity : You produced and directed the film, what measure of input did it take to don these hats?
Nara Normande : I didn’t produce the film.

indieactivity : Is there anything about the independent filmmaking business you still struggle with?
Nara Normande : It’s still hard to survive financially only making films. I’m not a filmmaker that can do one film per year – I do one film in three or four years. It was hard to accept my creative process, but nowadays I accept it. So I always have to do other things to survive (at least in the audiovisual field) – I would rather stay only with my personal projects but I can’t do this it yet.

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indieactivity : Where do you think your strengths lie as a filmmaker?
Nara Normande : I think I manage to find a good balance between the storytelling and the power and poetry of images. I’m also very perfectionist, I pay attention to every frame, and I think this is very positive to all the process of my films and to the final result.

indieactivity : Let’s talk finance, How did you finance the film?
Nara Normande : We had the support from Brazil and France. In Brazil, we had the fund from the state of Pernambuco (Funcultura), where I used to live and spent 20 years of my life. In France, we managed to get 7 different funds: from the CNC, the channel ARTE, the city hall of Paris and some regions in France (La reunion and Grand Est).

indieactivity : How much did you go over budget? How did you manage it?
Nara Normande : We didn’t go over budget and I was happy I could make the film I wanted to make.

indieactivity : What do you hope audiences get from your film?
Nara Normande : I hope while watching the audience can be transported to this paradisiacal place I was born and be connected with my friendship with Tayra. I hope they can feel all the sincerity and love that I and the team put into this film.

indieactivity : What else have you got in the works?
Nara Normande : I’m developing my first feature film “The Heron”, co-written and co-directed by Brazilian filmmaker Tião, with whom I’ve collaborated in the short “Heartless”. The film will be produced by Emilie Lesclaux from Cinemascopio, producer of “Bacurau” and “Aquarius” (Cannes Official Selection), and co-produced by French production company Les Valseurs, that co-produced Guaxuma.

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