Beatriz de Silva, the emerging filmmaker of the year, in her Oscar race for ‘Tula’

4 Spanish short films finalists in this category of the Oscars, of the 15 shortlisted out of 200 from around the world, is another of the many and very good news from our film year. To which the Berlin Bear 2022 of Carla Simonthe excellent representation in international festivals or the recent selection of Estíbaliz Urresola Solagurenin the official section of the next Berlinalewith 20,000 species of bees.

The mastery of tullaof Beatrice de Silva, surprises by the richness and fluidity of its narrative, its refined direction of actresses, the use of space or the distance of the camera with respect to its interpreters. The result of this is almost thirty awards for her at festivals around the world, many of them, the most prized by filmmakers, that of the public.

Her short film exudes, from the very first image, a command of the technique and a dose of creativity and cinematographic intelligence, unusual for a first work by a young 25-year-old filmmaker. For this reason we have interviewed Beatrice de Silvain search of the secrets of his immense talent.

A continuous and limitless writing

The filmmaker has been writing for more than 15 years. At only 9 years old, Beatrice de Silva He wrote his first novel “As what I wanted to read was not written, I decided to tell it myself”. Since then, there hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t written something. Although he had taken a film course in Prague in 2018, in 202nd grade, already aware that cinema was what he wanted to devote his life to, he enrolled in a Script Master at a Madrid university. At this point in his career, he has already published a couple of collections of poems and written countless stories.

An affirmed direction of actors

During his university career in advertising studies, because “he needed an intellectual background and a functional structure to prepare for exams”, he also took the opportunity to dedicate himself to studying theater. Acting, interpreting, carrying out projects is the passion that concentrates his energies throughout his career. The results are visible in tulla.

a room of one’s own

Almost like a very contemporary version of Virginia Woolf, the filmmaker finds her own space, in the most unexpected place and in complicated circumstances. As her family had decided to return from Extremadura to her community of origin, the Basque Country, Beatrice de Silva he meets the shock of the transfer of the universe from a private school with 16 girls, all dressed in uniform, to the public high school, in mixed classes of 30 adolescents.

The principal finds refuge in the school bathrooms, during the hour in which all students are forced to go out for break. The difference in the values ​​received in the education received, the different customs of both places, the pressure of adolescence and the bullying towards difference drive Beatriz to assimilate what she herself defines as her “big hit of maturity”. Although his imagination had already worked with the cinematographic possibilities of such an unexpected place, but rich in confidences, his personal experience makes him live it in his own hand.

A masterful mastery of the camera

Since she was 11 years old, Beatriz had fun filming her friends and pretending to be their actresses. She tired of depending on her parents’ camera, at 14 she buys her own, and she begins to investigate her possibilities. She editing videos on her friends’ birthdays, inserting music, working with editing, sound effects, editing effects. Her success is such that everyone wants a video of her, parties, capeas, anniversaries… everything within her reach goes through her camera. Possibly, the best school that someone can have: that of passion.

face the unknown

Beatriz de Silva and her boundless energy, which seems inexhaustible, always wants to go one step further. Determined to get to know the medium of cinema from the inside, she achieves a position as a directing intern in the film of coven. There he discovers the true reality of the seventh art.

All filming is crazy and no one (or almost) has time to take care of another matter that is not the one that concerns them. Faced with failing in that creative war or trying to survive such a chaos of stress and continuous rush, Beatriz decides that she is going to pretend as if she knows how to perform any of her tasks. She removes her fear, during those six weeks without end, and she throws herself without a net because “Nobody knows what you know, but neither does what you don’t know.”. It doesn’t take long for her to be called for another complicated shoot, Babyof Juanma Bajo Ulloa. On this occasion, as an assistant director.

Between the security of a job or the unpredictable dream of the cinema

After completing her studies, the filmmaker obtains a position in an advertising agency. After six months they propose to make it permanent. Beatrice de Silva he reconsiders and understands that the desire to make films has become a necessity. He rejects the agency’s proposal and, as in movies with a happy ending, a week later the aid for film creation comes out, to which he had applied a long time ago, and almost forgotten. From there it is born tullahis passport in the race to the Oscars.

Loyalty to the public and to herself

When you interview young filmmakers, most of them want to break the mold, make a totally personalized work, which is inscribed in a different and particular place, to achieve the most unexpected and impressive shot. Beatrice de Silva it is a separate case. She always talks about stories, about her passion for showing realities that for all, or many, are new, even if they are new normalities that we are not aware of.

An example is one of his feature film projects. The story of the daily life of a disabled girl. Beatrice de Silva has the magical ability to tell you a story and make you see it and live with it. It is one of her projects, but there are many more: three features, two shorts, a series and a novel.

tulla and the race to oscar

Beatrice de Silvathe new Sheherazade of our cinema, aware that learning is not linear, focuses on her philosophy as an artist and cornerstone: “loyalty to the public”. He firmly believes in the ability of stories to reach a lot of people and in the enormous social transformative potential that narrative has. Together with his exquisite cinematographic taste (Celine Sciamma Y Alice Rohwarcher), she settles for “remain loyal to what I want to tell” and always put yourself in the place of the spectator.

Just a few hours after the announcement of the nominations for the Oscars, the filmmaker, although nervous, remains calm because she knows that she will continue to tell about her creations. We are convinced that Beatrice de Silva He will be one of the important voices of our cinema: the one that combines unforgettable characters with stories that transmit values.

Legend has it that Margaret Herrick, librarian at the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, named the famous golden statuette Oscar because it closely resembled an uncle of hers, who was called that. Let’s hope that this afternoon the North American uncle remembers that in Spain the most famous aunt was called Tula (which, by the way, in the 1964 film version, its director Miguel Picazo won the best director award at the San Sebastian Festival). We wish the same luck to tulla of Beatrice de Silvato finish off this glorious year of Spanish cinema.