Alexis Dos Santos‘ World Dramatic Competition entry Unmade Beds follows a Spanish guy named Axl and a Belgian girl named Vera who meet in London and, according to the catalogue description, “circle each other’s orbits—their fates almost inevitably intertwined.” In case you were having trouble deconstructing the meaning behind the film’s title, the catalogue is also helpful in that regard: “They may be slightly crumpled works in progress—like the unmade beds where they slumber—but Axl, Vera, and their friends are as vital as a crisp new day.” Also vital and crisp are Dos Santos’ answers to the 4 Questions We Ask Everyone, in which he references Nan Goldin, Monty Python and Wong Kar Wai, and contemplates spending his last hours on Earth watching porn.
Tell us about your movie: who did you work with, what did you shoot on, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.
Unmade Beds is a film that portraits an age, a time and a place: young people in London today. I made this film in London with an international cast: Fernando Tielve, Deborah Francois, Michiel Huisman, Iddo Goldberg and Richard Lintern. It’s a script I’ve been working on for a long time.
If this film was an object, it would be two boxes found in an empty warehouse, containing pictures, polaroids, cds, personal diaries, tickets for concerts, comics books, drawings and a bunch of empty bottles. One box would belong to a boy called Axl, the other one to a girl called Vera. Going through their things you can kind of guess what their lives are like, what they think, what they fear and what they long for. You can see their lives and how their stories slowly intertwine.
Ok, this isn’t quite the “quick and dirty sell pitch” that i was asked to do, so let’s try again. My influences usually come from music, art literature and photography, more than films. So:
“It’s like Nan Goldin photographs put together to a soundtrack of Daniel Johnston’s tapes.”
Or…
“It’s like In the Mood for Love meets My Own Private Idaho. But in London today, no Chinese dresses, no rent boys, no Shakespeare. With lots of concerts, booze, dance, sex and with a moving but happy ending punctuated with a very eclectic soundtrack.”
Sorry, I found this question particularly difficult to answer.
If you funded your film through a “day job” or through working on projects that were not your own, tell us about that. If not, tell us a story from your past work life, before you became a professional filmmaker.
I never worked a day in my life.
OK, I made a few commercials and a couple of music videos, but I didn’t feel like I was working then. I wish I could say that I used to be a male stripper or a porn director whilst I was trying to raise money for this film, but unfortunately that was not the case. I did get paid during the development process, which helped a lot. And I stayed at the Cannes Cinefondation Residence in Paris for a few months, and that also helped. Before that I was very busy making my first film GLUE, but that’s another story.
Have you been to Sundance before? If you haven’t, what are you most (or least) looking forward to based on your impressions of the festival?
I look forward to the snow. I started skiing when I was 7 and I even got a couple of medals for some slalom competitions when I was a teenager. That was the only sport I was ever good at.
Plus, I look forward to hearing what people think of my film. I like it a lot. I hope people will like it as much as I do.
Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums.
Or maybe just a couple of porn films and a long playlist with all my favorite music…
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