I felt a need to make a smaller film and in Portuguese, says Ainouz to TT.
In ”Motel Destino” we meet Heraldo, a young man who is on the run from gangsters. He comes to a motel in the countryside where you can take in for quick sex meetings and asks to be able to hide there for the night. But the stay becomes longer, he starts a relationship with the motel's married owner and it leads to a drama with violence, jealousy and steaming sex.
I wanted to make a film that reminds of ”Het puls”, of the erotic thrillers that Brian de Palma made before the AIDS epidemic. They were a great inspiration, I wanted to make a film that reminds of a fever dream, says Karim Ainouz.
The film was supposed to be exaggerated. I wanted to have life, the acting was supposed to be exaggerated, the colors, the sound, everything was supposed to be ”over the top”.
”Sexually free country”
Actually, he does not want to talk about the sex scenes, says that ”it's never anyone who asks how I made a war scene or an action scene”.
Brazil is a very sexually free country. And it was important to show how these two become one. A sex scene can say so much.
During filming, he used an intimacy coordinator for the first time. Something that initially caused problems, since he, when filming, often finds himself only a few centimeters from his actors to give them instructions.
A take is in many ways a dance between me, my photographer and the actors.
Now there was suddenly something foreign between me and the actors. But it felt right. The director is the one who has power, now the actors had someone else they could talk to.
The support was withdrawn
In his home country Brazil, he is a acclaimed director, but when Bolsonaro's right-wing government took power, Ainouz moved to Berlin. The project ”Motel Destino” he wanted to make already in 2017, but Bolsonaro's government withdrew the support for it. After now having filmed in Europe, he felt it as his duty to fulfill his old Brazilian project.
It was wonderful, and nice to know that I can make films both in Brazil and in other countries.
After ”Motel Destino” he has made ”Rosebush pruning”, a reinterpretation of the classic ”Nävarna i fickan”, with Elle Fanning, Jamie Bell, Riley Keough and Pamela Anderson in the lead roles.
Age: 59 years. Lives: In Berlin. Occupation: Screenwriter, director. Previous films in selection: ”Behind the sun” (screenplay), ”Madam Sata”, ”Lower city” (screenplay), ”The silver cliff”, ”Futuro Beach”, ”The invisible life of Euridice Gusmao”, ”Firebrand”. Current: With ”Motel Destino” which gets Swedish cinema premiere 1/8.
