“A heartfelt film about sisterhood, desires, jealousy, and youth in the never-ending tropical summer of Panama.” Filmmaker Kattia G. Zúñiga on SISTER & SISTER which screens at the 2023 edition of the South By Southwest Film & TV Festival.
Welcome to SxSW 2023! Are you attending your screenings in person?
Yes, it is my first time at SXSW and I’m very excited. I will be at the screenings on March 11th at the Violet Crown Cinema, and the 6pm show on March 13th at at Alamo Lamar.
How did this whole project come together?
I started writing SISTER & SISTER in 2014. It was a long but pleasant journey. The story is based on my personal experience; my older sister and I went to Panama when we were teenagers with the idea of finding our father who we hadn’t seen for more than ten years. But for me the most important part and what I wanted this movie to focus on was the relationship between the sisters. I think you don’t see this kind of relationship in movies that often.
While working on a project, what is your creative process? Do you have any particular ritual or tradition when working on something?
I like working on several projects at the same time. That way, when I’m tired or I feel stuck on a project, I can shift my focus to another and that helps me manage the anxiety. I also walk a lot. I always solve my creative problems while walking. With respect to rituals, I come from the world of dance, so on the first day of filming SISTER & SISTER I wanted to start it the same way I do before any performance: all the cast and crew got together in a big circle, we held hands and screamed “mierda, mierda, mierda”. (The equivalent of break a leg). An individual ritual during the shoot was to open and close the day with a cold shower (Panama City is very hot) accompanied by loud music (like a little dance party just for me).
If you had one favourite moment out of this entire project, the “Yes, this is IT” moment, what would that be?
It was during the casting, when we did the first exercise with Cala and Ariana together and I could see them perfectly as their characters, Marina and Luna. What happened there and the chemistry between them surpassed everything I could’ve imagined while writing the script, so it was marvelous.
I love to get technical, so I would love to know about the visual design of the movie from the cameras you used and the formats and your relation to the cinematographer.
I am very privileged because my DP, Alejo Crisóstomo, is also my partner, so the time we had to imagine, experiment and prepare for the filming was extraordinary. We used a Canon C500 and Kowa Cine Prominar lenses with a black pro-mist and a coral filter; with this we wanted to create a colorful, saturated, electric, dream-like world, according to what our characters go through. We also mixed formats, most of the movie had an aspect ratio of 2.39:1, but occasionally we changed it to 1.85:1 or 16×9.
What are you looking forward to the most about showing your project at SxSW 2023?
It’s going to be the first time we show the movie to an audience. It’s very exciting, especially since it’s a North American audience that maybe isn’t used to seeing movies from Panama. I’m curious what the reaction is going to be, what do they connect with and what they react to.
Where is this going next? More festivals or a theatrical or streaming release?
For right now I can say that after SXSW, SISTER & SISTER is going to participate at the Málaga Film Festival in Spain and the Toulouse Latin American Film Festival in France. At the same time we’re looking for distributors and working towards the film’s release in Panamanian theaters.
How do you feel about the current moviegoing climate? Are you wishing more people to see movies in theatres, or is it okay to opt for a streaming release where more people could potentially see a movie?
As an audience member, I have always enjoyed going to the theaters and it is still my favorite way to watch movies, however I understand the necessity of streaming. For example, I currently live in a rural area where, despite efforts to bring and screen some movies, it is impossible to bring them all, so I welcome streaming and accessibility. As a director, well my dream is that the entire world could see the movie in a theater. There’s a lot of work behind every image and it’s a shame to not be able to see them on a big screen and hear the sound design and soundtrack with good speakers.
What is the one thing that you would say to someone who is looking to get into movies, even now in such a changing world?
I think one needs to clearly set motivations and expectations. We sometimes have distorted and romanticized ideas about what it’s like to work in film and, on the other hand, cruel ways to measure success. I would say that if someone wants to work in film they need to be ready to learn, change, question, and be questioned all the time… it’s very tiring, but at the same time satisfying.
And final question: what is the greatest movie you have ever seen at a film festival and why?
That’s such a difficult question! But I can name some that made me smile from two festivals from 2022. HARPER’S COMET by Tyler Taormina (at the Santiago Film Festival, SANFIC, in Chile) was a wonderful surprise; I hadn’t read or seen anything about the movie, we just went to see it and I enjoyed it a lot. The sound design especially managed to transport me to a new and weird universe. At the Costa Rica Film Festival (CRFic) I saw the Panamanian documentary FOR YOUR PEACE OF MIND, MAKE YOUR OWN MUSEM by Pilar Moreno and Ana Endara. I was a part of the art department for that film, but I hadn’t seen it finished and it was a beautiful experience seeing it in a theater filled with people of all ages, laughing a lot and enjoying the movie. I was very moved by the audience’s reaction, it was really special.
This film and many others like it will be showing at South By Southwest taking place March 10-19. For more information point your browser to www.sxsw.com!