By Camilla Marchese
Fabián Hernández’s feature debut Un varón (“A Male”) is Colombia’s official submission to the 2024 Oscar race. Un varón follows a young man living in a Bogota youth shelter, seeking solace from life’s harsh realities. Shooting on site in the streets where Hernández grew up and collaborating with people from the community, the film is a poignant exploration of gender and masculinity in Latin America.
Having celebrated its world premiere at the Director’s Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival, and winner of numerous awards including Best Film and Best Actor at the Lima Film Festival and the Libertés Chéries Award at the Paris Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Un varón is a striking visual film bending codes of masculinity. Ahead of its American distribution, we sit down with Hernández to talk about the vision inspired by the director’s teen years, his filmmaking process, and his perspective on the purpose of storytelling.
How did the concept of the film come about and what inspired you to tell this story?
I wanted to film something that had to do with the events that happened in my adolescence. I wanted to explore the performativity of a certain type of boy who, in order to be a man or to be considered a man, should act and look a certain way and establish a certain amount of codes of masculinity. Let's just say that all those codes that point to that certain type of toxic hegemonic masculinity, well, they operated on me, on my body, on my way of seeing, of feeling.
When you're a teenager you don't reflect on that, you just live it. I shot the film in the neighborhood where I grew up. Those experiences were the starting point for the project and then that was influenced and merged with the contemporaneity of the boys who still inhabit these streets and who are also in that social search to reject gender codes.
Something you just mentioned is very important, that you filmed in the same neighborhood where you grew up. What was the experience of going back and shooting there?
I had a very clear idea of the streets, the places, and the geography when strategizing the shooting plan, and each image, in a very precise way. It was a very emotional act to shoot the film because it was on the streets that I walked and grew up on, shooting them in the way that, I had always wanted to. We were able to shoot on-site with the cooperation of friends from the neighborhood. All they asked from us to film there was having no police, no private security, or military, and to take care of the shooting.
The community and people in the neighborhood were responsible for making sure that things would go well. That's how we filmed, in a very calm way, backed up by the fact that I grew up there, allowing clear communication with the community that enabled us to work there. It was something that was also very surprising to me, shooting something that belonged to me but that I never imagined I would one day be able to film.
I imagine that also had a great influence on the casting process, especially with Dylan Felipe Ramírez (Carlos) and his spectacular debut performance. What were your techniques for directing non-professional actors in this film?
Well, I started casting seven years ago. The casting process lasted only two days because I met Dilan and a group of guys who were breakdancing and had an interest in art, culture, and dance. They became the main actors in the film. With Dylan the casting process happened very quickly when I realized that he had a very powerful way of acting, knew how to listen, was a very authentic person, and had a very quick sense of discernment–and I really liked that. I started making some short films, first with him, then with other guys, to prepare us. That preparation took a long time. So, I find the term “unprofessional actors” conflicting, because we started prepping and rehearsing seven years ago, which was very formative for them, and for me. So, when it came to the shoot, there was already a lot of fertile ground in terms of acting training.
You play with documentary style, especially with the opening shots. What made you make that stylistic decision?
I am interested in the fact that, through cinema, people can also express ideas, emotions, and feelings. I am also interested in the fact that the film also becomes a pretext for talking about social and political phenomena that occur in the sector. In that sense and in that philosophy, I couldn't leave out something from everyday life–from real life and the emotional traces left by the people who enter the film. So instead of trying to robotize the actions in a scripted manner, I wanted the cast to have the possibility of saying things and expressing their ideas. I didn't want creative control to rely solely on me, as if planning everything as a kind of “hegemonic God.”
I consider the film to be a co-creation, and that makes it a little more lively and more visceral. That was what I wanted, not to make a film just about me and my art, or me and the mainstream to please the public, but to make a film that was an event, a social event. For example, the scene when Carlos calls his mom, it’s real. We made an agreement with Dylan, that through the film we wanted to send a message to Dylan's mother, who is in jail and he hadn't seen her in a long time. It was a very important memory for him, for his mother, and a way of expressing the very powerful feeling that can exist in the performance.
When including snapshots of real life, what was your approach to improvisation?
Honestly, I am also very conflicted with the idea of improvisation because I think that rather than improvising, I think that what we are doing is quite the opposite. We knew very well what was going to happen and we prepared ourselves a lot for the scenes. In other words, we already knew that we were going to make a call that we were going to dedicate to the mother and there was already a previous emotional inquiry before shooting the scene, and this allows the scene to flow. I think that's what allows scenes to have a greater sense of spontaneity and a higher flow of creativity.
During these moments of creativity that you just mentioned, was there anything that surprised you during the shooting process?
By being open to that source of creativity, you're learning all the time that you don't know everything and you're learning all the time that life can give you unforgettable moments through images and sounds. I think that's what I've learned, especially on how to avoid acting like “God” and the director who knows everything and where everything is going, but to learn how to listen. To understand, to be patient, and to wait. I think that's what I've learned the most from this film.
What were some sources of inspiration when writing Un varón?
I am very interested in people perceive this idea of the political and social construction of what is “male”, a man, a boy. Let people ask themselves of the performativity of boyhood, questioning the notions of masculinity and sexuality, and understanding that these topics can be deconstructed. So, what I did was prepare myself a lot by reading. I read a lot of Paul B. Preciado, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault, who were many sources of inspiration for the creation of this film. It comes from there, a lot of reading, a lot of philosophy, and a lot of analysis.
What are other topics you want to tackle in future projects?
I am still working on a new project called Los pájaros (“The Birds”), which already has Colombian funding and we are currently in the development process and raising funds. It's a film that's not far from all these ideas that I keep trying to express or deepen in Un varón. Focusing on teenagers, but this time I'm going to work from the historical backdrop of the totalitarian military institution. Talking about this topic interested me because I think that these films are a tool to dismantle those hegemonic institutions that surround us. It seems to me that it is going to be another exercise in undermining the institutions and finding sensitivities within contexts that are always stereotyped by rigidity and verticality.
