EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its world premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival and release on Netflix, we got the low-down on Limpia from Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor on her movie, which was inspired by Alia Trabucco Zerán’s award-winning novel. We also have the first look at the trailer.
The movie has the English-language title Swim To Me. It is a disturbing family drama that revolves around the intense relationship between Estela, a domestic worker, and the six-year-old girl she cares for day and night.
Sotomayor co-wrote the screenplay with Argentinian writer Gabriela Larralde (Elena Knows). The cast includes María Paz Grandjean, Rosa Puga Vittini, Ignacia Baeza Hidalgo, Benjamín Westfall, and Rodrigo Palacios.
DEADLINE: This is the first time you have adapted a book, what challenges did that bring?
Sotomayor: I have always written and directed my movies, so it was an interesting and challenging idea to work with pre-existing material. In this case, there was a need to make a movie that would reach a wider audience, to keep a rhythm and a tension that is different from my other movies.
DEADLINE: Could you immediately envisage the film you wanted to make?
When I read the novel, I thought there were many possible versions of a film based on the book. Swim to Me interested me because it’s a subtle way of talking about who lives for themselves and who lives for others, about who can choose and who can’t.
We decided to co-write the script with Gabriela Larralde, an Argentine screenwriter, and we agreed on key elements, such as focusing the film primarily on the relationship between Estela and Julia, the little girl in the house, and having everything happen in a limited timeframe, one summer. That was the film I saw and began to imagine; it was the one that moved me personally.
DEADLINE: What was the desired tone and desired visual style?
Sotomayor: Limpia has elements of my previous work: the shots, the lighting, the way the characters are filmed, the role of the children, the everyday moments, the popular songs, all of that has a lot to do with my cinema.
I was able to continue developing my way of working with actors and non-actors, and in particular, I feel like I learned a lot working with Rosa, a little girl who had never made a film before. It was very challenging, and although I have several films that feature children or teenagers, it’s always different, and in this case, she was very young—she had just turned 6.
The cinematography was done by Bárbara Álvarez, with whom I worked on my first feature film, De Jueves a Domingo.
DEADLINE: What does the original story – and your film – tell us about society?
Sotomayor: I wanted to make a film with complex characters, without casting victims. I tried not to prejudge, but to observe. In that moral ambiguity, I think we can all feel more challenged. The characters act on their own belief systems, and each one feels they are doing the right thing; this blindness is a large part of the conflict.
DEADLINE: Was Alia Trabucco Zerán involved, has she seen the finished movie?
Sotomayor: Together with Gabriela Larralde, we wrote an adaptation proposal for Fabula and Alia. We were very excited to have found a way to work with a novel so important to these times. Alia was able to see the script and left us notes that we incorporated into the process.
The film is different from the novel, and it’s also different from the script we wrote. For me, it’s always about corrupting, rebelling and going a little bit against the text. Raúl Ruiz said he didn’t adapt books to film, but rather “adopted” them. That idea makes a lot of sense to me after this experience. Swim to Me is about a deeper adoption, where I take material and transform it.
DEADLINE: What will audiences take away from the film?
Sotomayor: I would like the film to make us think about the people around us. To ask ourselves who we are failing to take care of, who we are making invisible around us. I’m excited to raise awareness about this blindness, to make visible people like Estela who, although always present, are not always in the frame. The film closely follows the loneliness of Estela and Julia, and it unleashes a tragedy that I feel cannot leave anyone indifferent.
This particular story, set in the upper-class neighborhood of Santiago and about a domestic worker, is very specific, but I think it’s an example of other silenced people in our society, and that couldn’t be more universal.
The film premieres at San Sebastian on September 19, before having a theatrical release in Chile and then dropping on Netflix on October 10.
The post Dominga Sotomayor Talks Adapting Alia Trabucco Zerán’s Novel For Netflix’s ‘Swim to Me,’ Unveils Trailer Ahead Of World Premiere appeared first on Deadline.
