Education Is The Most Important Tool For Improving The World: Marisa Crespo & Moisés Romera On Their Short Film "9 Steps"
Filmmakers Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romera’s suspenseful short film, 9 steps (9 Pasos), shares the story of a man who tries to teach his young son a lesson about masculinity, leading to an unforeseeable result. Their work focuses on dysfunctional family relationships and social problems, which is why a few of their films such as Sirenito, Mammies & Daddies, and A Better Place has been used for years as didactic material in educational centres and universities.
7-year-old Saul (Pablo Munoz) just needs 9 steps to show his father (Jordi Ballester) that he is a real man. Because real men are not afraid of the dark.
The film has won over 130 film awards, including Best Short Film Award at Festival Internacional de Cine de Lebu and a nomination for the Best Fiction Short Film Award at the 2019 Goya Awards. We had the opportunity to chat with Marisa and Moisés about their film, its origins, their working relationship and educational leanings, and much much more!
How did the two of you meet, and what was it about each other that caused you to form such a strong connection?
Marisa Crespo: We share the same philosophy of life. We try to make the most of our work by striving to improve, and we both love to keep learning. Moises is a fighter, who believes in people and in making the world a better place. I love that about him.
Moisés Romera: We met at University studying Engineering a lot of years ago. (Yes, we are also Engineers) We loved arts and technics, but making movies was still a dream for us. We connected before we thought of working together. What seduced me about Marisa was her joy and optimism, something that she managed (and still manages) to infect me.
What’s your approach to directing? How do you share that duty?
MC: We've been collaborating for so many years that we do it instinctively. In writing and pre-production, we talk about everything, we make everything clear and settled. When shooting, Moisés is more in contact with the technical crew and I am more in contact with the actors, although we try to keep both of us on top of everything.
MR: We usually talk, debate a lot and try to make all the decisions before shooting. Once in the middle of "the battle", we both take care of everything, but Marisa has more weight in the direction of actors and me in the part of camera and sound with the technical team.
How did you come up with the concept for 9 Pasos?
MR: Marisa had a very simple idea from many years ago. A child counted in complete darkness and in the end, something had to happen. That concept was coupled with our phobias and our interests, and the need to make a sample for a feature film... And we wrote the script.
MC: Yes, As a child I was very afraid of the dark, and we had long wanted to shoot something that would convey that panic to the audience. The germ was a very simple idea, but between the two of us we molded it until we reached 9 steps.
What is it that draws you both to stories about family dysfunction and social problems?
MC: Our projects always contain parts of our experiences, our concerns, our dreams. Both of us have been in contact with violence in the family during our childhood and then, for a few years, we chose to teach film in schools with conflictive students, growing up in difficult environments. It was hard, but we also helped many girls and boys to feel better and to express their problems through audiovisual. And this experience marked us.
MR: Making a film is always a big effort and in our case, as there is no economic profitability, we need "emotional" profitability. That's why we deal with very personal subjects that interest us. We both belong to families with certain problems that have affected us since we were very young. In addition, we were teachers for years and we witnessed the injustices around us. We are interested in social issues in order to entertain and excite, as well as trying to make the spectator think.
Why is using film to educational means important to each of you?
MC: The right film is one of the most powerful tools that exists because it complements knowledge: it allows us to better know our environment, culture, society. It also provides entry into other cultures, societies, and environments. It brings us closer to new values, ideas, attitudes, norms and it can be a fundamental tool for fostering critical spirit, which for me is the basis of education.
MR: Education is the most important tool for improving the world. The critical spirit is what makes us freer. Without critical spirit, we are only puppets of the system.
The film really puts masculinity under the microscope. What was it that drew you to this theme?
MR: Our parents were always very strict and they themselves were educated in certain gender roles that unfortunately are still valid today: men must be "machos", brave and hard and women sensitive and nice. It is also true that right now we are living in a time of change, but much remains to be done. We ourselves are a man and a woman and we always sign our works as M+M so that equality is absolute.
MC: Both Moises and I had very classic fathers when it comes to masculinity, and we know that this kind of masculinity still exists in many cultures today.
There are still many people who are prejudiced about masculinity and gender roles and who educate their children under the "boys don't cry" principle. There are children under great pressure, who are forced to camouflage their emotions or even hide their sexuality by not finding understanding in their parents.
But fortunately, things are changing. For example, Jordi, the actor who plays the father, admitted that he had a really bad time when he had to shake the child. Even though Pablo, the child actor, took it as a game. Jordi is a father and did not conceive of talking and treating badly a child who is afraid.
I’m glad you mentioned the two primary actors. Let’s take a moment to talk casting. How did you find them for this project?
MC: After several castings, we finally found Pablo Muñoz (Saúl). He's not an actor, and he's never played before. But Pablo is a very talented child. Despite his young age (he was only 7 years old when we shot) we quickly got along with him. We had a lot of complicities. We rehearsed for a month and during the shooting, he behaved like a small professional (despite being his first experience in front of the camera).
Jordi Ballester (Father) is an actor with a lot of experience we have already seen him in other films and with him, it was all very simple. They have great talent and everything was easy. We were very lucky with the cast.
MR: The father, Jordi Ballester, was recommended to us by a director friend. He is a professional with a lot of experience. We spent several months to find the child. It was the most complicated part of the whole process, bearing in mind that we did not have money or resources.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
MR: We hope that they see the humor in it and will be entertained, hooked, excited, frightened, and left thinking for awhile after the film.
MC: We hope they have a good time and feel like children again.
9 Steps transmits in a very short time a great number of emotions, dosed millimetrically in the 7 minutes that the short lasts. The public projections are very gratifying, we love to camouflage ourselves among the spectators and to feel next to them. While they enjoy the short, we enjoy their sensations. It's a symbiosis. At the end of the screening, many tell us that they have felt like when they were children, that this is one of our goals, and we love this. But we also hope that, after the screening, as adults, they will reflect on the emotional heritage and values that parents transmit to their children.
On the other hand, as we did 9 steps as a sample for a long project, the great acceptance it is having — it has won more than 30 Audience Awards — gives us security on the feature film project. Along with that, we also have a large number of people who, after seeing the short film, claim to be "wanting more" and ask us about the long-form project.
Is there a longer version of 9 Steps in the works, or any other projects on the horizon?
MC: We are currently working on the 9 Steps feature film project, and in the meantime, we continue to develop new M+M ideas.
MR: We have many projects on the table at different stages of development. We would love to shoot next year the feature 9 Steps, which although it has elements in common with the short film, is a more complex story full of surprises.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feeling in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!