After winning the Best Mexican Fiction Film Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival, having a special unprecedented screening at Cannes, and just recently winning the La Proxima Ola Prize at CineVegas, Simon Bross is making his mark as a great new latin filmmaker. Simon’s first feature film Malos Habitos, is a beautifully crafted and powerful film that deals with the challenging subject of eating disorders. Although we weren’t sure if we would be able to get an interview with Simon, by some stroke of fate we ended up sitting right next to him during the CineVegas film festival. So we jumped at the chance to speak with Simon about how cancer jump-started his first feature, being invited to over thirty film festivals, and partying with Teller (of Penn and Teller).

What made you decide to become a filmmaker?

I studied film in Italy… in Florence, many, many years ago. When I got back to Mexico, the film industry was totally depressed and they made only very, very ugly films… about cabaret and things like that. So I began to make TV commercials. So we started a successful company that does commercials… actually, I think it’s the biggest or the most awarded spanish speaking company in the world.

Really? That’s your company?

That’s my company yes… and it was okay. I was very comfortable but seven years ago I got kidney cancer. I’m okay now, but what happened is that – when you don’t know if life is going to give you a second chance – I asked myself what would I have liked to do but I didn’t…. and it was a movie. Now I know that was a mistake because now I want to do a lot of movies. [Laughs] But the answer was a movie, so from the moment I recovered, I began working on the movie. I realized that I didn’t make a movie before because I was afraid… I was afraid of critics. When you have something as strong as cancer, you are so afraid of the sickness that all the other things seem little. So I decided to do the movie and what a fantastic experience! From the very beginning everything has been fantastic. The script I wrote with Ernesto Anaya and it was very easy. Shooting it was perfect… we had 56 days of shooting and we finished in 46 days. We never shouted on the set, everything was just like a party, and then editing was incredible… the post-production was great and now that we’re showing the movie we are having a very good time too!

It sounds like it was a pleasure to work on!

Yeah… it was amazing. I hope the next one is like this! [Laughs]

That’s what gets you hooked. Because it went so well, now you’re like, “Hey I can’t wait to do the next one!”

This is true! So actually I am writing a script with Guellermo Arriaga, the guy that wrote The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and Babel…

I recently saw some of your advertising work. Your ad for the VW Golf was great!

I love doing advertising. Even now, I’m writing the new script and in the meantime, I will shoot commercials for Volkswagen and for Tequila… Tequila Azul for Cuervo.

So are you going to continue doing both things?

Yeah… I’m going to shoot less commercials. Just only the ones I really like with friends. And I will not only direct movies, we are working on producing movies too. I’ve already produced Who the Hell is Juliet, which won [the Latin America Cinema Award at] Sundance, and I co-produced Second Century and we helped finish at least thirty short films at this company too. At least fifteen good advertising directors came out from this company and they began doing short films instead of [music] videos. Also, many of the directors that work here are making feature films… so we are very proud.

Sounds like your company is a great place to grow as a filmmaker.

Yes… because we own all the cameras, the lights, we have a lab… we have a studio. So it’s not expensive for us to help, because we don’t have to actually put in money. We put in equipment and then Kodak helps us with the film… it’s a very good experience.

Why focus on eating disorders for your first film?

Actually, I did a commercial for Nestle years ago… there was a beautiful girl that was dancing in the room. [She was] dancing very lazy and then [when] she began to drink coffee, she began to dance a lot. Two years after shooting the commercial, I read in the newspaper that the model died. She died of anorexia.

And on the other side… my grandmother was a very nice Jewish grandmother. They fed us all the time to show their love. She was very skinny and she never ate. I realized when she was 83 or 84 that she was anorexic, but she never knew… because she didn’t even know about the sickness. So I decided to begin writing about this disease. I began to research and I thought it was only girls from 14 to 24, from middle class to higher class and then I realized that these girls begin very early at 7 or 8 years old, and there are also very old people that have this disease. And… having the sickness (kidney cancer) I was thinking about faith, how to see faith. So between these two subjects with Ernesto Anaya, we began to write the movie.

We are also speaking in Mexico to help make a law where women in fashion shows… models in fashion shows, should be more than size four.

It’s really great how quickly you tell Matilde’s childhood story using really short scenes and very little dialogue.

That’s important that you say that because in Mexico, one of the big enemies of Mexican culture I think is television. Because everything on Mexican television is really melodramatic and you have to explain everything with words. So I tried to do this movie… you know, the script is one hundred and four pages and only twenty-one of those pages have dialogue.

Really?

Yes… So it’s also something that, if someone doesn't speak spanish and watches the movie, even in English, they can understand the movie.

Also about introducing [Matilde’s story] in a fast way, I think it’s like doing commercials… it’s a fantastic game. You know like Sports Center for a filmmaker. [Laughs] Because instead of shooting once a year, here you can shoot at least once a week. In Mexico there’s this thing that if you do commercials you can’t do films and if you do films you can’t do commercials and I think we are showing that is nonsense. Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu (director of Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros) did commercials most his life… the only thing is that when I was shooting commercials, I was like washing other people’s clothes. Now making a movie, I’m washing my own clothes… I am speaking about subjects that I’m really interested in.

How do you like to work with your actors to develop their performances?

You know, it’s very interesting because three months before shooting the movie we ate together everyday… but some ate and some they didn’t. [Laughs]

Uh oh… Did you tell them, “Hey, that could be a problem!” [Laughs]

Actually we had a doctor that was with us the whole time because Elena [de Haro], the mother… lost 24 pounds during the movie. On the other side Milagros Vidal, the lover, she gained 18 pounds. Now, Elena is heavier and Milagros lost weight but… we prepared not only by speaking about whom they were but they also gave a fantastic physical effort for the roles.

So it was a great experience. Instead of just rehearsing the scenes, we spoke much more about who the characters were. Actually Elena, after a year after shooting, tells me for her it’s been difficult for her to get away from her character.

What were your thoughts about the look of the film? The were some really beautiful moments like the rain drop coming down in slow motion and hitting the girl’s hand…

Yeah, I shot that at 1,200 fps. That moment was very important for me, because that’s the real beginning of the movie. When the rain starts it’s like the motor, the machine of the movie. I decided to make the movie with these kinds of visuals because the film of the movie is so durable and so strong, that I also wanted to make a movie that the people would enjoy watching. Not make it like these classic Mexican films that are handheld and totally grainy. So I tried to show another way of making films in my country. That we can also do good quality films with very little money.

You mentioned before about how you were afraid to get started because of the critics…

You know what’s funny. Now that I did it… now that I don’t care about the critics really, the critiques are good! [Laughs] It’s like in advertising or anything; you begin to win all the awards when you don’t care about them anymore. I remember I said, “I don’t care anymore about the awards,” in advertising and exactly when I said that, I began to win Cannes Lions. Just like that. Maybe fifteen years ago I was crazy about winning Cannes Lion’s and now it’s… I’m happy that it’s not so important…

So what kind of difficulties did you have with your first film?

One big difficulty was… you know doing commercials, you work for a month on a commercial and then you’re finished. You don’t have to work like six months continuously, just on one project. I was a little bit worried about working with the same people for so many days, so intensely, but then I realized that it wasn’t a difficulty but that it was a blessing… When we finished the film everyone was very happy. Still now, at least once a week we go to eat together with the actors and actresses and everything.

One big problem… it’s much more difficult to get the money for a film because you’re not selling a product you are just telling a story. In my case I was very lucky, because lots of people with whom I worked, they trusted [me] and they gave me the money. But even that is difficult because they don’t know if they are going to have a profit in the first place. And then even if they make a profit… the money arrives slowly, it doesn’t arrive very fast.

The other thing is that you are selling part of yourself making a movie. Doing a movie is as difficult as getting naked and walking in the street. You are very fragile, but the thing is to be honest. It was difficult to explain to the people who gave the money, that there wasn’t going to be a happy ending, and boy meets girl and then there’s a bad guy… I was going to do a much more personal film. I’m very glad that they trusted me.

Even with all your experience, was there something that you learned while working on Bad Habits?

The most important thing I learned has to do with the theme of the movie. You know [shooting] for fifty days, at certain moments, you can lose the theme of the characters. I didn’t want any garbage photos. I wanted everything to relate, each frame of the movie has to do with the other frame. So what I learned is that the work in writing the script is very important but the most important, more important than the form, or how well it’s done, or the effects, or how you shoot… the most important thing at the end is what you build… the story.

So you’re saying that because you worked on it for such a long time, you were afraid that you’d lose focus?

I didn’t lose it but I was afraid of losing it all the time. So you have to really concentrate. In commercials you have to concentrate four or five days if the campaign is big. Here you have to concentrate for fifty days continuously, and I am kind of like a kid with attention deficit disorder. I begin to play and things like that, so this time I had to really concentrate. [Laughs]

How are things looking in terms of festivals? Are you screening at lot more festivals?

You know, for me, it’s very strange what’s happening because I made the movie just to make it. I didn’t make it for festivals or awards and now I understand that the awards are the consequence [Laughs] of the work of a lot of people. We went to Guadalajara and we won best film then we went to Cannes… and Cannes was fantastic. Then the first time I went to the States [to screen the film] was in Las Vegas. For me it was very important to see people’s reactions, even more than the awards. They gave us time for just six questions [in the Q&A] and the people wanted to continue asking questions, it was very good. Then Trevor [Groth, festival director of CineVegas,] told me that the movie was ranked in the top of comments and also in the people’s choice. So I’m very happy because that gives me signs of how to promote the movie in the States. They invited us to more than thirty festivals now…

More than thirty?

More than thirty yes… it’s incredible! But we have to choose where I go… The nice thing about that is that I don’t have to choose them. Fortissimo, my distributor in Europe, Asia, Middle East and Australia is going to choose those ones. Gussi, my distributor for Central America and South America, will choose the other ones. I want to go to the London film festival, the Huelva festival, to Berlin, to the Montreal festival… for sure I would like to go to Mar Del Plata to see more reactions from spanish speaking people. … But it has been incredible and surprising for me in Las Vegas. There was even a group of people on the internet who called themselves Bad Habit fans… that was weird! [Laughs]

The other interesting thing was I screened Bad Habits in Las Vegas and in my movie it rains all the time, and Las Vegas never rains… Then the name of the movie is Bad Habits and Vegas is the perfect place to say that no? Then we talk about eating disorders and the day I showed the movie, I went to a buffet in the Rio and I never saw so many eating disorders in just one place! Then at the end, it’s the fifth time I’ve been to Las Vegas because I like gambling [Laughs] but it’s the first time I won!

Oh yeah, you won some money?

No… the award… just the award. [Laughs] No, I lost. I lost like two hundred dollars… Something very interesting about the CineVegas festival is that no matter how depressing or difficult the movie is you’re watching, you just go out and you’re in Las Vegas! That’s fantastic! You can gamble, eat and go to shows!

Actually I went to the Penn and Teller show… and I met Teller. So I went to the parties with my brothers and Penn and Teller. That’s incredible! There’s photos of Teller and us… that’s very strange! Teller the magician and three crazy Mexicans! [Laughs]

That’s great you had such an awesome experience in Vegas.

It’s even more interesting for me because in Mexico the festival was very big, because it’s a domestic Mexican festival, my movie was… a candidate to win before the festival. Then in Cannes, it’s a huge festival and it was amazing but it’s also very French. Everything has to do with protocols and stuff like that. So going to Vegas was very refreshing and the people’s reception [of the film] was great for me… you know, in the Q&A it was great because, they [the audience] began to say things about their own lives… and I was very touched about that because I did this movie for the Mexican market and then I realized that it has feet, not that it can walk, but that the problem is global… and in the United States I think it’s a big problem… anorexia and bulimia… also obesity… all the eating disorders.

Did you notice any differences in how people relate to the film at all the different festivals?

Yeah… they have different problems. In Mexico I think the audience felt like it was a very Mexican movie and I like that. In Cannes they were watching the food all the time, and in the States they focused much more on the eating disorders. I think different cultures choose the subject of the movie.

So in France they must have really liked watching Gustavo have an affair with the young girl and eating the food while their making love…

Yeah, they loved that! They wrote and wrote about that… how the food is the line of the movie. It’s the main subject for them.

Is there a chance it’ll hit U.S. theaters?

Yes… actually we already have a proposal but we’re trying to see what is the best for the movie and for the American market. We are waiting for another two or three festivals and hopefully the movie will do well at the festivals… and then we will sell it. Robert Stein from Paradigm and Gary Pearl my manager, are helping me a lot to sell the movie, but also Salma Hayek said fantastic things to me. She’s giving me advice and helping me to sell the movie in the States and in Canada too.

What inspires you as a filmmaker or as an artist?

You know what inspires me is really is what I see everyday. Not only what I read, not only what I see in the movies or the paintings I see. I live in Mexico City, and Mexico City is the biggest city in the world. It’s really, really beautiful and really, really ugly at the same time. It has the best and the worst in the same place. So I live in the middle of a very rich place to watch things. What inspires me most is people… watching people… dreaming is also important. If you live eighty years, and you sleep eight hours a day, you’re going to be in bed thirty years. So you have to take advantage of those twenty years dreaming and remembering your dreams are… helping you focus your work.

What advice would you give to other first-time filmmakers?

I would give the same advice that Nike does. Just do it. You know it’s not important how much money you have and now with video, anyone has the opportunity to show themselves in film. Just do it, but do it well. You have to follow your dreams. There’s a great saying, I think it’s from the spanish states from the beginning of the last century: “Let’s be realistic and let’s follow the impossible.” Just try to follow your dream and get it, even if it looks far away.