Karel Solei sought for the first time non-professional interpreters for his camera and photography student internships.
Years later, he did not hesitate for a moment in accepting director Laura Mora's proposal to find Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano.
They are the protagonists of
The Kings of the World
,
a Colombian film that portrays the lives of five adolescents on the streets of Medellín, which won the Golden Shell in San Sebastián and which was presented this November at the fifth edition of the Film Festival by Women of Madrid.
This casting director started with
Leidi,
a short film directed by Simón Mesa, which was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. With Mora, she has already worked on the film
Matar a Jesús.
The main characters in
The Kings of the World
are five street boys: Brahian Acevedo, Davison Flores, Cristian Camilo Mora, Cristian Campaña and Andrés Castañeda, leader of the gang and precisely the last to arrive in the cast.
When searching for their names in the actors' files or in the portfolios of representation agencies, nothing is found.
His presence bursts the screen.
These
pelaos
(young people, in Colombia), like the rest of the characters, have never studied acting nor did they ever dream that playing others in front of a camera could be a way of earning a living.
Ask.
How does the search start?
Response.
The first thing is to locate the universe of the characters, something that Laura Mora, the director, was very clear about.
She described each one to me with one word: dignity, justice, rebellion, revenge and a certain mystique.
I knew they were in the darkest corners of the street, in prisons paying for minor crimes, in the barras bravas [extremist groups of soccer fans], but also among the kids who practice that bestial sport called
Gravity Bike
.
It consists of hooking the bicycle to the back of a truck, of course without permission, picking up speed and letting go downhill at more than 100 kilometers per hour on busy roads.
Without any fear.
I approach by using their language;
without judging them.
They are sensitive boys who also have their values.
If they're high it doesn't matter, if they want a beer you share it with them.
If they trust, they turn
Q.
Not even to death?
A.
Not even to death.
They are
peeled
with nothing to lose.
They live on the street.
Some have a house, but they go there one day a week looking for clothes, because they are completely unstructured homes.
The Kings of the World is a
road movie
about a group of kids who undertake a journey to recover a piece of land that the paramilitaries expropriated from the leader's grandmother, Rá, protected by the Law of Victims and Land Restitution of the Government of Juan Manuel Santos [former president of Colombia].
A barren and uninhabitable piece of countryside is their promised land.
Q.
How do you approach those guys?
A.
There are people with magnets.
Looks that instantly arouse my curiosity.
I approach them by using their language and without judging them, they are sensitive boys who also have their values.
If they're high it doesn't matter, if they want a beer you share it with them.
If they trust, they turn.
From there everything is talking and talking.
I admit that my appearance helps a lot.
Karel Solei is 38 years old, which he does not appear at all.
The antithesis of a hasty executive or a demanding acting teacher, he wears a most alternative outfit and a hairstyle that combines the art of shaving the temples with long dreadlocks in a tribal updo.
He has lived in Spain since 2016. “I came to be close to my mother, a figure who, in Colombia, wow
!,
is almost like the Virgin.
The mother, bad as she may be, for us is the most ”.
If the film depicts street children, let's look on the street.
They play themselves and they do it very well.
Q.
How was the first day of shooting?
R.
Laura [Mora] used an emotions map that she explained to each one.
We worked daily and the only thing they had to learn was not to look at the camera, to ignore it.
From there, we activate their listening a lot because they are naturally frantic and impulsive.
Obviously, it is not a movie with many dialogues and they express themselves in her slang.
Karel Solei, casting director, teaches Brahian Acevedo, who plays the character Nano, a series of exercises to release energy before shooting a scene.Juan Cristobal Cobo
Q.
Thinking of
Alcarràs,
by Carla Simón,
Secaderos
, by Rocío Mesa,
Estación Catorce
, by Diana Cardozo,
La Maternal,
by Pilar Palomero, or
El Agua
, by Elena García Riera, who do without experienced interpreters, why do they work? so well do non-professional actors in certain films?
R.
Because they are stripped of all kinds of ego.
If the film depicts street children, let's look on the street.
They play themselves and they do it very well.
They show their experiences full of authenticity and the work is approached through the game.
We call it cinema of truth.
Had he chosen actors to play excluded boys, it would have been very noticeable because the body also speaks.
In addition, the public may get tired of seeing the actor more than the character.
Q.
I guess the shoot was full of surprises.
R.
I have seen, heard and smelled everything.
It's not easy to find guys who, without being free of evil, are big enough to trust our proposal and take on eight weeks of shooting under the command of a team made up of all women.
They are teenagers, with their outbreaks of masculinity, but there was not a single behavioral problem.
Finding out what men who live in an environment of constant violence are really like was crazy for all of them.
I had never met such loving boys among them, they took care of each other, supported each other and even mourned the death of the characters.
"Won't we see him anymore?", they asked us.
I confess that I was expecting something much more rude.
Q.
Did you understand the story?
R.
They never had the script in their hands.
We worked daily based on an explanation: his only objective was to reach that land that, from then on, would be his.
The protagonists of Laura Mora's feature film have finished eating and are relaxing in the Santa Rosa de Osos Mountains north of Antioquia, Colombia.Juan Cristobal Cobo
Q.
And when did you see the movie?
R.
Well, imagine the trip to the San Sebastian Festival, the projection on a giant screen, the applause….
What they cried!.
It was overwhelming.
To look at them there, meant to see someone whom hope has visited.
There, it was all worth it.
Q.
What has happened to the boys?
A.
They go on with their lives, although with certain changes.
They were offered the chance to study, without pressure because they are still the same and it must not have been easy for them to return to reality after such an experience.
They are young people who hardly know anything other than evil, with addictions and many shortcomings.
It was very positive to meet people who smoke a joint but then it works and does useful things.
Some have started interpretation workshops, others have invested in improving their bicycles or have bought a motorcycle to work in the fields.
Our job was never to redeem them, however, it makes us very happy to know that perhaps they have discovered that life can be worth living.
Even if it's a little.
P.
Some lives that are not valued the same everywhere…
A.
That's right.
When I came here in 2016, we were in a meeting and the topic of family came up.
Everyone was talking about theirs and when I said that my father had been murdered, there was a deathly silence and I perceived the discomfort of the people.
In my land we are so many orphans of violence that we almost normalize it.
"My dad too," they usually respond there when talking about these crimes.
Q.
Now you work in a company that is dedicated to
streaming
.
After having made a short,
Illegal
, do you think about directing again?
A.
Yes. I am looking for funding while I write a story about the sexual exploitation of girls and adolescents.
For me, art is political and, although life has beautiful moments, many debates still have to be put on the table because what is not named does not exist.
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