In advance of BFF’s 2020 Online Festival, we will be sharing exclusive interviews with this year’s filmmakers. Get to know their films, their inspirations, and their advice to fellow emerging filmmakers. Check out our interview with Arlen Aguayo Stewart and Margarita Valderrama, director and producer of DATE NIGHT.
Arlen Aguayo-Stewart is a Montreal-born and Toronto-based actor and creator. Date Night is her first stab at directing film. She has an eclectic background in film, theatre, dance, circus, and is fluent in five languages. Some of her acting credits include TAKEN (NBC), In Contempt (BET), On the Basis of Sex, and most notably her starring role in Roads in February that not only won Best First Feature at TIFF but also landed her a Vancouver Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress.
Margarita Valderrama is a Colombian-Canadian actor, writer and filmmaker. She was born in Buenos Aires, raised in Bogotá and Mexico City, and has called Toronto home for over a decade. As an actor, she works in voice over, on-camera and theatre. Her first short film script Date Night won the ACTRA Toronto Shorts Competition last summer and since has been part of film festivals in Canada and the U.S. and most recently the Breakthroughs Film Festival. Currently, she’s part of the 2020 Netflix-BANFF Diversity of Voices Initiative, working on her bilingual limited series Eyes Open | Ojos Abiertos with her co-creator Arlen Aguayo Stewart.
Congratulations on your 2020 BFF film selection! Can you tell us a bit about your film?
Arlen Aguayo Stewart: Date Night revolves around three women: two daughters and their mother, who are separated for a few years of their lives and then later live together again in adulthood. The mom has actually been diagnosed with a serious cancer and has decided to die with dignity and now her two adult daughters are trying to grapple with that in their own way. But we still get to see the reality of what it's like to move in with your parents again and still encounter the idea of death with the happiness, the sadness, the grossness, the silliness and all the humanity we don't always get to discuss on the regular. This little film is a microcosm of that world, when the mom decides to go on a date.
What inspired you to tell this story?
Margarita Valderrama: This film and story is inspired by my grandmother and my aunt, both of whom died on their own terms. My aunt had a terminal cancer that she refused treatment for, and my grandmother suffered a stroke at 91. She did have everything in place so that she could die on her own terms surrounded by family. I was very impacted by both of their stories and not just their deaths but their lives. I wanted to explore that and Arlen has also had very similar experiences, so when I approached her to be my co-creator for a larger project we started creating these characters together. We wanted to really look at how to deal with death and it's a conversation that, unless you have a family member or a loved one going through it, it's perhaps not an everyday question. Unfortunately, I think these days it might be a more common question and conversation, which is really sad. The women in my family inspired this story, and that's why I wanted to write it.
Still from Date Night
The acting in this film is really incredible. Although the entire film takes place in one evening, we are able to learn so much about these characters in a short span of time. Can you tell us a little bit about your own background in acting and how that might have influenced your direction of your characters?
AAS: I think having been on sets from a very young age and then in my other acting life now as an adult, you kind of get to see things that work really well and you also see the things that don't.. As well as having acted, I had PA'd on a set, already been a first AD, and after this project I started to produce other stuff as well. Gaining that perspective from the bottom and from the other side of the lense gave me so much insight into how to structure this story in a way that we get the best work out of everything and that everyone on set feels respected. We really wanted to create a great space on set where people felt comfortable and where they felt comfortable to tell us if stuff wasn't going right for them.
I really love actors, I love to work with them, I am an actor and so I love to be able to provide everything so that they can do the best work. Getting them to work together and to connect and to get all the awkwardness- because it's always awkward when you have to say your lines and it's like, OK we're shooting right now! And I also love cinema a ton! I had some very specific ideas of maybe not following a super hollywood-ish aesthetic. Taking different angles and if we had more time, more money, there would have been some other kinds of shots in there. But we did what we could with what we had, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
What advice would you give to an emerging filmmaker just starting out?
MV: Jill Golick gave us some great advice when Arlen and I started embarking on working together and figuring out how to be filmmakers. I had said, “I don't know what to do, I can't apply for all these things, I haven't done anything yet,” and she told me to apply for everything. Just apply for everything, even if you don't think you have all the qualifications. Write a great application and put your heart into it. Don't censor yourself. That was great advice and truly catapulted us because we just started applying for everything. It was because of that that we're here and we're talking to you. We're so excited to show our film and I definitely stand for that advice- just apply for everything!
AAS: There's not just one route to get to where you want to go. Just because something worked for someone else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Your journey is your own journey and it's going to be hard sometimes and don't let that discourage you. Just keep going.
Care to share any films you’re inspired by, that our community should check out during this quarantine?
MV: I recommend Mañana a esta hora by Lina Rodriguez who is a Colombian-Canadian filmmaker. It's a really beautiful film. There's also this wonderful documentary called There's Something in the Water that Ellen Page did and I think it's on Netflix now so definitely very informative. It’s a film that reminds us about the communities that the Canadian government continues to ignore.
AAS: Films I recommend are Alles ist gut (All is Well), La Camarista (The Chambermaid), Yomeddine and Quién te cantará. There's also a film I was in called Roads in February which is actually streaming on Vimeo for free right now.
Catch DATE NIGHT as part of BFF’s 2020 Online Festival, with a special live-streamed Q&A with Arlen on Saturday June 27th. Join us June 25 - 28, 2020 for screenings, virtual Q&As, panel discussions and more! Get Tickets Today.