The Birthday Party is a fascinating short film that sees an Argentine birthday party upended by revelations about it’s characters tragic history. We had the opportunity to interview the film’s director, Arianna Ortiz and star/executive producer, Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel.
Could you tell me how the film came about?
Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel: The source material for the birthday gift is a play written by Stephanie Allison Walker called The Abuelas (2019) and I actually originated the role of Gabriela in the stage world premiere. I remember reading the script for the first time as an Argentinian immigrant myself living in Chicago and having a very like spiritual moment, because I saw myself completely reflected on the page in a way that hadn’t happened to me before. I just knew I wanted to be part of it right away. I knew that I would bring nuance and depth and cultural understanding, being Argentinian myself. I remember going to the artistic director of the company that produced the play, Theatro Vista Productions, and saying if “I don’t play this role we’re going to have a problem!”
Arianna Ortiz: I’m an actor, that’s how I make my living as well as being a filmmaker, and as an actor, I have a very long relationship with Stephanie. In fact, I’ve been a part of developing three of her plays and I was the lead in two of her world premieres. Both Cruz and I in our separate relationships with Stephanie had been urging her to adapt her work to the screen and Cruz finally got her to do it. Stephanie knew that I’m a writer and filmmaker so she’d come to me for feedback on the project as she started to turn it first into a short film. I gave her lots of notes and got really excited about the direction that it was going. That’s how we all came together as a team to make the short film, and now, we’re developing a feature.
CG-C: The audience reactions were just so satisfying, but I remember back then in 2019 when we closed, I looked at Stephanie and I was like “that this is a film, right?” Not every play can get adapted to the screen. But this one is a film; a beautifully character driven screenplay. I have been in Stephanie’s ear for about six years. So I’m not only playing Gabriela, but I’m also the executive producer because I have been very much driving this project for a very long time because I felt so passionately about the subject and the characters.
I’m really drawn to women on screen that are complicated and funny and sexy and mad and in love. Especially as a Latina actor, I’m just very drawn to characters that show the depth of our existence. I think we have been conditioned for a really long time in the media to play only a certain type of role; stereotypes. I live in the city of Chicago, a city that is super diverse, and I walk through the streets and I see people from all walks of life just living their lives, so I’m very drawn to films we can see folks just living their lives. So I’ve been with this project for a really long time. It means a lot to me.
I asked the pair about adapting the performance from stage to screen and the difference Arianna’s experience as an actor made on the director relationship.
CG-C: There’s an intimacy to filmmaking that I really love and am very drawn to. The stage doesn’t have that because on stage you have to make your performance a little bit more broad to make sure that everyone can see it. Thoughts have to be a little bit more external and you have to verbalize thoughts. In film the thought is enough. So as we were reimagining this story for the screen, I think one of the most interesting things was to see the moments that could be told visually. It was just like thinking as an actor about the moments that Gabriela could communicate with a thought, with a simple touch, with a check-in with her husband. Finding those small moments was the adaptation for me as an actor; to choose and to build her emotional world in her mind to make it richer.
AO: I love being an actor. I will always be an actor and I direct like an actor, which is interesting because I think I also write like an actor when I’m writing my own screenplays. For me, story starts with character. Who are your characters? What world do they live in? How do their relationships affect each other? I’m obsessed with story and because character and story are interchangeable, they’re the same thing. I just really get deep into it. In terms of working on set, I understand actors inside and out, which I think makes me really good in the moment when we’re trying to find something. I can see what I’m going to be editing in my head and I might need the actors to hit that rhythm. Sometimes I know better the language to communicate with actors. I have learned that I’m perhaps not the best at coddling them though. Which some of them need. And writers too, I’m learning.
CG-C: It was my first time working with Ariana, and I was really appreciative of the way she gave me notes and of the way she directed me because she has that understanding of the actor’s process. She is very honest and very direct and she has impeccable taste in acting and in film. So I knew that if I was not giving her what she needed she was going to tell me and I really appreciate that honesty. We also had a really wonderful director of photography, Christopher Rejano, who has such a care for actors, such a beautiful understanding of how vulnerable it is to be on the other end of the camera. Between Ariana and Chris, they made a team that made it just really easy to fall into the work, and to just focus on my performance and being present in the moment. I knew that I was going to be taken care of from all ends. I want to feel like my team is not going to let me fail.
AO: There’s a saying that says directing is 90% casting. And I do think that it’s true that if you have the right actors… for example, the woman who plays Carolina, Margarita Lamas, I think she’s 81 years old, and she and I did a play together called The Madres (2018), written by Stephanie Allison Walker. It’s set in 1978 in Argentina. So I had a lot of experience with her as an actor on stage. And she’s very funny. When I sent her the script for the short, she said “I only have 4 lines!” and I said “you have 4 lines, but you’re the entire movie”. And I knew that I could just put the camera on her and that her presence would just fill up the screen and fill up the role. So she may only have four lines, but they’re four very important lines that she really knocks you in the gut with.
Most of the action takes place within the confines of the small home. I asked Arianna and Cruz about utilising this space for their big drama.
AO: The opening shots are very much meant to tell you how cold it is in Chicago. I wanted to welcome the audience in from the cold into this seemingly warm, inviting, delightful Argentine evening filled with tango and music and joy and laughter. It’s a birthday party, a birthday dinner and we’re having a good time but at the same time reminding the audience, especially through sound design, that you’re trapped in here. Then the film reveals itself; that you’ve actually entered a crucible.
CG-C: We had an incredible production designer, who built the details in the scenes. We wanted it to feel like a family home. Because this is a cross-cultural family home. Marty is a Midwestern guy from Chicago married to an Argentinian, so we wanted to feel both worlds. This is an icy winter night, it’s cold and icy outside, but it’s warm inside. Only that wind is about to come into the house with them. So there’s a lot of beautiful symbolism and use of colour that Ariana very successfully did with this short film.
I asked about the importance of cultural artifacts in the narrative, such as the Chocotorta and Gabriella’s music.
AO: The Choco Torta was like this joy touchstone throughout the process of making the film. There’s a wonderful moment after something dramatic has happened in the movie where Choco Torta gets deliciously exclaimed. We don’t really know what it is here in the United States or perhaps in other countries like the UK, et cetera. But for Soledad, the mother in the story, this is her tradition. This is her night, and she’s making it all about her, the things that she loves, centering herself in the song and the dance and all of it, only to have her life choices be pulled out from underneath her towards the end of the film.
I love that you brought up the chocotorta. I kept saying to Christopher, our DoP, “Okay, we need this shot of the Chocotorta and then let’s move it over here and then maybe we can get..”, and he was like, “how many shots of Chocotorta do you need? This is a short film. You don’t need five shots of Chocotorta!” Then of course, as soon as we wrapped, the entire crew devoured the Choco Torta, and it was unbelievable.
CG-C: Music has always played a huge part in my life. I am married to a composer. I moved to the United States so he could do his Masters and PhD in composition. He is a phenomenal Argentinian composer. So music, instruments, they’ve all been part of my life and reality. Getting to play a musician, that was another thing that I could just like really pull from as an actor. The cello and Gabriela’s relationship with the cello is just key to the storytelling. She uses her instrument to process feelings, to feel safe, to feel accomplished. It’s tightly related to her accomplishments, and to the reason why she’s in the United States. The relationship with her mother and her husband, it’s all very deeply tied to her success as a cellist. We had an incredible cellist on set, Jean Hadmaker, and I don’t know how to play the cello so I worked with Jean. Obviously, there’s some movie magic in some moments, but she was so helpful in teaching me how you use your instrument to breathe, to take a moment, to think. It’s such a crucial part of the storytelling; the music in this piece and the yearning and the pain and the joy and there’s so much thematically that comes through the cello. All the music is live; played on set. Jean would make a mistake and Arianna would say, “Yes, I love it. Keep that”. We wanted the imperfection of being an artist to be reflected in the film.
The film builds tension to a dramatic reveal that completely upends the drama and character dynamics. I asked Arianna about building tension ahead of the reveal and then what the reveal means to them both on a cultural level.
AO: It’s a delicate balance. I would say that based on the source material and when we first started doing the adaptation, I really asked the writers, “can we have a good time? Let’s not show our cards so early. Let’s just plant seeds and have a wonderful time and get to know these people”. So the experience that we are finding audiences to have is very satisfying. There’s some friends of mine who are wonderful filmmakers who I worked with as an actor. And during my edit process, I sent them the edit. It was very satisfying for them to like watch the movie and then get to the end and say “Woah, we’re gonna watch that again!” I love playing with misdirection as a filmmaker, as a writer as well.
AO: My number one priority is to tell a story, a compelling story. And for me, this story is about a family. It’s about a family whose lives are upended, which can happen and does happen on any given day to any given family in any number of ways. The fact that this family in particular is being affected by echoes of history from a horrible dictatorship many years ago is specific to them. But in that specificity, I hope that audiences can see themselves because, anyone’s life can be upended. It is, our hope for audiences that after they experience this film, they’re curious and they want to learn more about the history and about the specifics of this particular circumstance. It was very important to Cruz our executive producer and star that we tell the story as authentically as possible. So these are all Argentine actors. We scoured our community trying to find the right people and our writers have one is Argentine and everyone is very committed to authenticity so that we tell as specific a story as possible so that it’s as universal as possible.
CG-C: It’s interesting because as a performer, I knew that what I did in that moment was either going to make or break the film. I knew that there was a lot writing in that final moment to make sure it landed emotionally with the audience. It’s very unexpected. It’s very fast. I knew that it was very important that I could just bring that moment to the screen fully and honestly. We shot that scene at the end of our second day, we shot this whole short film in three days. Everyone was really generous on set with their attention and with their care of the moment, the understanding that this was the shot that we had to nail. I just let myself go into the moment, into the honesty required of that moment. I think the years of having inhabited Gabriela and the years of having carried that character with me all came out in that moment. I live very honestly in her skin now because I’ve been playing her for so long that like I just it came pouring out in a way that was surprised me even when I saw it. It’s a very emotional experience to watch it too now.
The short has an elliptical ending, both resolving the tension of the film but also pointing towards a possible feature adaptation of the rest of the play. I asked what this would mean to the filmmakers.
CG-C It would mean everything. As an artist, this is one of those once in a lifetime projects for me, and that’s why I have been so passionately working to make it a reality. It keeps shedding light and bringing light to a history that should not be forgotten. I think when we forget history, we will make the mistake of repeating it. It’s a reminder of the long term repercussions of history, and how history permeates through generations to come. It’s about how the decisions you make as a human, the decision to emigrate, the decision to fall in love with someone, the decision to lie, the decision to keep a secret, all those permeate for a long time. It’s also a little bit of a love letter to that cross-cultural life, to that multicultural life of immigrants.
AO: We wanted the short film to stand on its own and to be its own experience. But the story does continue and it doesn’t unfold in quite the same way as the short does. It’s much more nuanced and complex. And yeah, I’m really excited for that challenge.
Find out more about Arianna Ortiz’s work here and Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel here.