Recommended by Enrique – Innovative and indie

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Review by Briege McGarrity

Filmmaking duo Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia (OK, Enough, Goodbye) have teamed up once again to make the indie feature, Recommended by Enrique, starring newcomer Sarah Swinwood. It is described as “a tale of mysticism, tradition and the dream of celebrity that explores the uniquely diverse world of Mexican-American border town culture in unexpected ways.”

A young Hollywood starlet (Swinwood) travels to Del Rio, Texas to star in a low-budget horror only to discover that the shoot is being handled by a crew of inexperienced teenagers with no sign of the director. Similarly, a mysterious cowboy arrives in town and is left hanging by his associate. It’s a film within a film, has multiple themes and the protagonists never meet, even though they are staying in the same run-down motel.

Recommended by Enrique recently premiered at the LAFF and scooped the Best Ensemble Acting award, quite an achievement for a cast of unknowns. Attieh and Garcia took time out from shooting their latest project set in South America to chat to IFQ about the inspiration behind this indie film.

Independent Film Quarterly (IFQ): Good job – a true original indie film! Can you elaborate a bit more on the concept for writing and directing a film within a film?

Rania Attieh and David Garcia (RA & D G): Thank you!  We knew we wanted to make a film in Del Rio, where Daniel’s family is from. Our first feature, OK, Enough, Goodbye was made in Rania’s hometown of Tripoli, Lebanon and we liked the idea of making another film about a place that we were close to.  We have always been fascinated by Del Rio as a place, and we wanted to make the town a third character in the film, so that the audience will feel as though they actually visited.  In the summer of 2012 we found ourselves with a month between two different projects, so we decided to go to Del Rio and make the film.  We had one month of pre-production, gathered a group of good friends, and went down to make the movie.  The story was inspired by a real situation that we found ourselves in when we were younger, before we ever started making films and we were also influenced by a lot of Noir films that we were watching at the time we made this film.

IFQ: The apparent true part of the film was your own student filmmaking experience of shooting a bad B Movie in Del Rio Texas – it seems outrageous do tell us more!

RA & DG: At the time of the initial situation we were both students in Texas and very young.   We were interested in beginning a career in film, and an acquaintance told us that there was a feature film shooting in Del Rio, Texas, where Daniel’s mother is from, and that we could join and help if we wanted. The rumor was that the film had a budget, and was being produced by some big studio – Universal or Paramount. It was summer and we had nothing to lose, so we headed down there to work on the film.  Needless to say, it was not the film set we were expecting. When we arrived the set was being run by a group of teenagers from the town, and the director was rarely around.    We were just kids ourselves, so we rolled with it.  Daniel wrote a lot of the scenes, and acted in them, while Rania did all of the production design, hair and make-up.  Every now and then the director would hire actresses from Austin to come down to Del Rio and work on the film.  Imagining the experiences of that set from the perspective of the actresses inspired us to write Recommended by Enrique.   At the end of that original shoot, it turned out that the director was scamming the teenage crew out of money, and that there was no big studio financing the film.  We ended up with a camera, and with that camera we made our first short film.  To this day, we always thank the director of that movie at the end of all of our own films, because he allowed us to make our first film.

As long as we can remember, we’ve always wanted to make a film that was inspired or even directly based on that experience. So when we found the opportunity, we took it.  

IFQ: How was the experience of co-directing and how did you two meet in the first place? 

RA & DG: We met in Texas in a drawing class.  We were both interested in film, but we were both studying other things.  Since the very beginning we have been working together, so it is a very natural process for us.  What makes our process work is the fact that we are completely unafraid to be brutally honest with each other about our opinions regarding each other’s ideas.  Co-directing is about complete honesty.  At the beginning of a project there is a lot of yelling and name calling, then we settle down and begin actually working.   Once we start working we divide up the work naturally, and everything falls into place.  The work is pretty much split down the middle. We co-write and we edit together. On set Daniels handles the camera, Rania is more focused on the art direction, and we work with the actors together.

IFQ: Congrats on the ensemble acting award at the LA Film Fest! Are you surprised by the attention the film is receiving?

RA & DG: We are very excited by the attention that Recommended by Enrique is receiving and honored to have won the ensemble acting award.  To tell the truth, we are not surprised.  Our cast was amazing – mostly non-professionals, but all very talented and dedicated people.  We were lucky to find Sarah Swinwood on YouTube and were just as lucky to find a group of very talented people in Del Rio. While we were shooting we could see that the film was going to turn out well.  It was such an amazing experience that we knew the audience was going to feel the same way that we did. It’s the second film we’ve made where non-actors that we cast received an acting award (Daniel Arzrouni won for Ok, Enough, Goodbye) and it always feels very satisfying to be able to offer them such an experience.

IFQ: I must say Sarah Swinwood was impressive as the aspiring actress and I liked that you took a risk with unknowns in your film. Tell us a bit about the casting experience?

RA & DG: Thank you.  We agree that Sarah gave an impressive performance.  We found her on YouTube, where she has a channel of videos she makes of herself.  When we came up with the concept for this film, and decided to shoot it, we immediately thought of her.  By chance, she had just arrived in New York.  We met and the three of us decided that this could be a great experience.  We didn’t see it as a risk.  We had worked with non-actors in a lot of our previous work, including our first feature Ok, Enough, Goodbye, and we like working with them.  We also like the natural feeling that they bring to the film. They have an intuitive sense that brings a different tone to the film from professional actors.

It wasn’t until we had already decided to make Recommended by Enrique that we remembered our infatuation with the YouTube “starlet.” So we reached out to her and asked her to meet us in Brooklyn for a drink or two to talk about a film. After two rounds, we had secured our actress.

IFQ:  Was there an actual shooting script?

RA & DG: Yes.  We always start with a script or a treatment. In this case, because of the constraints of the production – small crew, short pre-production and small budget – we had to be very flexible in how we shot and we ended up rewriting a lot of scenes to fit our situation or what we had available to us.  But the essence of the film is what we originally set out to make.  This flexibility allows us to shoot fast and cheap, and we also believe it adds to the exciting and lively nature of the final film. The script and/or treatment was not shared with the cast as we learnt that it can burden the performance of untrained actors in general and it’s best to guide them scene by scene.

IFQ: Were the roles written specifically for the actors who play them?

RA & DG: We had the concept for “The Actress” before we found Sarah on YouTube, because it was based on the real life situation that we had found ourselves in years before. But as we worked with her and got to know Sarah, she brought a lot of herself to the role, and in the end the character you see on screen is a construct of both our concept and Sarah’s vision of the character.  “The Actress” is both Sarah and not Sarah at the same time.    The cowboy character came later, and as soon as we decided to include that character in this film, we knew that Lino Varela, who is Daniel’s great-uncle would be perfect for the role.

IFQ: It was interesting that the main cast of the actress and the cowboy who were both left hanging did not interact with each other?

RA & DG: Ultimately this was a very conscious decision to have two parallel stories be exactly that, parallel. In every other movie with two characters, they do cross paths. We wanted to make something a little different, so you’re not getting what you’re expecting. You’re going on our ride, not yours. Each storyline has a different visual aesthetic and camera movements. The film is a tale of a town through two distinct visitors and distinct tones. One is a classic fictional character “The Cowboy” and the other is just trying to play the role of one, “The Actress.”

IFQ: Did the Mexican cowboy guide you on how to incorporate the mysticism?

RA & DG: The mysticism in the film came from our original experience in Del Rio on the set of the other film.  The original director legitimately believed that he was the Son of God, Jesus’ brother, and that his film was going to save the world from the apocalypse.  The entire feel of the set had this supernatural mysticism. The mysticism in the film also comes directly from the beliefs of the town itself.  The legend of the Llorona, a story of a woman who wanders the night crying for her lost children, which is recounted by one of the characters in the film, is really something that the entire town believes in.  They believe that the Llorona is buried at top of the Loma de la Cruz on a hill above the city.  We wanted to highlight the sensation of living in that town, and being in a place where belief in the supernatural and mystical creates part of the culture.

IFQ: I’m curious – what is the culture in that part of the world?  Is it a blend of American and Mexican way of life and were they supportive of the film being made on their turf?

RA & DG: The entire city of Del Rio was incredibly supportive of our film.  We could not have made the film without the support of the entire city – from local community centers, the Mayor’s office, and the former Mayor who is actually in the film – everyone was excited that we were making a film in their city.  It is a very unique place. We honestly could not have made the film without them. The locations we were finding and some of the characters we were meeting, all made an impression and wrote themselves into the film. They are all handpicked from the town itself, which helps add an authentic sense of place. Beside the outline of the narrative as a whole, we went to Del Rio with only one month to pull off the whole production so we were casting and location scouting as we were filming. Some of the locations for the Actress narrative are the original locations of our past experience.

IFQ: What’s next?

RA & DG: We are currently in post-production on our new feature film, H.  H. is fully funded and mentored by the Venice Biennale College – Cinema and will premiere at the Venice Film Festival this August, 2014.  We are very excited about this film.  It is different than anything we have made before – with professional actors, special effects, a bigger budget and a slightly larger crew.   Nonetheless, we have stayed true to many of the tropes that have inspired our earlier films. Like Ok, Enough, Goodbye and Recommended by Enrique, H. also takes place in a unique small city, in which the city is one of the main characters.  H. is set in Troy, NY just after a meteor has exploded in the sky above the city.  In the aftermath of this strange event, the film follows two characters, both named Helen, in this modern retelling of the story of Helen of Troy.