Posted by Awarded Bronze Best Mystery Short Film and Best Microfilm plus an honorable mention for Best Acting Duo (Lola Rùi and James Augustus Lee) in July season of ISA, “The Door”, spoken in English, is the first work of Spanish actress and writer Lola Rùi as a director. A big challenge for who just started to learn the language.
Lola Rùi studied Acting at Jorge Eines Art Studio in Madrid and the Susan Batson Studio in New York City. She has been creating art in every form since the age of 5. She trained in ballet at the Margot Fontaine Royal Academy in Madrid and performed “Alice in Wonderland” in The Alcalá Palace Theater at the age of 7. She moved her Artistic Spirit to paint. Her work as a painter continues which has inspired her to extend her artistic expression to creating stories. She wrote her first play “De mente” which won the Prize to be represented at Microteatro in Spain. Her One Woman Show that she wrote and starred in “Mary Magdalene” opened at The Historical 13th Street Theater in New York City. She recently finished two films in New York “El Barrio” and “Judgment Before Judgment”, directed by James Augustus Lee. She is very excited to present the short film “The Door” her first work as a director.
ISA: How did “The Door” born?
Lola Rùi: “The Door” is born between two, James Augustus Lee and I, a trivial phone call conversation between both… as some people are experts in running away at the slightest difficulty without facing themselves. It was the starting point of everything. We built the whole story and the characters by phone and once I arrived in New York, we outlined everything. James proposed to me to direct the project and offer my vision and I accepted without hesitation. My first time as a Director.
ISA: Did you have any difficulty to direct and act at the same time?
LR: Well, this has its difficulty of course, I did not have any assistant in the direction so I had to maintain an exhaustive control over myself to be inside my character and in moments outside to see the scene from outside and to control how everything was working. This takes a lot of energy and requires a lot of concentration. For that reason, it was very important to take my character very internalized to which we dedicated long and hard rehearsals – both James Augustus Lee and me before to shoot. This made things easier. Another one of the difficulties was to overcome my recent English. I just started to learn how to speak it so this was a challenge, of course!
ISA: How did you overcome the language barrier both in your directing role and in the performance?
LR: Obviously, as a director, you have to convey your vision of the story you want to tell the whole team, as well as the way it is going to be done. I had very clear from the beginning how I wanted to tell this story. So to save this difficulty, it became an exhaustive screenplay, highly organized and detailed for the rest of the team, without closing the door to those magical moments that arise in all filming fruit of improvisation and the present moment that gives life to a story. When you turn a scene you must always be alive and, from this life, accidents can arise and turn in to gold. This only happens when you work with brilliant actors and I was lucky enough to work with one of them, James Augustus Lee. At this point, I have to give thanks to James who helped me to make me understand with the rest of the team when I had some difficulty with the language, translating them exactly what I wanted to say. So, the answer is this: when you put passion in what you do, the barriers are diluted.
ISA: Why did you decide to send your movie to Independent Shorts Awards?
LR: ISA offers many categories among which you can find one or several that fit in your project. Independent Shorts Awards provides opportunity and visibility to directors, actors, actresses, musicians, writers, etc… with great professionalism. Thank you very much to Victor Eustáquio, director of ISA, and the rest of ISA team for your amazing support for independents filmmakers.
ISA: Next project?
LR: It is already be cooking!
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