After premiering at SXSW 2014 to rave reviews, Carlos Marques-Marcet‘s 10,000 KM has gone on to win the hearts and minds of festival filmgoers the world over. With a wide-spread limited release platform that sees 10,000 KM opening in 11 cities across the U.S. – a statistic that executive producer Pau Brunet called, “Pretty much a major release for this kind of movie,” With its weekend release to domestic theaters from New York to San Francisco, we’ve dredged up this year-old interview, one that’s aged like a fine wine.

Join us as we discuss the film’s veritably hot reception, working with such a close-knit cast, the challenges of a tiny shoot, the challenges of navigating love in a world of increasingly technology, finding the right ending and breaking down the film’s key scenes.

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I tried to catch this film while I was at SXSW where it premiered but just got caught up in so much else that has been going on. Then I saw that Natalia and David had won the special jury award for best acting duo. I was kicking myself for skipping it. Then I had a chance to see it here at SIFF and I must admit, I was so, so impressed. I truly love this film. Can you talk about the success you’ve experienced with 10,000 KM? I have to expect that it came as somewhat of a surprise for you: how well received the film has been. Can you talk about the success and how that has surprised you?

Carlos Marques-Marcet: Oh yeah. It took 5 years to make the screens.In the middle of the process, I was worried that they’re really not going to like this movie at all. We’re all going back and forth. At the same time, I had no idea what people would think. I wasn’t really expecting anything. And then we went to South By Southwest— we hadn’t show the movie before and we got into the official selection there. We were the only non-English film in the Official Selection, so it was like, “Oh my god!” After the first screening, people went crazy. People loved it. It was Monday at 11am. We thought nobody would be there. The theater wasn’t totally full but the people that went there gave us a stand-up ovation; people were crying and laughing a lot. It was very, very touching, that first screening. In the second screening at South-by, everybody, all of the agencies, all of the buyers were there. We were like, “Uhh! What’s going on! What’s happening here?” The word of mouth have moved very very fast. We finally sold the movie and we worked out a deal a few weeks ago!

Excellent news.

CMM: We sold the movie worldwide. Broad Green Pictures, they’re releasing it to the United States. We went to  Spainand won a lot of awards there as well, like best picture. It was crazy. My mother was like, “Waaahh!!” It’s funny. At the same time, we’re exactly the same people. We’re just lucky that it did really well.

Absolutely. I’m sure it’s been a very pleasant surprise. Let’s shift gears and talk about the first scene of the movie where you start off with this one really lengthy uncut scene that sets up the events to follow where the lovers, Alex and Sergi, go off in separate directions. In this one take, we see basically the whole spectrum of emotion. How many times did it take you to get a scene like that exactly right? Additionally,why did you view that as a scene that just had to be one shot, uninterrupted, uncut?

CMM: We shot it 17 times over 2 days. I knew what we needed already. We were rehearsing for 10 days, a week of preparing and shooting. I knew the first day we were not going to get it right. Actually, the idea was not even mine, it was an idea my script editor had. Originally the same scene was divided into 5 or 6 scenes. Then my script editor said the movie will be much more stronger if you build a very long scene at the beginning and a very long scene at the end. At the beginning I was like, “I don’t know…” Then I realized, I could probably make like a 30 minute shot! I didn’t want it to be that but I realized that he was right about the bookends. It wasn’t so much I needed it for the shot myself, but I liked the effect. Filming people together in the same space with no time construction, no time cap with them. And then suddenly, boom, cut. You’ve got all of these slices of lives where you don’t see the fullness of sharing a space. In the beginning, you’re experiencing these moments they had together before they are torn apart.

The film depends so heavily on the performances of Natalia Tena and David Verdaguer, and, for a large part of the movie, they’re not even in the same room together. What was it about each of them that made them work so well for this project, particularly for Natalia, who I read came in and replaced Barbara Lennie in the eleventh hour?

CMM: Yeah, you know the story?

Tell me a little bit more about it.

CMM: She was really good, I really liked her. She had a problem though with scheduling. We got very lucky though. They found each other, they liked each other. You can not plan that. We did a lot of planning for them. We’d been rehearsing for 2 weeks. And basically, a lot of the rehearsals were about creating the feeling that this couple had been together for 7 years. Creating their history as a couple. To get to the place where they are now. Getting to the moment they decide to have a baby. Trying to find out all of these moments. Finding scenes about all of these moments previously. And then we did a lot of exercises. It’s all about the way they talk with each other. To break the ice, they did a lot of dancing. We used a lot of songs. Build a relationship and what does it mean to be a couple. They’d go get a massage; they’d go out every night. Basically we had fun together.

But then at some point did you actually tear them apart? Did you actually take Natalia out of Barcelona to do the shoot? And did you feel a need to keep them physically distant when you were shooting those scenes of distance?

CMM: Actually, for a while it was ok to all hang out. To have the experience. At the same time, we didn’t want them to be able to go out after shooting. But we’d still go over the lines for the next day. It’s a way of still bonding together at night.

I’m assuming that means that you shot it somewhat chronologically?

CMM: Yeah. We shot the first opening scene, then we shot all of the Skype scenes in chronologically order. Originally, we couldn’t do it chronologically because of time. Then we had a 10 days break. Then we did the last scene. They hadn’t seen each other for 10 days. I keep them apart so they didn’t see the apartment until the last minute. It was very hard to shoot the last scene. It was a night shoot. It was very sad. It was hard.

One of the things that is so interesting about the film is that it really tries to find the limits of technology in an age where we’ve almost sought to replicate organic, physical connection with all of these e-devices, from Skype to email, text, phone calls, et cetera — but it doesn’t ever really seem to match the real thing. Does that give you some semblance of hope for relationships going forth into the future or is that a somewhat grim realization in a increasingly globalized world where people are involved in long distance relationships and need to depend on Skype and texts and phone calls to connect? Essentially, if I had to boil that down, do you think that this is a hopeful realization or a grim one?

CMM: Somehow, you’re talking with somebody like 3000 miles away. By your side. Sometimes there’s someone by your side that you’re not talking with at all. At the same time, it makes us closer but somehow I feel like it will never change. Physical presence, there is no substitute. The problem is not technology now, the problem is conversation. It’s a post-capitalism thing.

So do you see where technology stands right now as a limitation of sorts? Yes, it connects us with people and yet it’s not quite enough; whereas if technology continued to the point where there could be some kind of physical representation of your partner, could that be a fix-all? Or are we going down a slippery slope in trying to replace relationships with e-methodologies?

CMM: It’s a combination. It’s not all bad at all. There are many couples who meet each other through social networks who fall in love and have kids. College darlings who are now in their 80s. They get together and it’s beautiful. That happens a lot of the time. Physical pressure though cannot be ignored. It’s a natter of passion. In order to establish the bond there needs to be this physicality at the beginning. Even if you don’t touch each other, the presence is there. Animals don’t like screens. They only connect to reality. That animal part relates to us. That’s not changing no matter how far technology brings us. At the same time it can help us to keep emotionally close.

I want to talk about the one scene which for me is one of the most arresting and most brilliant moments of the film: when we just see the computer screen and we just watch and listen to Sergi typing out an email to Alex. We see him writing and deleting, rewriting, editing, deleting, going back—it’s this 5 minute scene, and all it really is is a computer screen, and yet it’s so potent. There is so much emotion in it. We don’t see either of the characters faces. We don’t hear them saying anything. I’ve never seen something like that in a film before done quite so well. I love that scene. Where did the idea for that come from? Where did that idea—was that you, was that your writing partner?

CMM: We did an art project with photographs in 2011. I did a lot of videos as well. Google maps. Photographs. The email came from these art projects. A moment of a couple. Not the couple in the film, another couple. We took this moment and we did a letter; we did a conversation.I really love this movie—it’s all done with time and words. My friend, who is a writer, we were kind of improvising it. Because if we had it planned it kind of didn’t work as well. He writes so fast, he writes super fast. According to whatever we felt. It works fine.  The audience reaction – silence in a dramatic moment – I really like that.

Speaking of that, in terms of connecting with this experience, I just find there’s so much truth and honesty to the slow, eventual and yet inevitable decay of Alex and Sergi’s relationship. Having experienced a long-distance relationship myself over the course of a few years that ultimately deteriorated, I did find myself completely sympathizing in both Alex and Sergi and their respective struggles. It really makes me wonder what experience of yours inspired this film? There is so much realism drilled into it so I can’t imagine that you just entirely invented it.

CMM: It’s not just one experience. It’s having a double life and leaving all of the people I love in Barcelona. All of the relationships I’ve been through. For example, the scene, I have to do this all the time when I talk to my mom—I talk to her while I am cooking and she’ll always complain. “Don’t do it that way, do it the other way!” “Mom, just let me cook!” In the movie, there’s something about that moment for me. In reality, it’s because I am surrounded by morons and professionals. It was more interesting, that point of view. It was also a way for me to also separate myself from the character. At the same time, my co-writer Clara Roquet, she’s super young and she got a grant while we were writing the movie. It was very funny. She got a grant for a project while we were writing. There are a lot of her experiences too. It’s all of our experiences there.

Let’s talk a little bit about the end. I don’t want to spoil anything here [spoilers ahead] but the final shot with the tableau that you set up between Alex and Sergi and then you have the inserted title card there—it just works so perfectly. But I wonder, were there any alternative versions of the ending that you have talked about throughout the process, and perhaps one where we do actually experience them splitting, or say miraculously coming together, instead of just left with this looming assumption that things are not looking great?

CMM: Yeah, well, actually it’s funny. There was a lot more dialogue at first. It was a much longer speech where we realize more clearly that the relationship has ended. More dialog where it was more obvious but somehow I saw it as unnecessary, once you get to that point in the movie, so we cut a lot of dialogue while still trying to have it remain emotionally soul-touching. And other time we were shooting, we were having such a great time- we just clicked together so well that we didn’t want to put a pin in it. But then it’s like, “Oh well, we can’t!” Because we’re shooting chronologically. There was hope for them to get together. So it’s kind of the only possible ending somehow. That’s not what I wanted. I had to do it even thought I didn’t want to somehow.

It’s like being in a relationship where you want it to work but you just know it’s not going to. My god, that sex scene is just the worst thing to watch; it’s so awful.

CMM: Oh yeah. And it’s funny, the sex scene, I didn’t know how to shoot it. I had 2 days to shoot it. I just didn’t know how to do it. We shot it the first day, we shot it a second day. We kinda shot it from the back and then I realized it wasn’t working. At night before I fell asleep I was watching a million sex scenes of movies. Finally, it was at night, Natalia was sleeping, my DP had to leave right on time because he had to go to the airport and get married. We basically just winged it. My AD was saying, “Ok, we should go! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” We had all of the other shots. It ended up being the last scene because we had only 4 hours. Then I finally realized the profile was the shot. It was really hard for Natasha to get into it, “Now I’m done. I don’t feel anything. I’m blocked because I’m leaving in 5 hours and have to fly to London now and get back to my life.” She was in shock. The taxi was already waiting for her outside. “Don’t worry about her, worry about yourself,” I told her.

It exactly matches the character and that emptiness.

CMM: And it happened, that shot. Run out to the taxi; we all cried. It was my movie moment kind of thing.

Do you want to tell us about any projects that you have coming up soon?

CMM: Yeah. I’m basically trying to have several projects going. I have a Spanish film shooting in Barcelona. It’s an adaptation of a short story. It’s in my neighborhood and it’s kind of a coming of age story. Like Boyhood but with a lot of fantastic elements. And then I have another couple of projects starting in the US. I signed with an agency in Los Angeles. I have a project we’re developing in Spain but is in English. We are trying to diversify a little bit to see what’s going to happen next.

Natalia Tena is a bit of a geek pop-culture icon, because she’s been in the Harry Potter movies and most recently Game Of Thrones. Are those things that drew you to her? Are those things that you watch?

CMM: Honestly, we just didn’t have time. I was looking at a lot of Spanish actresses. I just needed this certain energy. I couldn’t have the character with low energy, because the character is very quiet but has to say everything with the eyes. I needed somebody with this fire who is able to communicate without saying everything. That’s what I was looking for. I was working in Barcelona at this moment, so it was my producer who suggested her. I hadn’t seen her before. I like to watch interview with actors. I like to see how they talk. There are a lot of things that you’ve got to get out of the actor somehow. Of course it’s a character, but the way of talking, the way of sitting, I want it to be they way they are. For me, it’s tying together the character and actor and how the actor transforms also the character.

Absolutely.

CMM: For example, the original actor wasn’t British. She wasn’t from Madrid. She was Italian. We changed the script so she had lived in Barcelona for 7 years, so it just makes the thing more complex. I always liked that change.

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