Peer Review: BRBR

Who are three contemporaries that you admire?

Jonas Lindstroem captivated us with Truth or Dare, a performance film and installation that combined the best of both worlds. We love producing iconic images, meaningful and poetic at the same time. It’s a great inspiration on how to navigate different formats and genres.

Pantera, a film collective from Argentina with whom we’ve always felt a kind of brotherhood. We love their work, we can watch their commercials again and again and always grasp something new. They make us better directors, but more importantly, we enjoy watching their films. Baño Maria is, for us, the music video of the year and the decade.

We love receiving scripts that go that extra bit beyond the marketing, it can be a social aspect or it can be a damn good idea, but both have a big impact on the final result. 

rubberband. Again, a duo. There’s a certain feeling of time, rhythm, craftsmanship, in everything they do, that we do love and feel connected to. There’s something deeply intimate and personal in their films, even when they go big. It’s a very thin balance that we don’t find so common.

Bafic. An artist in a commercial world, we really enjoy watching his moves. It’s very inspiring to see someone bring a deep understanding of culture and identity to the table. He really has things to say, and does so in every film. Besides his film work, we are big fans of how he navigates different creative formats, and his work goes beyond the screen without being elitist.

Above: Film collective Pantera's Baño Maria the music video of the year for BRBR.

Please share 3-4 pieces of work that exemplify great directing, and explain why?

We have chosen feature films and not advertising work because, having a foot on each side, these are the kind of works that we believe have pushed us to be better, more complex, directors.

La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001) - This clip is the first four minutes of Lucrecia Martel’s first film, and all elements we love from her are already present, in a kind embryonic way. Iconic. Her gaze, analytic, poetic and sharp; the use of cinema language as a rich palette of simple elements, being precise and original, without fear of experimentation; her approach to the characters, generous and comprehensive, but digging deep in their psyche, their actions, causes and consequences. We love her films as much as her interviews, she’s really a reference and role model.

Representation is crucial and our work deals directly with people’s images of themselves and the world. 

Les Amants du Pont Neuf (Leos Carax, 1991) - This scene is iconic and condenses a lot of the stuff we love about the film, but the whole movie is a masterpiece. Its audacious, raw portrayal of love and chaos, delivered with a visceral energy that captures the reckless intensity of romance against the backdrop of a changing Paris, stays mesmerising through the years. It’s a fire film that ignites our desire to make cinema every time we watch it. And we watch it quite often.

Above: The first four minutes of Lucrecia Martel’s first film, La Ciénaga. 

Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999) - This movie sums up lots of our interests in cinema. Strongly physical, it holds a value that goes beyond words. There’s something earthy, atemporal, untamed, about those bodies in the desert. We often say that having the right cast in the right location forms a big part of what a director has to say, and this movie exemplifies it. Beyond the hackneyed hashtags (post-colonial, masculinity, hypnotic performance, etc), we just love the silence and the truth of this film.

BRBR, as an entity, was born to name a collaborative practice that was already happening in between a group of friends. Naming it would just make its existence ‘effective’ and define its identity.

The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho), 2017 - A recent gem, this movie is confirmation that Portuguese cinema is gifting us some of the best creators of our time; a generation which combines a deep Humanism with joy, comedy and surrealism in even parts. This film in particular traverses genres and formats with elegance, it goes from documentary to musical seamlessly! We really appreciate how it makes so many complicated things look so interesting. 

This scene from Les Amants du Pont Neuf (Leos Carax, 1991) condenses what BRBR love about the film.

What do you like most about the work that you do?

The freedom to live life. We consider ourselves very privileged to have a job that allows us to experiment, to explore, to change, and to wonder.

But even more important might be the great power – and therefore great responsibility – of creating images that read, and transform, the world around us. Representation is crucial and our work deals directly with people’s images of themselves and the world. That’s no minor thing! As [Robert] Bresson devoted his life to; the goal is not to create beautiful images, but necessary images.

We have a deep respect and enthusiasm for everything the others can bring to the table. We might not work altogether on every project, but we always embrace a collective vision.

We love receiving scripts that go that extra bit beyond the marketing, it can be a social aspect or it can be a damn good idea, but both have a big impact on the final result. 

So far we’ve been lucky to work on projects involving good ideas and positive ground activations, but making balance, we believe the advertising industry is able to transform the world in many different ways that exceed the PSA possibilities, and embracing good craft and solid creativities is what really makes a difference, bringing to life ideas, images, sounds, that last forever on the minds of a society, that holds values and transforms mindsets.

Above: A scene from Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999).

What was your journey like to working together as BRBR?

It’s been a beautiful, and sometimes wild, ride. We have shared a life together, it’s not been just a work-thing, and our ‘film collective’ journey has been running in parallel to our friendship. BRBR, as an entity, was born to name a collaborative practice that was already happening in between a group of friends. Naming it would just make its existence ‘effective’ and define its identity.

We’ve always felt part of something bigger, a generation somehow. It was like that when we first started in the Madrid rap scene, and it’s still so in the new generation cinema voices.

How do you balance your individual creative visions and input when working on a project together?

We've shared virtually everything for over a decade; living space, clothes, food, anything. So our sources of inspiration are similar, and even if our backgrounds differ (film school, fine arts, social studies, art & technology, music…). Our main connection point is finding a sense of meaning by turning our fantasies into reality, through cinema and art. 

We are firmly convinced that elevating a person as The Greatest it’s dangerous and unnecessary. We live in times where solidarity and humbleness is much needed!

Filmmaking is, by definition, a choral art, where lots of minds and point of view are involved at all times. BRBR as a collective comprises cinematographer, producers, screenwriter, directors… Even though we don’t always work on the same project (it’d be nearly impossible in the advertising industry), we have a deep respect and enthusiasm for everything the others can bring to the table. We might not work altogether on every project, but we always embrace a collective vision.

Excerpt from The Nothing Factory (Pedro Pinho), 2017.

What is one thing every filmmaking collective needs?

Having a nice time together besides work! That might be obvious, but it's key. Besides that, trust and passion for other people's vision, and self-confidence and humbleness about one's vision.

We find so much more inspiration in living life, raw, than in movies or advertising

Who was the greatest director of all time?

We don’t believe in a single greatest director, as we don’t believe in the concept of Genius. We have a wide range of directors and artists we look at, BUT we look to them as much as we look at our friends and families. We find so much more inspiration in living life, raw, than in movies or advertising. We are firmly convinced that elevating a person as The Greatest it’s dangerous and unnecessary. We live in times where solidarity and humbleness is much needed!

But answering the question… we’d again go back to cinema, and put together a list of directors you’d always find in our library, such as… Bresson, Resnais, Saura, Kaurismaki, Jim Jarmucsh, Panahi, Lucrecia Martel, Victor Erice, Aapichatpong, Angelopoulos, Herzog, Steve McQueen, Albert Serra, Alice Rohrwacher ….

BRBR were captivated by Jonas Lindstroem's Truth or Dare, a performance film and installation that is both visually iconic and poetic.