NIFFF we discovered Mi Bestia, first feature film by Camila Beltrán with whom we exchanged in Neuchâtel after the session. Rooted in Bogotá folklore, Mi Bestia proposes a coming of age sensitive and straight to the fantastic that occurs in small touches. While the population is concerned about the arrival of the devil with the red moon that is coming, Mila, 13, sees her body and her relationship to the world evolve.
The sixth sense
Mi Bestia is a film proposal that allows all formal audacity, starting with its unusual rhythm. Fluidity oscillates between 8, 12 and 16 images per second, which requires an effort by the spectator to reconstruct the movement and missing links, the cinema being traditionally capped at 24 fps (against much more in the video game). This affute sensory experience is in no way free; On the contrary, she participates in the feeling of oppression experienced by the girl. The one born from men's eyes on his new body. It is the image of the insistent father who seeks to maintain a grip on his daughter. A grip we can guess, because never Camila Beltrán the ease of explanation of texts. Overall avary in dialogues and it's so much better, Mi Bestia believes in the power of images by letting the emotions of his characters breathe by the senses.
In addition, by reducing the number of images per second and varying in places, Mi Bestia reinforces the importance of sound on our perception. « It creates an effect, it disrupts perception. We understand that we're not in reality, it breaks the standard. » Camila Beltrán explained during our exchange. The brain, as always, needs to create meaning, like hallucinations that occur very quickly when you plunge a person into total darkness. The director proceeded with a craft logic offered by digital publishing possibilities.
« For me it was very important to say that the material of the image is manipulatory, is deformable. »
Like Mila, our hearing is swarming as the film becomes as much a visual as a sound experience. The noise of the leather that cracks when the father put on his jacket or the enveloping atmosphere of the swamps in which Mila takes refuge. The young non-professional actress delivers a remarkable performance, always on the skin. His black look crosses the screen and lets us guess his states of soul. The sound design is never cosmetic. It was necessary to deconstruct the standards of cinema to succeed in filling the space according to the emotion experienced by the girl.
Mila at the devil's ball
With Mi Bestia, the being understands, not by what he says, but by what he is. The sound work succeeds in showing the invisible while reinforcing this feeling of confinement. Gradually, even the sound that we were experiencing at first, ends up taking another tone, as if Mila no longer suffered her environment but learned to tame it. Mila's psychological evolution is transformed by image and sound. Camila Beltrán asserts her approach as a successful author with her striking technical bets.
Another interesting formal choice, Mi Bestia opts for a 4/3 ratio that removes the artificial boundaries of narration between this TV that strove against the arrival of the red moon and Mila's life. If the characters are not talkative, the TV is by nature much more by offering a talk about the world. It allows us to read the facets of a Colombian society that is deeply religious and whose roles are defined according to a genrée logic peculiar to patriarchy and worship. Since the film is going on long before the internet arrives, it must be borne in mind that television was central to the homes and was involved in the formation of a common belief shared by its listeners.
Mila or wildlife
Bogota's setting draws a singular atmosphere that contributes to the fantastic atmosphere. Camila Beltrán questions what is involved in becoming a woman and an object of desire, when the body is sexualized by others. The passage of the first rules paradoxically involves a double dimension, both closing and opening with the end of childhood and the beginning of a woman's life. Faced with these internal chambulations, Mila finds refuge in her moments of wandering in nature. It's in the jungle that she'll be able to calm down. The twilight photography of Mi Bestia to delight the film while cultivating a nostalgic fiber proper to the chosen period.
The fantastic also appears intelligently in the way of reversing the codes of what is considered dangerous, like this scene where Mila feels protected in the middle of molesses. There is this desire to show a different relation to nature than that which our modern society maintains, in the image of expression. « wild nature » which excludes man from his original environment. Mi Bestia just went out to the hall this week and you are urged to go live this sensory experience away from the coming of age formatted that you could have seen so far.
Camila Beltrán - Director of Mi Bestia
Camila is noticed for her experimental videograph work, first with The Fiesta (2006) and The Brilliant Sun (2007) and Mala Hija (2010) which were presented at alternative festivals in South America. After leaving her country, Colombia, she joined the art school in Paris-Cergy and went to Tijuana to make her first fictional short film, Pedro Malheur. His last short Pacífico Oscuro was selected at the Locarno Festival in 2020. Camila is also the head of Felina Films and is the editor of César Acevedo's next film, Horizon.
Selective filmography
- 2024: Mi Bestia
- 2020: Pacífico Oscuro (short film)
- 2016 : John Marr (short film)
- 2014 : Pedro Malheur (short film)
- 2010: Mala Hija
- 2007: The Brille Sun
- 2006: La Fiesta
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