Horror-comedy film about the insecurities and overthinking that TV shows, religion, culture and belief systems create in us during male-female relationships and in courtship. It makes fun of us and the roles we take in that process, without making any moral judgements.
Director: MIKEL ARRAIZ
DoP: JORGE ROIG
Editor: MIKEL ARRAIZ
Starring ADRIAN BARINAGA, GARAZI BELOKI, ROSA NAGORE, AMAYAVALMASEDA, SANDRA AZCONA
Producer: ITZIAR LACUNZA & MIKEL ARRAIZ
This week we bring you the People’s Film Festival winner for Best Music Video - the gorgeously shot “Kiss Me Malibu”. We were stunned by this film’s visuals and its use of symbolism piqued our interest and threw us into debate as we shared a variety of interpretations. We interviewed director Mikel Arraiz to chat about his film and get his interpretation and learn more about how this project was made…
HOW DID YOUR FILM COME ABOUT? DID YOU APPROACH THE BAND WITH THE IDEA OR WERE YOU HIRED?
I wanted to create something shocking and technically very well done for my reel and my new film production company Valle del Cielo. For doing that I needed creative freedom, so I created the song. The song is mine. A couple of friends helped me with the drums and the bass. Usually bands, put some limitations in ideas.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BRING THE PROJECT TO LIFE?
Difficult. I live in a small city, so I had to hire people from Madrid and Barcelona who were more expertise and experienced than people who live in my area. It was expensive and I had to do a big preproduction work. It was a long process... about a year working on the project. I learnt a lot.
YOUR FILM HAS A LOT OF SYMBOLISM IN IT. DID YOU INTENTIONALLY LEAVE IT OPEN FOR PEOPLE TO COME UP WITH THEIR OWN INTERPRETATIONS? WHAT'S YOUR INTERPRETATION?
I live in the Basque Country. People say that having sex and flirting in the Basque Country is really difficult. I would say, there is some kind of "blocking energy" or old cultural tradition which makes difficult for men and women to flirt in bars at night and overall. With this film I just wanted to make fun of this situation. I think if people see the roles they take during night and have fun of them, it helps to heal this cultural patterns.
Summarizing, the film makes fun of the patterns, insecurities and overthinking that TV shows, religion, culture and belief systems create in us during male-female relationships and in courtship.
By the way, the dance movements are mine, I used to dance like that just to have fun and break the typical flirt situation at night.
DID YOU HAVE ANY CREATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR WORKING ON A SMALL BUDGET?
Study a lot of courses, manuals, ask a lot of questions in Facebook groups, practice... this way I could work in more aspects of the film.
Also, for the main location, instead of paying them, I did a corporate film for them.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FILM'S BIGGEST SUCCESSES?
The fact of making them is a big success. Also, a lot of international awards, for Kiss Me Malibu we got more than 30 awards. Being on newspaper and media due to awards gave us a lot of promotion.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PART OF THE FILMMAKING PROCESS?
When I get the ideas. For inspiration, I listen to music. I wrote all my scripts listening to music. I have synesthesia, so as soon as I listen to music I start downloading colors, images, tons of ideas, movements... For me it is like taking a drug and seeing things, but without taking any drug, just with music. I can feel a lot of emotions during that process. Once I get the idea and all the details, I start with the production process. You can see on my last commercial what I am talking about when I relate music, colors... https://vimeo.com/385781038/3087b08068 (this is not the final version...)
SCREENING RECOMENDATIONS FOR QUARANTINE?
Haha, I am not a big cinephile... I can recommend you all the music videos by Chris Cunningham, specially "Windowlicker".
For movies: "The Neon Demon" by Nicolas Winding, "Lost highway" by Lynch, "Punch Drunk Love" by Paul Thomas Anderson, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" by Yorgos Lanthimos...
Interested in getting your work selected as Short of the Week?