Telepathic Siberian Dwarfs

Sergio Caballero is a Spanish entrepreneur turned wine-maker, turned Director, and he’s pretty much as avant-garde as they come. After establishing the Sónar festival, Caballero got into the surrealist film scene and soon after made a couple of really fucking odd films: There are a couple of shorts mixing exorcism flicks with Goya, and one about two ghosts pilgrimaging down the legendary Camino route to the somber tunes of Suicide, because what else would ghosts be listening to?

Though it must be difficult to keep out-weirding yourself with every new project, it doesn’t seem like Caballero will run out of strange stories any time soon. Take his latest screen gem, The Distance, a film about three Russian midgets with certain telepathic powers who stage a Siberian robbery. Case and point. I won’t spoil the madness, but you should know that one of the midgets needs to smell his own cock in order to activate his powers. Also, you get to see what Yoko Ono would look like if she was a ham.

I wrote Sergio to find out what the heck it’s all about.

VICE: Hey Sergio, tell us a bit about yourself.

Sergio Caballero: I am a Scorpio, I live in Barcelona, I love women, and I eat and drink well. I am typically Spanish.

Yet Russian midgets aren’t exactly typically Spanish. How did The Distance come about?

I had to lie in order to be able to produce it. The way I made the movie, with the script actually written after we finished shooting, it was very difficult to get it financed, this due to the movie world being very “script-centered”. So in order to appeal to producers, I had to commission a fake script to get money and support. Nowadays, cinema focuses mainly on “what a movie’s about”, and for that reason I had to create a MacGuffin robbery.

What about your process though?

The start of the process for "La Distancia” sprung from a series of images, which I wrote down on my phone as they came to mind. Those images created the visual landscape, which then led to the "story" of the film over a two-year process. The location has also been one of the key “elements” in the creative process. The place offered a great amount of inspiring moments.

Still, how did you go from ghosts on pilgrimage to telekinetic dwarfs?

I don't like to work with professional actors, and I like to create atmospheres and situations which actively develop the story. Also, I wasn’t restricted by having to synch up the dub in any movies.

Why not?

Because in one you can't see the actors’ mouths behind their ghost costumes, and in The Distance everything is said telepathically. Anyway, I need to admit that I’ve always been fascinated by dwarfs.

Yeah? I guess they do add a healthy dose of funny to the plot.

Personally, I use humor to stay grounded. I do “auteur cinema”, but I think that humor fits really well in this genre. When I first pitched the movie La Distancia, I described it as a mix between Tarkovsky and Kung Fu Panda.

Sounds hilariously anarchistic.

I don't think my cinema is anarchistic, but it's free. I’ve been rejected by all the schools I’ve ever applied to, so my way of approaching cinema is with intuition and humor, not academicism or anarchy.

So what’s the connection between wine and your films?

I drink wine every day. I own a small winery and I think that we should start teaching proper wine drinking in school. I believe that drinking wine is much more creative than attending cinema school.

You don't say. What's your next project?

I am chasing finance to produce my own version of The Ten Commandments.

Good luck with that. 

Catch The Distance at CPH PIX from the 10/04 - 14/04