An Interview with Federico Luis

Simón de la montaña (Simon of the Mountain, 2024) grabs viewers from its opening moments as the title character (Lorenzo Ferro), a 21-year-old, tries to help a group of disabled youths caught in a windstorm. They are lost on a mountain during an excursion, and this gripping scene is one of many interactions Simon has with these youths.

The film, the feature directorial debut by Federico Luis (who cowrote it with Tomas Murphy and Agustín Toscano), is a penetrating character study of Simon, a young man who is both mysterious and mischievous. He joins the youths as they swim, participate in a theatre program, or visit an arcade. He is given a hearing aid and applies for a disability card because he claims he lost his. Simon also acts as a co-conspirator when Pehuén (Pehuén Pedre) wants to sneak into the girls’ locker room for a make out session, or when he takes the youths on an unsupervised outing. Simon teaches Pehuén how to drive – much to the horror of his peers – and he helps rescue Colo (Kiara Supini), when she gets into some trouble on their misadventures.

Simón de la montaña starts out as a compassionate portrait of these disabled youths. Luis addresses depictions of disability and how these youths are treated playfully by Simon, but also more severely by their teachers and administrators. But as it unfolds, the film becomes increasingly more intense as the characters engage in some risky play.

In addition, Simon has a fraught relationship with his mother (Laura Nevole) and his motivations for his actions are unclear. This makes for an intriguing portrait as the film raises the question: why is Simon behaving as he does? Luis films Simon in closeup and the intimacy of his camera defines the young man’s internal state, almost probing him for answers.

Following the film’s premiere at Cannes, where it won the Critics Week Grand Prize, Luis spoke with Senses of Cinema about Simón de la montaña. 

– G.M.K

 Can you talk about your background as a filmmaker and why you chose to make Simón de la montaña as your first feature? 

It’s a film I’ve been working on for a long time, so it has had a lot of layers of different ideas I’ve been thinking about. At first, it was a film about someone who wanted to be part of a group. Then it was a film about changing identity. Then it was about both things at the same time. Some ideas remained. It was not a film that was created as a script and then that was made into a film. All the films I’ve made, including my shorts, turned into this one. It was a collection of ideas and exercises I’d been working on for years.

Lorenzo Ferro as Simon in Simon of the Mountain

What decisions did you make about Simon’s character and his misadventures over the course of the film? 

Simon for me is a character who was created to raise a lot of questions I had about human capability and human power to do things – or not do them – outside the normative idea of certain people. I wanted to challenge all those traditional ideas – that there are people who can/cannot do some things. By creating Simon, I was able to allow the viewer to think about these ideas. 

I’d been working as a teacher for people with diverse mental and physical conditions, and what I discovered is that the bathroom was a very forbidden place. Everyone in the class wanted to meet someone in the bathroom to escape the class and all the moral regulations they had in their lives, institutions, and families. I observed that desire of the students in a theatre class. It was clandestine. The bathroom was a place to solve your desires quickly before you were discovered by the teachers. I found myself in the position of being in charge and ensuring that these encounters didn’t happen. I felt uncomfortable with that. I wanted to let them happen but at the same time I was going to be kicked out. So, this made me think about what spaces there were for these people to get some freedom to explore their desires and romantic side.

What can you say about taking the approach you did with shooting the film? It often feels like an observational documentary. The intimacy is impactful. 

To feel so close to the character was an illusion I wanted to create because I felt, in a way, that Simon was created to put the viewer inside this world. It’s a symbolic space where the outsider can sit and observe this world. Because of that, I wanted Simon to be close to the other characters and for the viewer to be close to him. There are different ways to approach that. The handheld camera could translate the pulse of feelings that the characters are expressing. Or the rhythm of the movements in the swimming pool or in the wind; the camera is almost going the same way as the characters. 

Can you talk about the depiction of disabled characters in the film? How did you want to present them and how did you work with the actors to elicit the performances they give?

I am often asked if it was difficult to work with the nonprofessional actors. It was easier, because from the first moment, they had an impactful truth in front of the camera, which made the three or four professional actors look false, so the work I had to do was getting the professional actors to approach the kind of truth the non-professional actors had. The professional ones felt they were bad actors until they could enter this kind of body language. 

L-R: Pehuén and Simon in Simon of the Mountain

We made the film in a very traditional way. I looked for the [cast] around the city where we shot the film. I went to all the theatre schools for disabled people. I found this group and wanted to work with them. I rehearsed with them and gave them the same lessons you give to any actor who is transitioning from theatre to cinema. They have to learn to work with the camera, and the idea that the camera is another character. I felt the most important thing – and the main reason for the performances – is the relationship we created. We had fun together during rehearsal. They loved the first scene where they were acting that they were lost and about to die. These people are not used to being alone and lost in the mountain. So, the idea of them being lost with their friends, and shouting, and looking for a phone signal, to solve that problem for themselves was as exciting as fiction. What is curious, is that in the city we shot the film, there is a video of a journalist asking the actors what the film was about. They said, “It’s about being lost in a mountain and asking about a phone signal.” [laughs.] I completely agree with that! It’s a powerful synthesis of the film. I saw the film with the mother of a friend of mine and she told me this scene for her – which I didn’t think about before – was a powerful metaphor to have this group of disabled people being alone in the mountain, shouting for help and no one hearing them but at the same time having fun being lost. I never think about scenes as metaphors; I only think this is something happening in the story. 

There are some very amusing scenes – like Simon and Pehuén conning their way into the movies, or Simon falling when spying on two characters kissing. You create an affection for these youths showing them being mischievous. But there are also some intense scenes such as Pehuén driving, or Simon having an outburst with his mother and her boyfriend, Augustín (Agustín Tuscano). Can you talk about creating the tone of the film? It shifts pretty dramatically over the course of the story.

It’s pretty much as you are describing it. It’s a film portraying a character who is changing and looking for an identity that is surprising for the other characters. As a viewer, you may have different ideas about why he is doing this – attempting to change his personality or his life by being in different spaces, or having these different experiences. I didn’t think the tone could be monotone – that from the beginning to the end it was completely tragedy, or melodrama, or comedy. I wanted to get all these different feelings and moments during the transformation this character is in. This freedom to relate to different genres and tones is like the freedom the character himself is trying to experience – not to follow a rule of how this should be done, but he is lost in his experience. It is painful in some moments and curious in others and funny and horrific. I needed all these colours to paint this emotional state of the character. 

Colo in Simon of the Mountain

There are several moments of risky play in the film, the driving and sledding scenes. What decisions did you make about depicting these scenes? 

Talking with some people in the film, and others not in the film who inspired me, this is a right – they feel they are not allowed to be in the position where they are allowed to die. People are so overprotective of them. This creates a distance from extreme, or intense emotions, that I think every human wants to feel. Simon is a creation made to challenge these common ideas of what someone can do or not. Driving – you think he should be able to drive, or no, he shouldn’t be able to drive. I wanted to make you feel this and question it in a rational way. I want you to think this is how I look at these people. There is a violence in it because I am deciding what these people can do or not. Based on what? Who taught me these ideas? The driving scene is funny because it was the safest scene in the film. The car is attached to another car, and they are only shouting inside. There is nothing happening! That is the illusion we can create. The idea was having the characters act like they are driving in a highway with trucks passing by. I tried to highlight this [anxiety] that people have in their heads. The sledding scene is one step beyond that. I love films where you have scenes of the characters having so much fun and you the viewer think this is not going to be OK. They are not aware that they are in danger. This contrast between excitement and playing and being so happy with friends and forgetting about death and danger is so alive. I like these scenes very much because there are very few cinema tricks to make them safe. Where you put the camera, or how you edit, you can make it feel very dangerous. It’s like a little magic trick. 

What about the relationship Simon has with Colo? How far did you want that to go?

It’s a relationship that is completely mysterious for Simon. He is asking the questions you are asking – is he OK if he kisses this girl? Is this kiss good from a moral point of view, or not? At the same time, the actors shaped the characters and put a lot of their real feelings and personalities into it. What happened in the film was happening in real life. The actress playing Colo was falling in love with the actor who played Simon. We had the kiss scene in our heads from the beginning, and she [Kiara Supini] wanted to rehearse it. I said the kiss is not the most important thing in the scene, and we rehearsed it without. We thought we would decide to include it or not on the day we were shooting. On the day we were shooting this scene, she asked me many times if we had made a decision about the kiss. I said we’ll talk on the set. She said there is no decision. She gave me a handwritten letter that she was sorry, with a sad face, but if there is no kiss, there is no scene. It was in the script, but it was in and out, but the final decision to keep the kiss in the film is the actress’ decision. I had to talk care of the actor more than the actress. She was very comfortable and very into the kiss.

Simon of the Mountain

The film shows Simon’s mum as less an ally and more of an obstacle. Can you discuss her character and her relationship with her son?

In my opinion, Simon’s mother has this stance that every mother has – that they are not comfortable when their son does not resemble the idea that she has of him. They are living in this little town near the mountains. She’s been separated from Simon’s father. We don’t know what is happening with him, but we know that after the separation, she took the kid with her and started a new relationship with a guy who wants to help, but he has his own point of view and opinions about what helping means. Maybe that doesn’t fit Simon’s needs. 

Simon’s mother feels a little trapped. I tried to understand her as well. There are a range of mothers – mothers who abandon these [disabled] kids, mothers who are overprotective and their whole life turns around this theme. Simon’s mother wants to be independent, and have her own life, but she can’t. She doesn’t want this to affect her, but she really is affected. She tries to pretend otherwise. She is curious about what is happening to her son, but he doesn’t want her involved. The mother is in an uncomfortable position. She wants to help, and she is living with a man who gives her son work to prove his love, and everyone is misunderstanding. One camera is seeing the world from Simon’s point of view and there is another camera which is the mother’s camera, another kind of viewer, who provides another dimension of questions. The mother tries to put Simon in a chair and ask him questions, until he answers. He wants to answer, but he doesn’t know; he’s not ready to answer.

What about the depiction of the other adults/authorities in the film? There is less compassion and more exasperation from them. Are you commenting on how others treat disabled characters? 

This authority is a more direct way to depict the real rules these kinds of institutions have. They try to put some veneer on it to make it look less aggressive. It’s a mask. It’s not that you shouldn’t go to the bathroom, and it is said in a soft tone, so it sounds lovely but, in the end, it is that you are not allowed to do this and I’m going to make decisions about what you can and cannot do. I tried to take this mask off and to have the authority figures use the text and the tone they have in real life like they are talking to a kindergarten. I hate this, and a lot of films show this and try to approach these characters and this world from this point of view and it’s annoying because it is not allowing us to question anything new. It’s the same problem without trying to understand it. It’s very condescending. It’s not like that in real life. It’s an idea people have about how they should talk to disabled people, but in a more intimate situation, you find that parents or teachers get mad in a more direct way. They are like the characters in this regard – shouting. There are different teachers who talk with disabled people in ways like kindergarten and some as if they are giving a Shakespeare theatre lesson. That tells you more about the teacher than the students. It is the format the teacher has in their head, it’s not that you need to talk this way.

There is a scene where Pehuén gives Simon his medication. Can you discuss the film’s points about treating people with disabilities? It’s raised more than it is investigated, but your film made me consider the pluses and minuses of medication. Are they helping these youths or are they sedating them, so they are docile, and limiting their potential?

This is a powerful question. I really don’t have any answer for that. This was something interesting for me. If you are a character who is changing, first you can try to change on purpose or you can act like you are changing. but then you can change your physical composition with medicine, which is a strong way to change yourself, and if this character [Simon] wants to experience the full range of how it feels. I made him ask for the pills, but I found it uncomfortable for him to take them. You never see Simon take the pills in the film. He looks at them. I wanted to use the pills to think about this power he could have, or this distortion he could get into. But I wanted to avoid him using them because I didn’t want this feeling or the association that he is violent because he took the pills. The pills are an element of drama or tension – you wonder if he’s going to take them. 

It is a very difficult issue. Some people I worked with, and some folks who worked on the film, have this complex psychological condition. If you don’t take any pills and have a fragile mental condition, you can be very lost, and feel very bad. It’s not easy. I am not saying they shouldn’t take anything or take a lot of pills. I’m not judging it. But I’m trying to look at it and the mechanism of power that it is showing. Someone is deciding how the configuration of the blood and the brain of another person should work. It’s very crazy. I am not a doctor. I can say I appreciate the differences between taking pills or not, yet I can’t say which of these two states is better. With everything, the best is something in the middle where you have a doctor who really helps but doesn’t turn a person into a vegetable.

Colo suggests Simon is not disabled and “acting.” This is fascinating and one has to wonder why Simon would do this (if it is the case). What can you say about creating this ambiguity? 

It is funny that this is the last question. It really has no answer. It is a question designed not to have an answer. It is the question I want the viewer to have. This is a question the other characters have in the film, and it is a question that Simon himself poses in the film. The film stands on this question; without this question there is no film. 

Colo says this. She is like a little detective, discovering things. She is one step ahead of the viewer. She is thinking something viewers felt in a way that they couldn’t elaborate. It is creating Simon though the power that Colo has. The way that the power in the characters and the film is circulating. 

I try to use this scene to pose the question about the identity of Simon. He is being commented on by a lot of different characters as well as the viewers. It is a question that should remain as a question to have all its power. I tried to destroy in my head the idea that there is an answer for this in order to make the film. When I realised I was thinking it was “a” or “b,” I was not getting the final shape of the scene. I discovered that I had to keep it in the form of a question until the end as much as I could. That is the heart of the film.