Exploring the reasons why a woman goes down the wrong path without fully understanding why can make a movie truly contemplative and complex. The new drama, Twelve Moons, feature a gripping protagonist, Sofia, wgi doesn’t fit anywhere. Her inability to handle social conventions has led her to make hasty, unguided decisions that affect her entire life.
Victoria Franco made her feature film writing, directorial and producing debuts on Twelve Moons. The filmmaker crafted a story that uses Sofia’s daunting journey to analyze the lack of empathy toward those, like the protagonist, who fail to conform to the standard model of success in society.
Twelve Moons follows Sofia (Ana de la Reguera) as she grapples with a devastating loss and infertility while her deepening addictions pull her further into chaos. That mayhem in her life unravels both her near-complete architectural vision and her marriage, and leads her to struggles with her identity as a woman
Sofia’s life takes a wild turn when she returns from a rehabilitation center, only to see her life spiral even further into disaray. As a result, she’s forced to navigate through her complex emotions while also trying to stay true to herself.
Twelve Moons made its World Premiere in the International Narrative Competition of this year’s Tribeca Festival. Franco took the time to talk about penning, helming and producing the movie during an exclusive interview over Zoom before its World Premiere on June 10 at the New York-based festival.
Q: You wrote the script for the new drama, Twelve Moons. What was your inspiration in penning the screenplay for the film? How did you craft the story for the feature?
Victoria Franco: I have many interesting reasons why I wanted to tell the story. But I mainly wanted to talk 0about the big challenge that the people who cannot fit into society face. These people put in hard work to get into social conventions, but their lives are suddenly stopped or interrupted by the demands of the people around them.
The film specifically tells the story of a woman in her early 40s who cannot get pregnant. She’s passionate about her work – her profession is in architecture.
But this society makes her feel that she’s not complete or a real woman if she’s not a mother and if she doesn’t have a family. That still happens a lot in Mexico – people think that if you’re a woman who doesn’t have a family, you’re not an entire woman.
I don’t know if it still happens a lot in Europe and here in the (United) States. But to some degree, I feel it’s still happening everywhere.
Q: Besides scribing the script, you also made your feature film directorial debut on the project. Once you began production on the movie, what was your overall approach in making the drama as the helmer?
Victoria Franco: It was really interesting how the script really changed while we were shooting. I’m proud of it because I don’t take the script so literally. I know it’s a metamorphosis, and it has to change. I felt like we could shoot with a lot of freedom to improvise, and to also add and get rid of, some scenes.
I was very connected with the actress (de la Reguera) and the cinematographer (Sergio Armstrong). The three of us had such a good chemistry that we were adding many layers to the script.
It was so nice to be able to improvise a lot. I felt it gave us a lot of freedom. For me, it was very important to fill the story with a lot of freedom. The movie has many things that portray Sofia’s feelings and the way she sees and processes everything. So sometimes what we see is a little bit subjective.
The movie doesn’t have a real narrative; instead it has an objective narrative, but I don’t know how to explain it.
Q: Speaking of working with the main actress in Twelve Moons, Ana de la Reguera, how did you approach casting the feature?
Victoria Franco: Ana de la Reguera is the main actress, and she carries the film. Anna’s presence in the film was very important to me. The way she looks all the time is so smooth.
She’s portraying tough emotions, but I didn’t want her to be over dramatic. She’s also a person who laughs a lot and she works a lot with comedy. She’s a happy person, and laughs about everything.
So it was very important not to feel depressed with all the matters of the movie. She had that fire in her that’s lovely! That fire allowed her to laugh and connect with the script.
She’s very experienced, as she’s been working as an actress for 20 years already. She knows everything, including how to improvise.
Sometimes I was amazed about how she knew the character so well. I thought Ana and Sofia were the same person, which was amazing and magical.
Q: Once Ana signed on to star in the film, how did you work together to create Sofia’s character arc throughout the story?
Victoria Franco: We had the opportunity to work together for about three months before we began shooting. We worked every day, and changed the script sometimes because Ana had opinions about some things. That way she could feel more comfortable connecting with the story or a scene. So I rewrote many scenes after working with her.
We used to work in my house, and we were imagining how we would film a scene. I’d say, “Imagine I’m with a camera, so what will you do?”
So that way, when we got to the locations to shoot, we already felt that we had been working for so long. That way it felt so natural, and it was very easy. Sometimes when we were shooting, we didn’t need to do as many takes because it felt like we worked on it so much already.
Also, we were able to shoot in a chronological way, which helped Ana really be involved with the emotion. To not have to jump in the timeline was very helpful for her and for me.
Q: Earlier you mentioned working with your cinematographer, Sergio Armstrong, on Twelve Moons. How did you collaborate together to decide how you wanted to visually shoot the movie?
Victoria Franco: I’m so happy and lucky to have worked with Sergio Armstrong because he’s a real artist. I explained to him before we began shooting that it was very important to me to portray the architecture, and the geometry of everything in, and the personality of, Mexico City because it’s very unusual.
The personality of Mexico City is so beautiful, and I think it changed a lot. It has many contrasts, the same way that the character does, so it was a nice metaphor between the visuals and the locations.
The state of the character’s emotions was very important to make the decision of making the movie in black and white. We didn’t want the viewer to have any distractions. We instead wanted the audience to to be really connected with the emotions, so the black and white was so important.
Even when I was writing the script, I was sure that the movie had to be in black and white. I imagined everything in black and white.
Being around Sergio was magical because he had many freedoms of how to portray things. He knows how to specifically portray things, especially with what I wanted. I’d ask him to shoot something, and he then put it on camera.
So for me, Sergio was a great translator between words and image. I’m thankful that I have him.
Q: Besides writing and directing the drama, you also served as a co-editor, alongside Oscar Figueroa Jara. How did you work together to put the final version of the film together?
Victoria Franco: Editing was really hard. In the end, I ended up editing the movie by myself. In the beginning, I was working with an editor (Jara). But it was really hard to put into words what I wanted, and I wanted to experiment a lot.
To be very flexible with the editing, I played a lot. I had many cuts. But I needed to have the freedom of doing what I wanted. So I was in the same stage when I was writing the script and then when I was editing; it was a similar process, writing and editing.
So I basically did the editing on my own, with the help of Oscar Figueroa Jara. But since the film is so personal, I needed to edit it on my own.
Q: Besides penning and helming Twelve Moons, you also served as the executive producer on the feature. How did you approach your producing and directing duties throughout the production?
Victoria Franco: It was a great process because I felt that I was in control of everything, and I didn’t have to give anything. I always did what I needed to do. Since I was in control, I didn’t have to give up anything because of matters of time or money.
If you don’t have a good producer, it can be like having enemies. If you have good producers, it’s like having allies. Michel (Franco) and Jacqueline (Hernández) were great producers, so everything was perfect, in terms of production.
Q: Twelve Moons (had) its world premiere at this month’s Tribeca Festival. What does it mean to you that the movie (premiered) at the festival?
Victoria Franco: Well, I’m very excited and thankful that the movie (premiered) at Tribeca. It’s an honor, as it’s a great festival.
I like that the film (premiered) in the States, and it’s so close to Mexico. The connection between Mexico and the States is sometimes fragile, so I like that the cinema brings us together. I (was) very nervous, but in a nice way. I (was) also very excited!
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