Sebastian Silva Used An Unlicensed Song By A Very Famous Singer In His Film

"Don't put that in the story!" asks Sebastian Silva. He's talking about the fact that his new short film, Dolfun, has, thus far, gotten away with using an unlicensed song by a very, very, very famous singer. Made in collaboration with the Miami film collective Borscht, Silva rationalises that no profits are being made from his film, that — despite the 37-year-old's global filmmaking stature — it's no different to just using a pop song on a YouTube video. Befitting its place in MIFF's WTF Shorts section, Dolfun is an oddity: while Ben Harper waxes philosophical in narration, black and white footage shows Silva swimming with dolphins.

"I had this dream, when I was a kid, to swim with dolphins," recounts Silva, who was born in Santiago, but lives these days in Brooklyn. "But, as an adult, I had to let it go, because I worked out what it truly meant to be swimming with dolphins in captivity. After that movie The Cove was made, it became very unpopular, very politically incorrect. But, I still had this deep desire to be in a pool, surrounded by dolphins. So, I decided to make the film about my moral conflict. Everything is filled with doubt: why am I making this film? Why do I have the moral standards that I do? [Dolfun] is me doing something that I don't think is right, but loving it. Making a film to make myself look bad, and then making it look gorgeous, and then letting it be ridiculous. You don't know if it's a joke, because it kind of feels like a joke with the [REDACTED] song."

"[Dolfun] is me doing something that I don't think is right, but loving it. Making a film to make myself look bad, and then making it look gorgeous, and then letting it be ridiculous."

Before 2015, the Chilean filmmaker had directed six features — from 2007's Life Kills Me to 2015's Nasty Baby — but never a short film. Then he made two: Dolfun and Dance Dance Dance. The latter is one of six 15-minute shorts that make up the omnibus Madly, Silva working alongside Gael Garcia Bernal, Natasha 'Bat For Lashes' Khan, Mia Wasikowska, Anurag Kashyap, and Sion Sono in making a host of global films about love. Dance Dance Dance is about a queer teen who ends up homeless in New York City. Knowing the film would end up screening on MTV, Silva — who is openly gay — wanted to make a straight-up "social problem movie", about the "epidemic of LGBT kids ending up on the streets" in New York. He shot in "guerrilla style", across four days, with non-actors.

"I wanted to have real dancers, real kids," Silva says. "I saw these kids in dance videos on YouTube, and reached out to them. They were from the Bronx and at first were very discouraging about this project; like: 'No way, man, none of us are going to play gay.' And they had the craziest reasons why not; they were either worried about offending god, or being bullied. Even though they're kids from New York, this very liberal, sophisticated city, there was a lot of fear, of homophobia. That made me want to make it even more." 

Madly and Dolfun are both screening at MIFF, where Silva is a familiar face. Last year, he was the subject of a retrospective, which showed all six of his features (including highlights The Maid and Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus) and his TV series The Boring Life Of Jacqueline. "It was a stint of introspective alone time in the middle of a Melbourne winter," Silva laughs. "You have to be honoured and flattered by such an invitation. It made me excited, but also very depressed. Like, all the work that I've done, my whole life, my entire career, can be condensed into a handful of screenings. You've put in all this effort, but the results of that pass by so quickly. It was a very humbling experience, seeing everything that you've ever done lost amidst all these other movies." 

Seeing all his films together, Silva could see the "obsessions" that recur in his work: especially dysfunctional families and family dynamics. He's worked, often, with his own family: his brothers and sisters working behind and in front of the camera. His next film, Captain Dad, is shaping as Silva's crossover, with Will Ferrell, Catherine Keener, and old pal Michael Cera starring in another family tale. It's based on a Silva family holiday, a disastrous sailing trip in which Silva's father "drastically overestimated" his nautical abilities. When he was at MIFF last year, Silva was happy to tell anyone who asked about the concept for his next film. "I know that I talked about Captain Dad when I was in Melbourne, because I'm always interested in how people respond to an idea," Silva says. "Some filmmakers are very secretive about upcoming projects, but if I've got an idea, I'm going to talk to you about it."