Feature Film
Comedy | Drama
Argentina

Shot on ARRI Alexa 35 &  Signature Zoom lenses

Director: Juan José Campanella

Production:

Working with Juan José Campanella is one of those privileges you never forget. He is a director who knows exactly what he wants, but who at the same time invites you to become part of the story. His view of the characters is so clear and so honest that it becomes contagious: it fills you with the conviction that every shot matters, that every decision has an emotional reason behind it. Working alongside him was a constant lesson: his way of understanding emotion, of building characters, and of trusting his team gives each day on set a clear sense of purpose. Strangers in the Park (Parque Lezama) bears his unmistakable mark, and having put the cinematography at the service of that vision is something I am deeply proud of.

A film that takes place entirely in a park might seem straightforward. But when the opening sequence runs forty minutes — beginning in daylight and ending in darkness — the challenge announces itself.

Strangers in the Park is a wonderful film that moves you deeply. It takes you from laughter to tears almost without you noticing. And while we were shooting, watching the images come up on the monitors, more than once I found myself holding back tears.

The reference was genuinely painterly. The work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir — and in particular Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette — set the starting point: light filtering through leaves, colours vivid yet softened, the sense of time standing still in a moment of everyday life. I wanted the protagonists’ conversations to breathe within that same atmosphere: luminous, intimate, with an almost tactile quality. And with a visual approach as delicate as the feelings the characters were expressing.

Maintaining continuity of light over more than five weeks of shooting was one of the most complex technical challenges I have ever faced. We had rain, fierce sun, and completely overcast days.

Every morning was a negotiation with the sky. And that, for me, is where an essential part of the craft lives: taking all those unpredictable elements and shaping them until they go unnoticed, until the cinematography simply serves the story, without the audience ever knowing quite why.