BISFF Correspondence 通信计划
This program involves conducting brief email interviews with the directors of the international films featured in the festival, in lieu of the traditional Q&A session that follows the screenings. Through this program, we hope to provide a platform for filmmakers to discuss their work and share their insights with our audience in China.
为了跨越种种障碍,开辟更多交流空间,我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”,对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈,这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。

Spring Roll|Arrollado Primavera|春卷
Emiliano Urbina
2023|0:19:55|Chile|Chinese Mandarin, Castilian Spanish|International Premiere
Director: Emiliano Urbina
Interviewer & Translator: Yu Qiao (Chelsea)
Coordinator & Editor: Suliko
导演:埃米利亚诺·乌尔比纳
采访、翻译:乔屿
统筹、编辑:苏丽珂
Q1: It has been noted that this is your first linear short film. What motivated you to create this short film? Why did you choose this narrative approach?
这是你第一部线性叙事短片。为何选择这个叙事方式讲述这个故事?
A1: I’d say it appeared almost by accident, sparked by a tiny unease—like having to update your ID. At the time, I had never made a film before, and I felt (almost urgently) that I had to follow my intuition to approach life and films through seemingly harmless details. I had just turned 20, and I really liked the idea that those little bureaucratic or arbitrary moments could be the ones that make you stop and think, 'Oh, right, I’m not the same person I used to be,' instead of always being tied to traumatic or epic episodes. But it wasn’t just a formal reflection—I actually got a little uneasy about it, hahaha.
That year, I was also a student of Chilean filmmaker Ignacio Agüero. This short film was born out of an exercise he assigned us, where "the detour" had to be the structural axis. I ended up taking a huge detour and made the short film instead, haha. In that sense, I feel like the film appears through/for my classmates, who were playing and working so passionately in that course. It was truly inspiring.
这一切实属偶然,出于一种微小的不安感——就像必须更新你的身份证一样。当时,我从未拍过电影,我(几乎迫切地)感到我必须遵循我的直觉,通过看似“无害的细节”来对待生活和电影。我刚满 20 岁,我真的很喜欢这样的想法,这些小小的官僚主义或随意的时刻可以让你停下来思考:“哦,对了,我不再是以前的我了。”这样的反思并不必然与创伤或史诗般的事件联系在一起。但这不仅仅是一种形式上的反思——我实际上对此有点不安,哈哈哈。
那一年,我也是智利电影制片人伊格纳西奥·阿奎罗的学生。这部短片诞生于他给我们布置的一项作业,其中“绕道(The Detour)”必须是主结构。最终我绕了一大圈,拍了这部短片,哈哈。从这个意义上来说,我觉得这部电影是为我的同学而拍的,他们在这门课上玩得很开心,工作也很有激情。令人振奋。
Q2: Regarding film editing, what led you to decide which materials to include and which ones to leave out—such as the choices behind the animal sequence? How did you make these decisions?
剪辑过程中,你是如何做出筛选素材的选择的?哪些片段要留下或者舍弃?比如为何保留那些动物片段?
A2: All stages of the film were quite instinctive. In fact, it’s edited somewhat "live"—what you see in the film was almost entirely shot and edited in order, which might give it a certain raw, urgent quality. When I started editing in Santiago, I felt the urge to shoot something else, probably out of boredom, so I just started looking out the window. I didn’t want to censor that detour, that place, even if it risked lacking a central theme or having images that didn’t connect with each other (since the most part of the material was shot in San Felipe, my hometown). In a way, I felt I had to edit with the same intensity I was living.
完成这部影片的所有阶段均出于本能。事实上,影片的剪辑有些 “现场直播 ”的味道——你在影片中看到的内容几乎都是按顺序拍摄和剪辑的,而这恰好会给影片带来某种原始、紧张的质感。当我在圣地亚哥开始剪辑时,我有一种想拍点别的事物的冲动,可能是出于无聊,所以我就开始往窗外看,就拍到了那些动物画面。我不想删减那段迂回的路,那个地方,即使这样做有可能缺少一个中心主题,或者画面之间缺乏联系(既然大部分素材都是在我的家乡圣费利佩拍摄的)。某种程度上,我必须以与我真实生活相同的(情感)强度来剪辑。

Spring Roll, Emiliano Urbina, 2023
Q3: The idea of "uniqueness" frequently appears in your work, both in conversations with others and in how you describe your relationship with your granddad. Why is it so significant to you?
影片多次强调“独特性”这个词语——无论是在与他人的交流中,还是在你对爷孙关系的定义上。为何反复提及这个概念?
A3: I’m not sure if it’s something that important to me; I think it’s more about the "device" of the signature as a mobilizing object. I was fascinated by the idea of suddenly having to come up with a signature and seeing it as a problem. I wanted to take the game very seriously, convincing myself that the ID’s expiration implied some kind of debt to the world that comes with growing up. As if a bureaucratic procedure could trigger existential crises—an obligation to update oneself every few years, to justify oneself. Probably the crisis is always there, but those little things remind us of it.
In that sense, I think the film is just a slightly extreme way of breaking the ice and trying to figure out where we are at—of connecting with others who are a bit lost too.
我不确定它对我来说是否真的那么重要;我认为这更多的是关于签名(signature)作为动员对象的“手段”(device)。我对突然要想出一个签名并将其视为一个问题这个想法很感兴趣。我希望认真地对待这场“游戏”,让自己相信:身份证过期暗示着那些成长过程中对世界欠下的债务。就好像官僚程序会引发存在危机——人每隔几年就有义务更新自己的信息、证明自己的存在。危机可能一直存在,但这些琐事提醒了我们。
从这个意义上说,我认为这部电影只是在以一种略显极端的方式打破僵局,试图找出我们的位置——与那些同样有些迷茫的人建立联系。
Q4: How do you interpret "Authenticity reveals through repetition?"
你如何理解“真实性通过重复显现”这句话?
A4: I felt that everything I had filmed in San Felipe had a structure of repetition—from the shots of the moving ground, to the surrounding hills that seem identical, to the accumulation of objects and colors found in the wholesale Chinese stores. It’s a small city, so everything feels like it happens over and over again. In that sense, I took the authenticity of it as an axiom.
我觉得我在圣费利佩拍摄的一切都具有重复的结构——从移动的地面镜头,到看似相同的周围山丘,再到中国批发商店中物品和颜色的堆积。这是一个小城市,所以一切都感觉像是在重复发生。从这个意义上说,我把它的真实性视为一条公理。
Q5: I find it intriguing that whenever you present the spatial locations and architectures, there is always a historical context accompanying them. It seems that time and space, as well as past and present, are inseparable. What prompted you to contemplate this subject?
你在呈现空间和建筑时,总会伴随着对其历史的补充说明和引用。好像空间和时间,过去和当下总是无法分割看待和讲述。你如何思考这个主题呢?
A5: Probably, it has to do with the repetition inherent in feeling that things here don’t change over time. I often think of places as keeping within themselves layers of different historical times. It’s about realizing that the hills have always been there, existing in an 'other time' in geological terms. It’s hard not to develop a way of thinking that imitates those natural structures when you are so clearly surrounded by them.
I also think it’s tied to a certain intention of making familiar things feel strange, of seeing them from a distance. From there emerges a kind of ethnographic tone where I talk about everything I know and everything I’ve heard, shaped by the logic of oral tradition. Part of the game, I think, was to offer a sort of tourist experience in a place that, theoretically, doesn’t deserve to be observed, in situations that don’t deserve to be seen, but which I found particularly cinematic. There’s something of pure experience in presenting it this way and also a touch of intentional myth-making. I feel that that mixed narrative is a very Chilean thing, almost like a way of marveling anew at itself.
也许,这与某种内在的重复性有关,因为我觉得这里的事物不会随着时间的推移而改变。我经常认为,不同历史时期的地点具有不同的层次。我意识到这些山丘一直都在那里,它们同样存在于地质学意义上的 “另一个时代”。当你被这些自然结构如此清晰地包围时,很难不形成一种模仿它们的思维方式。
我还认为,这与某种意图有关,即要让熟悉的事物变得陌生,要改变距离重新看待它们。由此产生了一种民族志式的语调,在这种语调下,我谈论我所知道的一切和我所听到的一切,以一种口传的思维讲述。我认为,这个游戏的部分目的在于提供一种游览经验——在一个理论上不值得被观察的地方,在一些不值得被看到的情景下。但我发现它们特别具有电影感。这样的呈现方式既有纯粹的体验,也有故意制造神话的味道。我觉得这种混合叙事在文化上非常“智利”,差不多可理解为一种重新惊叹自身的方式。

Spring Roll, Emiliano Urbina, 2023
Q6: At the film's conclusion, you asked, 'Close your eyes, did you see it too?'. How did you create the visuals for the final scene? And when you mentioned 'too', do you expect that viewers perceive the same images or different ones? What did you see?
影片末尾,你提出一个问题“闭上眼,你也看到了吗?”。你如何制作这部分的视觉图像?当问及“也”的时候,你希望观众看到相同还是不同画面?你看到了什么?
A6: What I filmed, specifically, is a tunnel that separates Santiago from San Felipe—a route many people here have taken countless times, yet it retains a mysticism of crossing to the "other side" that interested me. I think the greatest inspiration for the film came from this image: the ground distorting beneath you, whether on a bus or walking. I tried to play with the imaginary of the "recognizable" on different levels, from oral storytelling to something as simple as camera angles (like looking at the ground). San Felipe also shares that dynamic of being a non-metropolitan city, which is very common in Chile, so the idea of "seeing it too" sits precisely in between the image a spectator might form of this whole experience and the image that is concrete.
Of course, none of us would see the same thing, but there’s a mix of concrete analysis and magical realism that suggests we might. Either because of the similarity between places and times, or the possibility of truly closing your eyes and seeing nothing, or nothing concrete. I think it’s a beautiful moment, as it tries to appeal to both retinal persistence and memory, even to a challenge. It’s strange for a film to ask you to stop looking, to cease being a spectator. In this sense, it’s an anti-film manifesto, but one that’s deeply disguised and completely harmless, I think, haha.
具体来说,我拍摄的是一条连接圣地亚哥和圣费利佩的隧道——这条路线是这里的许多人无数次走过的,但它仍然保留着一种穿越到“另一边”的神秘感,这让我很感兴趣。我认为这部电影最大的灵感来自于这幅画面:无论是在公共汽车上还是在步行中,你脚下的地面都在扭曲。我试图在不同层面上调动起一种“可识别”的想象,从口述故事到简单的摄影角度(比如看向地面)。圣费利佩具备一种非都市化的活力感,这在智利非常普遍,因此“也看到它”的问题恰好介于观众在整个观看经验中形成的图像和其真实形象之间。
诚然我们不会看到相同的东西,但感官上的具象分析与魔幻现实主义的结合表明我们可能会看到同样的东西。要么是因为地点和时间的相似性,要么是因为真的闭上眼睛什么也看不到,或者看不到任何具体的内容。我认为这是一个美妙的时刻,因为它试图唤起视网膜的持久性和记忆,甚至是一种挑战。一部电影要求你停止观看,不再做观众,这很奇怪。从这个意义上说,这是一份反电影宣言,但我认为它伪装得很深,不具备伤害性,哈哈。

Spring Roll, Emiliano Urbina, 2023
Q7: Who provided the Chinese voice-over, and what motivated you to create it? Do you have a unique connection to Chinese culture?
影片为何选择中文旁白?影片提供中文配音的是谁?你与中国文化有很深的渊源吗?
A7: The voice was recorded by a friend of a friend, Kaimin Weng, a Chinese guy my age who has been living in Santiago for a couple of years. I knew I wanted the voice-over to be in Mandarin, partly because of the dynamics of estrangement I mentioned earlier, but also as a way to connect with the deeply object-based imaginary shaped by Chinese production. There’s a moment in the film where it’s said that the cinema in San Felipe was replaced by a Chinese mall. More than once, people have mentioned this line to me as a metaphor, but it’s actually a very concrete fact, hahah. The movie theater was closed and really did turn into a Chinese mall.
I wanted the voice of the film to inhabit that intersection: between the construction of an "other cinema" that differs from the traditional theaters I couldn’t access, and a slightly surreal awareness that speaks about San Felipe with absolute naturalness, but in Mandarin.
声音是由朋友的朋友Kaimin Weng录制的,他是一个和我同龄的中国人,在圣地亚哥生活了几年。我希望画外音是普通话,部分原因基于我之前提到的一种由陌生化带来的张力,但同时也是为了与中国制造所塑造的基于对象的深刻想象相联系。影片中有一处提到,圣费利佩的电影院被一家中国商场所取代。人们不止一次向我提到这句台词,说它是一个隐喻,但它其实是一个非常具体的事实,哈哈。电影院关闭了,真的变成了中国商场。
我希望这部电影的声音能在这个交叉点上发出:在我无法进入的传统影院之外对与之不同的“另一个影院”的建构,另一边,则是以绝对的自然性讲述圣费利佩故事时体现的略微超现实的意识,但是,是用普通话来讲述。
Q8: Why was the film titled "Spring Roll?"
影片为何起名《春卷》?
A8: As a name, it felt very evocative and playful to me—like a 'mix from a season,' a fragment of a moment, even if it wasn’t actually spring. Conceptually, it also resonated with its idea as a dish, one that (at least in its Chilean version) brings together different elements until they become indistinguishable. I never really knew what spring rolls were made of. It’s a kind of philosophy of the path, the Tao applied to a menu for two. Something like that, I guess. I didn’t really think much about it.
作为一个名字,它给我的感觉是非常令人回味且有趣的,就像 “一个季节的混合”,一个瞬间的片段,即使它与真实的春天并无关系。从概念上讲,这也与它作为一道菜的理念产生了共鸣,这道菜(至少在智利的版本中)将不同的元素融合在一起,直到它们变得难以区分。我从未真正了解过春卷是由什么制成的。这是一种 “道”的哲学,被应用在双人菜单上。我想大概就是这样吧。我并没有想太多。
more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/spring-roll