BISSFF2025 | Correspondence 通信计划052：The Year of the Dog 犬之纪年

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。

The Year of the Dog｜El Año del Perro｜犬之纪年

Vicente de la Cuadra 比森特·德·拉·夸德拉

2024｜0:07:18｜Chile｜Spanish｜Asian Premiere

Director: Vicente de la Cuadra

Interviewer & Translator: Ruth Chaoqun Zhang

Coordinator & Editor: Suliko

导演：比森特·德·拉·夸德拉

采访、翻译：张超群

统筹、编辑：苏丽珂

Q1: Throughout the entire film, the image remains radically out of focus, as if refusing the viewer any visual certainty. How do you understand the function of “blur” in this work?Is it pointing toward the unattainability of the father figure, or toward the instability—and even resistance—of memory itself?

A1: For me, the use of “blur” began as a necessity—an attempt to translate into images the sensation of reconstructing memories and all the mental and physical complications that such an effort can generate. Perhaps producing these images becomes a constant reminder of the relativity of memory and the transfer of sensations between myself and my past “self.”

Q2: The extreme disjunction between blurred images and clear, stable audio creates a sensory dislocation. Were you intentionally giving sound the role of “witness” in the absence of vision? Or is this very dislocation meant to reflect the protagonist’s most authentic way of experiencing his father?

A2: The construction of the sound space emerged through experimentation. This pillar of the project comes from the fear of confronting certain things—not only with my father, but also with myself. Ideally, when watching the film, the viewer can fluctuate between the stability of the sound and the unfamiliarity of the script. The textures came from using artificial intelligence as a tool to create this “fictional character”, which I built from my father’s memories of the time he left home. It was a failed experiment in the sense that it never truly sounded like him, even though I had “sampled” his voice. But it generated something that made more sense to me: the results were never the same, so what emerged were multiple versions of my father’s memories.

Q3: The ending reveals that the voices were generated by AI using recordings of your real phone calls from 2024. When the father’s voice becomes a reconstructed model, is it still the father? Do you think such technological mediation can reshape personal memory, or even alter the way we remember someone?

A3: As I mentioned earlier, the degree of proximity to reality that these engines can achieve is a risk one has to accept. I had total control over what my father “said,” but at the same time I never intended to represent him as a physical person; rather, I tried to evoke a collection of memories and sensations reflected upon myself. I think that attempting to reproduce reality through this exercise ultimately opened the door for me to understand that I did not want to recreate my father, but instead to understand who I am for him.

The Year of the Dog, Vicente de la Cuadra, 2024

Q4: As the voicemails accumulate, the father becomes increasingly abstract—almost dehumanized, like a non-human vocal entity. Is this shift a metaphor for paternal absence? Or does it reflect a broader phenomenon in which reconstructing someone from fragments inevitably slides toward fiction?

A4: As the film progresses, the possibility of a physical reunion also dissolves, thus returning to the virtual role imposed by distance. However, it never appears as a decision on his part—only as a circumstance of life. The exercise kept evolving: the more I trained the AI, the more my father seemed to disappear, yet the more real this new entity became—an entity that was everywhere, forcing this “blur” around each memory.

Q5: The film arises from both your private memory and the technological reproduction of voice. In an era when intimate relationships can be copied, patched, and re-synthesized, how do you think our way of dealing with irrevocable relationships, such as that between a father and a son, might be transformed?

A5: I believe everything depends on how willing one is to confront these matters, especially in an era where the boundaries between physical and virtual relationships are increasingly blurred. This can become a genuinely useful tool for the collective reconstruction of moments—or even of people. But the spaces of intimacy gradually deconstruct as these technologies advance, giving the impression that one could reconstruct an entirely different life if one wished to.

The Year of the Dog, Vicente de la Cuadra, 2024

Q1：在整部影片中，影像始终保持彻底的失焦，似乎拒绝让观众获得视觉上的确认感。您如何理解“模糊”在这部片中的功能？它更多是在指向一种难以触及的父亲形象，还是一种对记忆本身的抵抗？

A1：对我来说，“模糊”最初是一种必要性——我需要找到一种方式，把重建记忆这种复杂的感受转化成影像，包括它所带来的心理和身体层面的并发症。在某种意义上，生成这些模糊的图像反而成了一种持续的提醒，这让我明白记忆始终是相对的，而那些感受也不断在我和过去的“那个我”之间流动。

Q2：影片画面极度模糊，但声音却格外清晰、稳定，这造成了一种感官上的错位。您是否在有意强调，视觉的缺席反而让声音承担起“见证”的功能？还是说，这种错位本身才是主人公对父亲最真实的经验方式？

A2：声音空间的构建完全来自一次次试验。这个项目的核心，其实源于我对某些事的恐惧：不仅是对父亲的恐惧，也是对我自己的恐惧。理想状态下，在观看影片时，观众会在声音的稳定性与文本的陌生感之间不断摆动。这些声音是我用人工智能去生成一个“虚构的父亲”时产生的，我以父亲离家那段时期的记忆为基础去训练模型。但这个实验其实是失败的，因为它永远不像他，即便我采样了他的真实声音。可正是这种失败让我获得了更有意义的东西：每次生成的结果都不一样，于是我关于各种“版本”父亲的记忆开始不断显形。

Q3：片尾揭示声音是由人工智能生成的，并基于您2024年的真实通话记录。当“父亲的声音”成为一个模型重建的产物，它还是父亲吗？您认为这种技术介入会改变个人记忆的结构，甚至改变我们“想起某个人”的方式吗？

A3：正如我之前提到的，人工智能能够逼近真实本身就是一种风险，而这是必须被接受的。我确实完全能控制“父亲”在影片里说些什么，但我从未想把他呈现为一个具象的、物理意义上的人；我更想唤起一组记忆与感受，它们最终都指向了我自身。也许正是试图再现现实的这个过程让我明白，我并不想重新创造父亲，而是想理解一个问题：在他的世界里，我究竟是谁？

The Year of the Dog, Vicente de la Cuadra, 2024

Q4：随着语音留言不断出现，父亲的形象反而越来越抽象、去人化，甚至像一种非人类的声音实体。这一转变是对父爱缺席的隐喻？还是一种更普遍的现象：当我们试图从碎片中重构一个人时，他必然会滑向虚构？

A4：随着影片推进，父子之间再次相见的可能性也在不断消解，父子也重新回到那种因距离而被迫形成的虚拟状态。但这从来不是他做出的选择，只是生活把我们推到了这里。这个实验一直在演化：我训练AI越久，父亲本身似乎越发消失；与此同时，一个全新的存在却变得越来越真实——它无处不在，并将那层“模糊”扩散到我所有的记忆之中。

Q5：这部短片既来自您的私人记忆，也来自技术对声音的再生产。在一个亲密关系可以被技术复制、拼贴、再合成的时代，你认为人们与无法回拨、无法修复的关系之间的情感处理方式，会被如何改变？

A5：我认为这一切取决于一个人愿不愿意去直面这些问题，尤其是在当下，物理关系与虚拟关系之间的界线变得越来越模糊。这些工具确实能帮助我们重新拼接那些共同经历的瞬间，甚至重新拼接一个“人”。但与此同时，亲密关系的空间也在技术演进中逐渐被瓦解，让人产生一种错觉：只要愿意，我们似乎可以重建一段完全不同的人生。

About the Artist 艺术家简介

Born in Santiago, Chile, Vicente de la Cuadra is a 25-year-old filmmaker and multimedia artist specializing in experimental and documentary cinema. With a focus on exploring the presence and absence of the senses, he has developed new narrative and aesthetic approaches in projects that have been recognized at national and international film festivals. His work aims to provoke deep and emotional reflections on personal themes that can resonate and find common ground with the audience.

比森特·德·拉·夸德拉出生于智利圣地亚哥，是一位25岁的电影人与多媒体艺术家，专注于实验与纪录影像创作。他的作品聚焦于感官的在场与缺席，在此主题下发展出新的叙事与美学路径，其项目已在国内外多个电影节上获得认可。通过影像，他致力于引发观众对个人主题的深层情感共鸣与思考，使之在共感中找到交流与连接的可能。

About the Author 作者简介

Ruth C. Zhang, PhD student in Film Culture Studies. Ruth C. Zhang’s research bridges German contemporary cinema, media theory, and essay film practices. Her work explores how image practices articulate forms of shared perception and cooperation beyond algorithmic control. In both curatorial and theoretical terms, Ruth’s approach seeks to connect artistic and academic discourses, presenting cinema as a site of dialogue between aesthetic experience, technological operation, and collective consciousness.

张超群，艺术学博士在读，中国电影艺术研究中心硕士。张超群的研究聚焦于德国当代电影、德国媒介理论与散文电影实践。她探讨影像实践如何在算法控制之外，构建共享感知与合作行动的新形式。无论在策展还是理论层面，张超群的研究都致力于搭建艺术与学术的对话桥梁，将电影呈现为一种介于审美经验、技术运作与集体意识之间的思考场域。

▌more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/the-year-of-the-dog