Interviews: "It is good to go your own way": Golden Lion winner

"I wanted to portrait the contrast between the older protagonist, Armando, who is very cold but with a strong expression in his eyes and the young one, Elder, who is very emotional and expressive," Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas said in an interview with Xinhua.

Desde Alla (From Afar), directed by Vigas, won the Golden Lion for Best Film, the highest prize awarded at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival which closed here at the Lido of Venice on Saturday.

"The two protagonists show the contrast of two different worlds and a clash between two very different social classes that we see today in my country," Vigas said.

Vigas said he wanted to make a film on the human condition that when it ends it will start again in one's head giving many different interpretations about the ending.

Vigas was born in Merida, Venezuela. He is the director of episodes of the Venezuelan documentary series Expedicion (1998), produced by Radio Caracas Television, and the short film Elephants Never Forget (2004). From Afar (2015) is his debuting film and first Venezuelan film presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

From Afar tells the story of a relationship between two very different souls unified by an unstoppable need for true emotions.

"In my film I wanted to leave in the story an open space for imagination," he said.

About his personal tastes and inspiration Vigas declared "I like a lot Michael Haneke, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Bruno Dumont but there wasn't any specific inspiration about them. The idea comes from my short film Elephants Never Forget, I presented in Cannes. I planned then a trilogy; the short was the first part, From Afar the second and the third will be my next film entitled The Box."

"All these movies are sharing the parental subject in a continent where the father is never at home and it's always the mother who takes care of the child. The Box, my next project taking place in Mexico, is pretty advanced and it deals with the relationship between a father and his son," he said.

Asked about how he directs on set Vigas confessed to be an obsessive-compulsive director, he had very tough times in his life because of this and the people around him suffered. "I'm a perfectionist, I spend a lot of time choosing the location and doing the casting," he said.

His father had a big influence on his career.

"My dad was a very famous Latin-American painter and I have seen his paintings all my life so I'm very visual and I like to be very much in the framing of the film. I was never attracted by painting but only by films. Since I was 15, I was already making home films, I'm an autodidactic, I never went to film schools and I learn it all by myself. I don't miss the film academy because I feel it is good to go your own way," Vigas explained. Endit