The actress spoke with The Clinic about her most recent film work, “Patio de jackales”, a production that once again positions her in the orbit of international festivals. Lewin also talks about her participation as a spokesperson in the Apruebo campaign in 2022, and her vision of the country in the week that marks the fifth anniversary of the social outbreak.
Blanca Lewin says it is feliz. the movie Jackals Courtyard —first feature of the national director Diego Figueroa—was selected to compete in the Tallinn Film Festivala class A competition that takes place in the capital of Estonia and which is part of the European circuit as Venice o Cannes.
The actress remembers that the last time she participated in a “big” festival was in Sundance con Family Lifea film presented in 2016 in which the writer Alejandro Zambra He was a screenwriter. Before that, Lewin had other roles in Chilean cinema, in productions such as Bombal, The life of fish, In bed y black angel.
In this production, he shares a cast with Nestor Cantillanawho plays Raúl, a modest model maker who lives with his mother in a quiet neighborhood. The apparent calm is broken when new neighbors arrive in the neighborhood, unleashing a spiral of horror and violence.
“Working with Néstor is always great. We are actors of the same generation. We made soap operas, we made series. “We have been brothers, we have been a couple… what else have we been?” says Blanca Lewin before naming a handful of local productions that marked the history of Chilean television. “We work in Fugitivesin The Pincheiras We were like half buddies. In Iorana “We were brothers.”.
To define his closeness with the actor, he says: “There is a professional and friendly relationship in which it is already super pleasant to work, because you know that the other colleague is there to help you and you are there to help him.”
Regarding the film, the actress assures that it is not about the dictatorship, nor is it a project that seeks to make a complaint, but it is set in an oppressive context. “What the film does is precisely immerse the viewer in that imaginative journey of how things are heard, how those mysteries that appear in the film sound,” he says.
Beyond Jackals CourtyardBlanca Lewin has other projects. In Radio Universe, It is on air from nine in the morning to noon, Monday to Saturday. He is also in charge of Hour 25 on NTV, TVN’s cultural channel. This 2024, in addition, premiered balda play directed by Ana López Montaner, which recounts María Teresa Ruiz’s discovery of a previously unseen celestial body.
—How do you choose your projects?
—I say no to very few things, because it’s not like there is an avalanche of film projects. When I feel like there is a script in which I don’t see myself in the character they are offering me. Many times they send you a script and you start to ask: Yes, but this is the first version?” Because you know there is a long way to go. That’s where there are projects that raise doubts in me. But in general, there are few things I say no to. Sometimes I do it for agenda reasons.
—Is having several sources of work at the same time a need to express oneself or a work need?
—I think it’s both things. Always, since I was little, since I started working and since I started school, I had other interests beyond acting. In fact, the year I started school, I retired to work in theater, in soap operas and as a host, in addition to being a VJ on Vía X. I made films with some small projects. It had to do with that, but at that time it was related to a need. Furthermore, it has to do with the family responsibility of “stopping the pot”, and at the same time doing things that interest me. Luckily, I have the possibility of living doing what I like and that is related to my interests: acting in its different formats, music, cinema, writing, among other things.
—How is the employment situation for the actors?
—I think it has always been difficult. When I studied, there were fewer theater schools or the schools were smaller. A few years later, the courses had already doubled in number of students and job opportunities necessarily grew in such a small industry. Now more films are made, more projects are made, but the issue has also been diversifying and there are people who dedicate themselves to more specific things in theater or acting in general.
—TVN and Canal 13 were an important part of her history as an actress. How do you feel when you see that those channels are no longer producing soap operas?
—It’s super sad, but well, it has to do with how the industry moves and how television channels today survive in a television consumption that is very different. I have the feeling that audiences are still being measured like they were 20 years ago, when we clearly live on another planet. You have to see where companies are willing to invest, but I have always had the impression that people prefer to see themselves reflected in national productions, that they like national actors, and it is a shame that there is not more diversity in that sense.
Participation in the Approve campaign
It is October 18 Five years have passed since the social outbreak, social unrest that turned into a constituent assembly and a plebiscite that divided forces between approval and rejection around a new constitution. In July 2022, Blanca Lewin decided to take an active role in the campaign in favor of the project and in June 2022 she was presented as a spokesperson along with Daniela Ramírez and Néstor Cantillana himself.
—Looking back, what is your opinion of the decision to participate in the campaign?
—Actually I have done very few political campaigns in my life. People see me as super associated, but in reality I have only done two campaigns. I did the Apruebo one and the Jorge Arrate one in 2009. That would be it.
Banca Lewin says that he took the flags for approval because he felt that there was an opportunity to raise certain issues that seemed urgent to him and because it was necessary to discuss the country “we wanted to live in” on issues such as the environment and health. “It seemed to me that it was a good outlet for many things that we have had repressed for so many years and that sometimes make us be a little bit of how we are with respect to culture.”
—How do you see what happened after that?
—Super sad, because I think there was a great opportunity to agree on many things as a country. And in the end everything focused on the different chimuchinas and interests that each one had. Not all, of course, I think there were super valuable people there who worked super well. And that generated disappointment, discontent among the people, which was super reasonable.
But it makes me sad, because I feel that a super aggressive discourse has been installed in the media against those ideas that, apparently, many Chileans shared. And I feel that in many things there has been a certain setback. What there has not been a setback is in the awakening that we have had as a country in the face of cases of corruption. It gives me some hope that there is more transparency in some things and that there may indeed be a little less impunity.
“I wouldn’t want to champion myself for anyone”
—Some say that there was “a farce on the left” when they lost that opportunity to change the Constitution. What does it say about it?
—I wouldn’t generalize when saying that there was a party on the left. I feel that it is a moment that, for various reasons, was not taken advantage of and failed.
—Do you still feel represented in that place?
—I remember that, after that plebiscite, everyone around me was depressed and bitter, and I said: “well, that’s what democracy is like.” This is what people, or a country, decides for itself: that this does not work and that they prefer the other. I think we have to stop seeing others as someone who makes the wrong decision. You have to think that this is the country in which I live, how I connect and how I relate to people so that we all live better. That’s what I thought the next day.
—Would you be part of a political campaign again?
—For now I find it difficult. It would have to be something very exceptional. In general, no, I don’t like it. I have met colleagues at the fair, who are candidates and tell me: “hey, a little video for social networks.” And I say no. I wouldn’t want to champion myself for anyone.
2024-10-14 23:45:00