Languishing under a gentle soft Californian sun a group of friends profit from a weekend away to strengthen old connections and form new ones. LA-based Spanish Writer/Director Julia Ponce Díaz’s heady short Soredia is a potent look into that inexorable human need for connection and finding a sense of belonging whether that be through friendship or something more intimate. Soredia delicately reflects upon the multi-faceted nature of female relationships without falling into cliched tropes and Díaz’s debut shines in opening up the audience to the unspoken and perhaps repressed sides of friendship and budding romance. Soredia is as dreamy in its tone and cinematography as it is in narrative and ahead of the film premiering on DN today we invited Díaz to speak to us about her draw as a filmmaker to female-centric stories, using the sense of alienation she experiences in everyday life to breathe authenticity into her characters and taking her time in both casting and rehearsals to build that all-important chemistry between her actors.
How did the idea of a fish out of water longing for connection form into the film we see today?
The development of the initial concept came from wanting to explore ideas around female friendship and identity, and how influential girls can be to each other, especially during our formative years. I collect experiences and stories as I go, and always find inspiration in personal experience or the experiences of those around me. The story of Soredia was based on both my personal and observed experiences during my early 20s. To realise what I had in mind, I surrounded myself with the most amazing team I could find and I made sure they all understood and connected to the experience I was trying to portray. I also invited my best friend, Amanda Lucido, to write with me.
For years I consciously avoided (cis-white) male-written books. Not because I had anything against them, but because I had already heard enough about their experience in this world and I needed something different, something that I could actually identify with.
Why do female-centric stories specifically appeal to you as a filmmaker?
Because I wish I had had access to more of them when I was growing up. I used to read a lot as a kid. I was always reading, even the books I was given as homework at school I would devour. And I will never forget the moment, I was probably 14 at the time when I realized that almost every book I had ever read was written by a man. For years I consciously avoided (cis-white) male-written books. Not because I had anything against them, but because I had already heard enough about their experience in this world and I needed something different, something that I could actually identify with. It was such a validating feeling to discover the poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik or the short stories by Miranda July. I could finally see myself in those characters. The way they saw the world resembled my own gaze and it made me feel seen and understood. The films that I want to make are very much like the books I so much enjoyed discovering back then. And especially, as a filmmaker who draws inspiration from her own personal experiences, female-centric stories are just going to be hard to avoid.
How did you find the process of writing with a friend?
I don’t know if I’d love it with any friend, but I definitely loved doing it with Amanda. She’s not only a brilliant writer but a brilliant person, and writing with her made the process not only so much more enjoyable but also so much deeper. She followed me into every rabbit hole I would go into, and who wouldn’t want company in a rabbit hole, especially when they bring a flashlight with them and help illuminate the way forward? Amanda was also very close to the experience I was trying to portray with Soredia, so her input was invaluable in crafting the tensions and dynamics of the specific relationships between the characters in the short.
Our protagonist Lucie being French adds an extra level of awkward tension to Soredia, was this always the plan and what do you feel it adds to the film?
Lucie was always a foreigner, yes. The concept of roots and the constant feeling of displacement is something that I’m very interested in continuing to explore in my films. As someone who lives 10,000 km away from home, and has been doing so for a number of years now, I find Lucie’s character extremely relatable. She’s not just shy or reserved, she’s an outsider searching for a sense of belonging in a place that’s not her own.
I’ve been in Los Angeles for more than four years now, and there’s not a day that passes when I don’t miss a reference in conversation, or when I feel fully misunderstood in the most straightforward exchange. It’s a funny feeling, it often makes you feel like an alien, and it certainly can create a strange layer of disconnection between yourself and others. I personally believe it adds a layer of truth to the film, and at the very least it truly connected me to the character I was writing.
The soft hues and almost dreamy scenes work so harmoniously with the carefree holiday vibes, how did you plan and work on the tones and feel of the film?
I often described Soredia to my collaborators as a European Summer Movie set in the US. I love the carefree vibes of films like À Nos Amours or L’une chante, l’autre pas, but even more, I love holiday films that manage to create tension even in the most idyllic of scenarios. Fat Girl or La Ciénaga are both films that we talked about constantly when we were prepping to shoot Soredia. We also wanted nature to be an important part of the piece. We thought of nature as the place where boundaries become blurry to the point of disappearing, and that’s exactly what we wanted the tones of the film to convey. We wanted blurry edges and soft hues to give the film a bit of a sleepy, almost ethereal feeling.
The concept of roots and the constant feeling of displacement is something that I’m very interested in continuing to explore in my films.
Your camerawork is slow and considered, how did you work with your DP to ensure the cinematography fully conveyed the story you wanted to tell?
Bryce Holden and I did extensive prep for this film. We probably watched a hundred films together and talked about each and every detail in the script. We had also worked together on a couple of projects by the time we went on to shoot Soredia, so we had a sense of each other’s pace on set. We both like shooting on location, working with natural light and handheld camera movement, most of the shots are handheld, except for a couple of static and Steadicam shots. In terms of equipment, we used an Arri Alexa Mini. We needed a light camera for the handheld focus. Our lenses were Zeiss B Speeds; that’s how we got the triangular bokeh! The lighting package came mostly from AFI and we utilized as much natural light as possible during the shoot.
We shotlisted the whole film but every time we were about to shoot a scene, we would first run it with the actors and, after observing what they did in the space, we’d adjust our preconceived shotlist and find what made sense in the moment. Bryce manages to be flexible on set but also extremely considered with his camerawork. That’s one of the main reasons why I love working with him.
The will they / won’t they that pulses through is so captivating. Can you tell us about working with the cast to create that potent chemistry and tension?
Well, casting Soredia took forever, and hopefully it paid off. Every member of the cast made me feel so safe on set. You know, we always talk about the need to make actors feel comfortable and welcome, but there’s also something to say about actors who can make a director feel secure and confident enough to allow themselves to experiment and try things, to say a silly thing without feeling judged afterwards. That’s how this cast made me feel on the set of Soredia, so working with them became ridiculously easy.
During the actual shooting of the scenes, I encouraged the actors to roam around the set and discover things without having to fit into a rigid pre-established frame.
In rehearsals, and even during the chemistry reads actually, we focused on creating the bonds that would make those friendships believable on camera. I wanted the girls to feel like old friends, I wanted Lucie and Mia to find that special connection that was only theirs, and I wanted Mia and Lucas to share a certain way of inhabiting the space so they’d be believable as siblings. During the actual shooting of the scenes, I encouraged the actors to roam around the set and discover things without having to fit into a rigid pre-established frame. I also really wanted to ground them in their characters, so for example, I asked Cass Due (Lucie) to keep a journal during the shoot days, as if she was actually on holiday with the girls, or I gave each actor a secret prop for them to have just as a reminder of a little detail in their backstory. I had almost forgotten we did all these things, so I have to thank Kyla Dyan for reminding me that this film didn’t just happen on its own while I watched the monitor.
What are you looking to delve into for your next projects?
After Soredia, I directed two short films that I didn’t write: Cowboy, Choker, Harness and Heart and Wrong Planet, a comedy and a genre film respectively. I felt like I wanted to try new things and experiment with different visual languages. I loved working on those projects, but I now feel ready to go home…quite literally. Besides continuing to direct fashion films and music videos, I’ve been focusing on my feature script, Digital Dolls, a hybrid coming-of-age film that mixes live-action and animation and is set in the rural and virtual surroundings of the early-2000s South of Spain. So, I’m once again going back to the roots, but bringing the internet with me.
