Toni Segarra: Maximum levels of generosity are needed for a collaboration project like this one.
Gemma Ferraté and Marc Juvé: In cinema there were no previous references for co-creation, only examples of various pieces being joined together. We had to invent our own formula. To write a script between 13 people, we had to hold many meetings. It was decided who would do each chapter by drawing names out of a hat; maybe you didn’t get what you really wanted, but it was just down to chance. The film’s ending was decided with a show of hands.
TS: Would this formula work in a business or art in which authorship is very important?
GF and MJ: In fact, cinema requires a lot of collaboration, there is a huge team behind every film. In the case of our film, it went really well. If all films were like Puzzled Love, obviously the film industry would be very different. Authorship probably wouldn’t exist. However, there is also a need to do what everybody wants.
TS: As publicists, we create small pieces of cinema too, basically for the television. But now we feel obliged to collaborate with other professionals and to share authorship, and that is not so easy. We have this idea that collaboration occurs naturally, but it does not work without a leader, someone who directs things along a specific path. In your case, the film could seem to be the work of only one author.
GF and MJ: The film has a large dose of cohesion, thanks to the appearance of the same actors, which gives the project a sense of unity. The path is lineal, as if there had been just one director.
TS: Does collaboration sometimes turn into competition? To play more of a leading role, to go to the client, to have more decision-making power…
GF and MJ: As it was a class project these types of conflicts didn’t come up, but perhaps outside the school it might happen. Collaboration, in fact, has to be learned, we have not been taught to collaborate.
TS: Is collaboration possible without a leader?
GF and MJ: We have a strong group awareness, so when they told us we were going to San Sebastian, we said that if all thirteen of us didn’t go then nobody would go. The project belongs to everybody.
