In The Beginning...

The genesis for Mismo was a script I had written some years previous that was in the vein of a revenge chick flick. We had this notion that we could make a portion of it for the next stage of the Scary Cow contest. We were not going to make the first ten minutes, but rather build a short around one scene in particular that we thought was visually rich – it involved a suicidal woman and a lot of flower petals. One team member was pushing towards making the film Bergman-esque – slow down the pace of everything – which, to me, translates as painful and… well, quite simply, not my style.

Gino and I got talking one Sunday evening about what excites us about film and filmmaking. We discovered that we’re both huge fans of Alejandro González Iñárritu and more specifically of films that do not follow a traditional linear path. Amores Peros and 21 Grams are in both of our personal ‘Movie Hall of Fame’.

Our conversation was invigorated and we were inspired; we decided that we would make a movie with parallel storylines. My script had three characters; the problem was that one of them died at the beginning of the film. So, heck, we’d come up with another script. Meanwhile, we were in a contest and needed to move forward.