Argentinian director: Rafael Lopez Saubidet

He started off on stage, until a film school on the brink of closedown steered him behind the camera and towards winning two golds at Cannes when he was only 24. Isobel Roberts meets the character-driven actor’s director from Buenos Aires.

In another life, Rafael López Saubidet might not have been sitting in a director’s chair on the shoot of his and fellow director Augusto Giménez Zapiola’s 2008 BAFICI spots, the ones that went on to bag gold at Cannes when he was just 24 years old, and pushed him into the industry spotlight. Instead, if he’d followed his original plans, Saubidet would have been in front of the camera. “When I left school I wanted to be an actor,” he explains. “I started pursuing theatre acting, but then I got a scholarship at a film school here – it wasn’t a very good one but as I had the scholarship, I thought, ‘why not?’.”

Fortunately for the Buenos Aires-born filmmaker, the decision unveiled a passion – and skill – for directing, even though the film school closed after just one year. But, by that time, Saubidet had already broadened his film education with a job in the post production unit of Argentina Cine, the production company that now represents him, and it was in those darkened suites that he saw a future in commercials.

“When I started studying film I had this feeling of ‘yeah, I’m going to be a features director, I won’t do commercials’. Then I started working here and began to understand how they produce commercials, and what serious work they put into it and the talent you need, and I lost my preconceptions and started to see commercials as a very good way of doing things. It’s awesome. You’re doing great things, producing with money, shooting with 35mm film, different locations... all the kind of things you’ll never get to do in a feature film here in Argentina.”

After another stint in film school at the New York Film Academy, Saubidet returned south, armed with his reel, and gave it to Argentina Cine founder and director Augusto Giménez Zapiola.

Spotting the young director’s talent, Saubidet was put to work on treatments, but it wasn’t long before business on the set came calling. In 2007 he moved behind the camera, first shooting alongside Zapiola before going solo. Three years later and those BAFICI spots that brought international attention and were shot for the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival through agency La Comunidad, have helped carve out Saubidet’s style - unfussily-shot films focused on brilliant performance and dialogue.

“When I started directing I took theatre directing classes with a great professor here, and he was always telling us not to do stuff for the sake of it,” recalls Saubidet, “but to do stuff that works for the play, or in the case of an ad for the script, rather than for your own masturbation, putting it in a very graphic way. And that’s what I try to do in my commercials. Also, working in an edit suite, you learn more than you can imagine – film students shoot so much stuff that isn’t for any specific use and is just about crazy ideas.”

Still holding a torch for theatre, Saubidet’s love for characters stands out in his commercials. Take his deliciously disquieting output for MTV Switch, in which a nightmare boss slowly picks apart his cowering employees. Mixing his comedic talents with darker tones, the spot is one of the director’s favourites for its black humour. “And what I feel is happening that’s great for commercials is that it’s less about being beautiful for beautiful’s sake, but about focusing on the characters. You could say I’m not a very fancy director as I’m not into incredible, beautiful shots – but most of the scripts I receive aren’t about a beautiful car entering a place or image montages, but a guy having a conversation with another guy in a kind of weird and absurd way.”

Eager to try more dramatic scripts and expand on his storytelling, Saubidet has also been touting his trade abroad, with spots for France, Belgium, Russia and the US Hispanic market already under his belt. He’s also got his eye on a potential feature for the future, but only when he is sure of the story he wants to tell: “We don’t have a film industry here like in the US,” Saubidet laments, “so you have one shot, and if you fail on your first movie it’s very difficult to do a second movie. So you have to be really passionate and sure of what you tell.”

For now, Saubidet is intent on honing his skills in the commercial world. But any regrets on giving up the chance to see his face on the silver screen? “Definitely not. Even though I think I would’ve been a pretty fair actor, as in my past experience I wasn’t that bad, I love directing much more, and I think it’s a much more fulfilling and bigger thing.” The acting world’s loss is most definitely the advertising world’s gain.