‘El Caja’ Director Lorenzo Vigas on Exploring the Birth of Evil and Casting a First-Time Actor as the Lead

12.03.2022 - 02:09 / variety.com

Malina Saval Associate Editor, FeaturesThe theme of fathers and sons runs through the films of Venezuela-born writer-director Lorenzo Vigas, whose 2015 debut drama “From Afar,” which focuses on a troubled middle-aged man and young hustler in Caracas, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In Vigas’ latest film “El Caja” (“The Box”), which screened Thursday at the 39th annual Miami Film Festival, this motif continues to resonate — and on a global scale.“El Caja,” which revolves around a young boy in Mexico City longing for a father figure — a desperate search with deadly consequences — could be the prototype of how a dictator such as Vladimir Putin rises to power, Vigas pointed out.“We are always trapped in our obsessions,” Vigas told fest attendees during a Q&A that followed the screening.

“I had a very good relationship with my father, a very close and warm and good relationship. But I connected with that archetype of the father figure in Latin America.

And that could be the father figure also in Russia right now. A lot of people are asking themselves — how? How did this happen? But it’s the same in Latin America with [Juan] Perón and [Hugo] Chavez and the other dictators we’ve had.

So where is this [evil] coming from? That’s one of the reasons I was so interested in talking about that with this film.” The film, which Vigas shot over 10 weeks in 10 different locations across the Mexico state of Chihuahua, also explores the riptide effects of poverty on violence, specifically regarding migrant and factory workers who risk their lives every day to earn a wage on which most Americans — and most people worldwide — could not survive. For Vigas, who has lived in Mexico City for 20 years, it is “impossible not to