Filmmaking is often associated with the grandiosity of Hollywood and its multi-million dollar productions. But cinema does not have to cost tremendous amounts of money. And this is precisely what Mexican director Jose Luis Valle attempted to prove with his latest work "Las Busquedas (The Searches)."

"Las Busquedas" is his second feature film after "Workers," and the movie recently screened at the LatinBeat cinema series for the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The filmmaker spoke with Latin Post about his inspirations for the film, as well as his desire to disprove old cinematic clichés and taboos.

Latin Post: What was the inspiration for this film?

Jose Luis Valle: I had a lot of stories I wanted to share, regardless of my financial circumstances. I wanted to make sure that I was always true to my artistic sensibilities. I wanted to prove to myself that it was possible to tell a story beautifully despite having almost no real budget.

LP: The film was obviously shot with a minimal budget, with minimal crew. Did you want to shoot this way or was there another circumstance that forced you to make this film under these conditions?

JLV: It was not a money problem. It was based on my own artistic principles. I wanted to experiment and get rid of some cinematic taboos such as the idea that productions have to cost millions or need massive crews. And in the end we made a movie that we are proud of. I think that being an independent filmmaker is not dependent on having a lot of money but on maintaining your vision and not compromising it.

Right now I have a ton of screenplays that could cost anywhere from $200,000 to even $10 million.

LP: Why black and white? What was your artistic intention?

JLV: I always imagined the film in black and white. I thought that it unified the locations and emotions that I wanted to share, such as the desolation of loss and hostility of the environment. And the meeting of the two protagonists' physical and emotional searches.

I saw this sort of "favela" where the friends talk or the garbage dump or even the face of Gustavo Sánchez Parra, and I only imagined it in black and white. It's important to try out different materials, like any artist. I could also say the same about the use of time, silence and the moments I chose to edit in the final cut. I think that that is what the movie needed.

LP: Aside from the budgetary circumstances, how was this experience different from your first feature "Workers?" What lessons from that project did you look to incorporate in this one?

JLV: There wasn't a big difference. In both cases I started to reflect for a while until I was clear on exactly everything that I wanted to express and how to express it.

It was about going to the core of the project. In both cases, we worked without a shot list or storyboard and shot the fiction as if it were a documentary.

LP: Of all the scenes, which was the most memorable for you to film?

JLV: I love the sequence in which Ulises talks to his friend about a dream, but I think my favorite might be the landfill sequence where you see an ocean of garbage and the waste flies around in the air with a rare beauty. And all the while we do not know what will happen.

I also want to mention the scene in the Metro but for different reasons. We shot this scene in one long eight-minute take and managed to show the emotional unraveling of the protagonist after he gets dispossessed of the only picture he has of his family. I wanted the viewer to feel the weight of real time in these conditions; it should feel eternal and unbearable. I don't know if I managed to capture that but for me that is what personal cinema is all about: experiment with the elasticity of your "materials" and achieve an artistic discovery or advancement.

In my first film "Workers," there is a similar scene in which all of the actors exit the scene for six minutes and the street in Tijuana winds up being its own character. Everything and nothing happens here, depending on what you see.

LP: What was the experience of working with Arcelia Ramirez and Gustavo Sánchez Parra?

JLV: In my first film "Workers," I worked with semiprofessional actors and few recognized ones. So working with Gustavo Sánchez Parra (Amores Perros, La Rabia) y Arcelia Ramírez (who is also the muse of Ripstein and a Best Actress winner at San Sebastián) was a great pleasure. They are true professionals and they were excited about the idea of working without a script and only the seven pages on which the work was based. From the beginning the two gave their all to the project and worked for no pay.

LP: Who are your cinematic / artistic role models or idols?

JLV: Theo Angelopoulos, Vimukti Jayasundara, Roy Anderson, Víctor Erice. The Argentinean theater director Claudio Tolcachir. It is a long list that might not be as clear as I would like. I am also greatly influenced by literature and still photography.

LP: What is your next project? Will you look to experiment with any other type of visual style?

JLV: The most interesting thing about being a filmmaker for me is the opportunity to change your register. Not just for the sake of doing it, but for a desire to express new things. Two years ago I published a book for blind children in Braille and with textures. Without realizing it, I had managed to go from communicating through images to doing it with Braille! Instead of being a contradiction, I see congruency: it is simply a desire to tell and share stories. I am currently working on two projects. One is for a low budget about a man who wants a fruit and the other one is a bit more mainstream and tells the story of the civil war in El Salvador during the 80s.