My Little House | Actors and director reveal main challenges and regret not having had support

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The director and some actors from “A Minha Casinha” spoke to Magazine.HD and revealed the biggest challenges of recording a film in a year without financing.

“My Little House” it is a portuguese film which tells the story of a family that suddenly has to deal with the eldest son’s departure abroad, turning everyone’s lives upside down. Throughout the various seasons of the year we follow the development of this ‘nest’ which becomes increasingly empty, filling with joy when the holidays bring the whole family back home. More than the absence, the film deals with the traditions of a more rural Portugal, always focusing on home and family.

This is an independent project that came about through the director’s idea Antonio Sequeira and his team, inspired by the “Boyhood – Moments of a Lifetime“. Although “A Minha Casinha” is a feature film that focuses, above all, on the Portuguese family, the film was immediately selected for the “Go to Cannes” of Marché du Film at the Cannes Film Festival. But the universality of the themes covered in the feature film was also worth the Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival even before the film premiered in Portugal.

In a very relaxed conversation, the Magazine.HD had the opportunity to speak with António Sequeira, the director of “A Minha Casinha”, and understand the main difficulties encountered during the filming of this independent film. Furthermore, they also discussed Miguel Frazãoactor who stood out in productions such as “A Espia” and “Fátima” and who now wins his first leading role, and Beatriz Frazãowhich recently played a prominent role in reboot in “Strawberry with sugar“.

Magazine.HD: “My Little House” is a film about family, and you are father and daughter off-screen! What was that experience like working with each other?

Miguel Frazão: Fhi interesting! I confess that it wasn’t so much because we were father and daughter, it was more because this was my first opportunity as the protagonist of a feature film, and I felt, as an actor, a little lower. And that was making me nervous, but it also allowed me to give myself to the character in a different way. The scenes with the daughter were strange [risos]. They were strange because we had to create a more normal and more credible relationship. And it was strange, but that’s it, they were the characters and it ended up being done and it became credible.

Beatriz Frazão: ANDI’ll tell you a funnier story [risos]… FHi, it’s very funny that we play father and daughter, because I’m very shy, especially acting opposite someone who is part of my family, it’s very embarrassing, but people in set They didn’t know we were father and daughter. So, we were always together and sometimes we slept on the couch together, clinging to each other, and I got looks from people like “what is that? What is a 40-year-old man doing with a girl?” [risos]. They started to find it very strange and then is that we said we were father and daughter! AND cute and I think we managed to convey the chemistry we have as father and daughter toto the film.

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Magazine.HD: In addition to acting alongside your father, you also acted alongside Salvador Gil, who is the twin brother of Vicente Gil, with whom you had already participated in the Strawberry with sugar. How was this scene?

Beatriz Frazão: With the twin brother it’s really funny, because they really look like the same person. Sometimes I would look at the Savior thinking that he was the Vincent [risos]. That messed with my brain because they have the same voice, they speak the same way and even when acting they are very similar. But I like them both a lot.

Magazine.HD: In addition to being a film about family, it is also a film about the passage of time. And we have a whole year going on in that feature film. How do you manage to pass through all the stations?

António Sequeira: We basically filmed for about a year and filmed every three months. We filmed for a week and then we tried to catch the next season after that and the idea was that not only in terms of the seasons would they change, but also the actors could change their look and also grow throughout the year. I think we saw a little bit, although they were small details, but you really noticed a Bia [Beatriz Frazão] as an actress also growing in the film, Salvador [Gil] also growing up in the film… the parents not so much because you don’t notice the difference so much! That’s what we really wanted to capture with the year-long shoot.

Magazine.HD: What were the biggest challenges?

António Sequeira: Making a film in Portugal is a huge challenge in itself [risos]. We didn’t have any public financing, so the entire film was made with just the love and dedication of all the people here and many more who helped us make the film. And so filming, every day, was a huge challenge. So the most comical thing was probably dealing with the trains, because the trains CP never come on time [risos] and I already saw a comment on the trailer that someone wrote and said, “only in fiction, because CP trains never come on time” [risos]. He didn’t know that the train, even in this fiction, didn’t come on time either. [risos]. And it was basically me shouting “train is coming!“. We have an international team, so I had to shout so that everyone knew and everyone ran to places and we tried to figure out the best way. That was the most stressful of all.

António Sequeira: It feels really good! We really weren’t expecting anything. I went with Miguel [Frazão]Bia [Beatriz Frazão]I couldn’t, I was recording, but I went with Miguel, the director of photography and the film’s producer and we were all there and the films that were there were really gigantic films – Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Zendaya… such giant names that we can’t even compare with Portugal, right? Then, the fact that the public itself liked our film more compared to everyone else, I think it’s ridiculous, almost [risos]. It really shows, without a doubt, that the film, despite being very Portuguese, is something universal here on the subject and that it touches people. And it was great for us to have received from the public in andspecial.

Magazine.HD: Going back a little, I would like to know if you had any more notable difficulties during filming and also your reaction when you found out that you won this award.

Miguel Frazão: Look, I had to smoke throughout the whole movie and I’ve never smoked in my life. So, physical difficulties were having to pretend that I was limping, but that was easy, anda stone in the shoe [risos]. And truth! The smoking wasn’t so much the tobacco, because that wasn’t real tobacco, but it was the smoke getting into my eyes, which was something I really couldn’t handle. [risos].

As for the prize, I thought that andIt’s a lie. We were there at the Festival when they handed out the Jury Prizes, and the Jury Prize went, obviously, to another film, which was “Sunlight”, right? And we even joked about it at the awards lunch, “Ah, now we just need to win the Audience Award”. But it was completely impossible, we were talking about a Portuguese film subtitled in English for an American audience that watches aliens it’s from Super heroesand ready [risos]. And in the end, when we won the Audience Award it was a huge surprise. But we, in every showing, at the end there was Q&A, the audience asked questions and you could feel that people had really let themselves get involved with themovie.

TRAILER | MY LITTLE HOUSE PREMIERED IN DECEMBER IN NATIONAL CINEMAS

Have you ever watched “My Little House”? What is your favorite character? Can you identify with any of the themes in the film?