The Directors: Barbara Anastacio

Barbara Anastacio is a filmmaker whose gripping and intimate work has found worldwide acclaim. Her craft is informed by her training in Anthropology & Photography at Goldsmiths College in London. Her endless curiosity for people combined with a gift for authentic and moving storytelling bears testimony to her unique talent in the field. The unique witty feeling of her films wrapped in beautiful imagery has become her trademark. Barbara Anastacio is continuously pursuing branded filmmaking collaborations with global brands, while also developing her personal work.

Name: Barbara Anastacio

Location: NY, Paris, Lisbon

Repped by/in: Cadence Films US, Frenzy Paris 

Awards:  Best Film at Milan Fashion Film Festival, Philadelphia Museum of Art Official Selection for Design for Different Futures  Exhibition, Best Director NYFFF 2018

LBB> What elements of a script sets one apart from the other and what sort of scripts get you excited to shoot them?

Barbara> Something that is an open invitation to go outside of your own experience through rich, layered, and bold storytelling. Generally, you can tell when something pushes boundaries by the clarity and strength of the message in the script. When there’s something unexpected and unpredictable in the script that doesn’t feel like a cliché. A product/ brand that knows itself and its identity and dares to push its limits, rather than just selling its product. That’s what generally makes me tick as a director. 

LBB> How do you approach creating a treatment for a spot?

Barbara> My process is very research-based. I like to delve into the world that I’ll be creating as deeply as possible before developing an idea. After taking in all the information I can, I like to do something physical to take my mind off of it - a swim, a walk, or a run. This is like a mental cleanse that enables new ways of thinking about the problem/brief, even when you’re not actively thinking about it. Usually, this triggers a few strong images in my head that defines the creative. I follow it with writing and image research. It’s a bit like building a puzzle where you have to find the pieces that match together. Writing is rewriting so I can spend a considerable amount of time working on this. Sometimes it’s hard to describe in words what you can see so clearly in your own head, so it helps to also read it aloud to ensure it has the level of excitement and clarity it requires to come across.

LBB> If the script is for a brand that you're not familiar with/ don’t have a big affinity with or a market you're new to, how important is it for you to do research and understand that strategic and contextual side of the ad? If it’s important to you, how do you do it?

Barbara> It’s extremely important for me to understand the product, brand, and market I’m creating for. Not only for obvious practical reasons but also on a personal level - I want to feel aligned and involved with what I’m making. 

LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why?

Barbara> I think it’s paramount to be on the same page as the agency's creative director. Normally, the reason we’re working together in the first place it’s because there’s already been a creative symbiosis when we started discussing the ad. This mutual creative trust is the essential habitat to create a powerful and unflinching campaign. Especially as we might face several obstacles during production and we’ll need to think on our feet and problem-solve creatively together on the spot. I’m very collaborative by nature and I really thrive on this type of relationship. Of course, in my line of work, another essential relationship I have on set is ultimately with the talent, because without them there’s just no film.

LBB> What type of work are you most passionate about - is there a particular genre or subject matter or style you are most drawn to?

Barbara> I’m passionate about storytelling and the human experience, whatever genre, form, or subject matter that might be. I truly believe everyone, no matter how apparently dull, has a story worth telling. Empathising with another’s plight is at the core of what I do and what truly draws me. Work that dares to achieve this is what excites me.

LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?

Barbara> That my work is 'real' and 'authentic'. That’s kind of true to a certain extent but there’s also often a lot of 'staging' that happens before in order to achieve that 'real' look. And I also really enjoy the challenge of creating a fictional world.  I do wish I had more opportunities to do so in commercial work.

LBB> What’s the craziest problem you’ve come across in the course of a production – and how did you solve it?

Barbara> Once while shooting in Oaxaca I had a storm, followed by a mini earthquake, that destroyed our set on the last day of shooting. We had a group of mariachis as part of our cast so we all just took shelter and ended up drinking tequila and singing. It was quite magical and after that, the rainbow came and the bond created by this clearly translated on the footage, even if the set wasn’t as perfect as it should have been.

I think this taught me a lesson to see problems and obstacles as ways to expand our creativity. Ensuring that we are always attentive and present in what we are doing, instead of blinded by a perfect vision of it. It’s like the battle between David and Goliath. In the end, the giant loses because he’s so strong and powerful that he loses the ability to properly see and appreciate the small things. I think sometimes it’s important to step out of that creative pedestal we set up for ourselves and learn to see beyond it. And problems usually allow that openness while also reaffirming the strength of your vision.

LBB> How do you strike the balance between being open/collaborative with the agency and brand client while also protecting the idea?

Barbara> In my experience, the stronger and clearer your vision is, the more respected you are and the less of a balance you’ll need to strike. I think it’s really important to discuss with detail and specificity your vision ahead of time so that by the time you’re on set it’s about executing it together. It’s really important to gain trust and space from the client before in order to bring something to life together

LBB> What are your thoughts on opening up the production world to a more diverse pool of talent? Are you open to mentoring and apprenticeships on set?

Barbara> As an immigrant woman from a small town where being a director wasn’t even something you could dare to dream of, I think this is of the utmost importance. And it’s a cause I’m personally committed to. I wish there was more of a system built into the industry to facilitate it. But often it’s such a precarious infrastructure even for the 'established' people that I think it can be challenging to create that space. I still feel some forms of discrimination for the types of briefs I generally get for being a woman director - generally beauty and fashion as opposed to car and sports commercials. Hopefully, something that I will see  change in the future.

LBB> How do you feel the pandemic is going to influence the way you work into the longer term? Have you picked up new habits that you feel will stick around for a long time? 

Barbara> The pandemic has already influenced the way I work. During the lockdown, I remotely directed a Pandora campaign across four different continents and it kind of worked. I would have never considered this a possibility pre-pandemic. The technology is certainly there to facilitate it and I think it’s very suitable for certain projects. Of course, nothing replaces being on set but on the other hand, it’s great that we can still do what we love more sustainably and minimise our carbon footprint with less flying.

LBB> Your work is now presented in so many different formats - to what extent do you keep each in mind while you're working (and, equally, to what degree is it possible to do so)? 

Barbara> That’s not something I hugely focus on. My main focus is to communicate stories in the best way possible. And at the end of the day, making films or videos is about sculpting with time, space, light, and characters. All else follows... I don’t think the formats should dictate the storytelling but vice-versa. A great story will find its way and adapt to multiple forms. I see the different formats as packaging, but the essential part is what’s really inside it.

LBB> What’s your relationship with new technology and, if at all, how do you incorporate future-facing tech into your work?

Barbara> I’m quite fascinated by new technologies, particularly AI capabilities. But I’m also quite allergic to anything that feels too gimmicky as a way to diminish powerful storytelling. I think sometimes technological development equates to boredom in the sense that the closer a medium gets to imitating life and nature the less interesting it becomes. Like Jean Renoir mentioned, imagine if you can perfectly recreate a forest in film, people will ride a scooter to the forest instead of going to the movies. Technical perfection doesn’t necessarily equate to beauty and this probably explains why shooting film is so trendy right now. People are nostalgic for imperfections. That’s what makes us humans.

LBB> Which pieces of work do you feel really show off what you do best – and why?

Barbara> Carry On Music Video

This is a recent music video I directed with Mykki Blanco who’s an artist I’ve long admired. The magical realism in the film is quite representative of my work where the lines between documentary and fiction are often blurred.  Mykki had the idea of a queer Black refugee who struggles to survive as a beach peddler and we decided to create a modern fairy tale of sorts with the character eventually finding freedom and salvation at sea as a mermaid. After that brainstorming phone call, Mykki gave me complete trust to own this story.  It was really important for me to fully immerse myself into the world of our character so I spent some time in this precarious neighbourhood by the Portuguese coast where I met some incredible immigrants who each day are finding ways to carry on, in spite of constant struggles to get by. Some of their houses were even demolished during this time and it was awe-inspiring to see how resilient they are. And to be able to work closely with the community and help by making a difference gave a whole other meaning to the film. The video is an ode to everyone who, no matter what, lives each day to the fullest, fighting stigma, and demanding to be seen. Carrying on…  

Roger Federer On Running

I loved working on this campaign, not only because I’m a huge Roger Federer fan, but also because it was very open-ended and I was able to write and conceptualise it from the beginning. I wrote the VO and had grand ideas for some of the shots. But since Roger was injured at the time we were due to film it, I ended up proposing working with archival footage. In the end, it was a very compelling way to pay homage to his legacy from starting out as a ball kid to becoming one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Again, even though we are selling shoes here, we are first and foremost about someone who has given his life to something bigger than oneself. I love that.

Gucci x Performers

This was another carte-blanche commission I received from Gucci and Conde Nast. The only directive I had was that it needed to feature this robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro and be part of The Performers series they had been doing. After digging through Hiroshi’s work and the world of robotics and AI,  I really wanted to create a docu-fiction story from the perspective of Hiroshi’s own creation - Erica.  This seemed to be the most interesting way to represent his work - to have a robot explain or debate to us what it means to be human. After proposing this, I had a zoom interview with Hiroshi and from there I developed the script and the storyboard. I’ve worked in Japan a lot before and I knew the best approach would  be to have everything planned up to the minor detail. So even though it is not how I always work, I think it represents me pretty well.  It’s one of my  most personal commercial works ever. And in the end, it was even picked up by the Philadelphia Museum of Art for their permanent collection, so I think it worked out pretty well.

Vogue x Kaia Gerber

The commission for this came from British Vogue and they wanted to do something around  Kaia’s upcoming 18th birthday. I immediately thought of this Ingres’ portrait I love of the Comtesse d'Haussonville who married at 18 and was a beautiful woman and highly conscious of her effect on others. She wrote that she, “was destined to beguile, to attract, to seduce". This seemed to me the perfect metaphor for someone like Kaia who at 18 is already gracing the cover of Vogue and in some ways has the world in her hands. So I wanted to create a scenario where Kaia herself is beguiled by this painting and abandons herself into a 19th-century reverie at the Frick Museum. I wanted to make more of a short film out of it with the painting talking to Kaia but we had a lot of limitations shooting at the museum and only two hours to shoot everything so we had to keep it simple. But it was a memorable one and I still like it.