Alberto Martín-Aragón is a Spanish filmmaker and writer dedicated to experimentalism. Since 2014, he has been creating short films that explore the unconscious and surrealism, often in collaboration with Julia Doménech. His award-winning film ENNUI, recognized for Best Experimental Abstraction, delves into metaphysical boredom and the density of time through a radically slow pace. Martín-Aragón aims to provoke thought, resisting convention and prioritizing authenticity and personal expression in his work.

 

 

1. To start, could you introduce yourself and give our readers a brief overview of your background as a filmmaker and writer?

I started writing from a very young age to appease my instinct of self-destruction. But writing wasn't enough for me. Cinema was my other drug. Especially movies that tend to irritate most audiences. One day, after being fired from the newspaper where I worked, I thought I should take a camera and film my obsessions. That's how it all started. It was 2014. Since then, I and Julia Doménech, my main collaborator, have tried to make short films that explore the shadows of life and our own fears.



2. Your film ENNUI won the award for Best Experimental Abstraction. How would you describe this project to someone unfamiliar with your work?



ENNUI is an attempt to show the emptiness that sometimes exists in our lives. We are surrounded by moments in which we feel lost, desperate, on the verge of madness. Our ego is trapped in itself because we are selfish and sometimes we give a lot of importance to our life. ENNUI is a way to exorcise those moments of anguish and rational paralysis. It is also a short that tries to reflect the power of cinema, even modest cinema, to capture the density and relativity of time.


3. How do you see the relationship between your work as a writer and your approach to filmmaking? Do these practices influence each other?



My writing and my short films influence each other in some ways. The most notable thing, in my opinion, is that in both disciplines I try to describe landscapes of the unconscious and the world of dreams. I flee from realism not to escape from reality, but to approach the world and ordinary people through surrealism, abstraction and metaphysical speculation.


4. ENNUI deals with the concept of metaphysical boredom, or ennui, through a radically slow pace. What inspired you to explore this theme, and what does ennui represent for you as an artist?



In that metaphysical boredom I have often felt like an insect. But it was thanks to feel that ‘ennui’ when I discovered the creative energy that stores every tormented consciousness. If you manage to merge with your emptiness and are not afraid to experience it to its ultimate consequences, you will feel a regeneration of your consciousness and a great desire to give aesthetic expression to your demons.

 

5. You seem to fully embrace a 100% experimental process in all aspects of your filmmaking—script, direction, and even performance. Could you share more about this purist approach and what drives you to remain so committed to the experimental form?



I am a purely instinctive creator and I let myself be dominated by the idea and the story. I consider myself a kind of hunter who shoots into the darkness without really knowing where the bullet is going to hit. I have a lot of respect for artists who are conscious of everything they do and who don't want to leave anything to chance. But I don't know how to do that. I'm not interested either. I offer fragments of nightmares and let the audience arrange them in their memory however they want. I treat people as intelligent beings, not as ignorant masses to whom everything must be explained. Perhaps because of this methodology I give the impression of embracing radical experimentalism.


6. The slow pacing of ENNUI creates a palpable density of time. How did you approach the challenge of conveying this sensation of time slipping away, and why was it important for this film?



I have had periods of insomnia. Insomnia is a hell in which you hear the cruel laughter of time. Time crawls in front of your bed like a heavy, arrogant crocodile that seems to mock your inability to fall asleep. That insomnia crocodile takes your life in slow motion and you can barely do anything. These experiences have made me always interested in showing that viscosity of time that seems to freeze in front of your mind.


7. Your filmography shows a strong commitment to abstraction. How do you determine the balance between abstraction and narrative, or do you see them as opposing forces in your work?



I think we are condemned to be narrative. Even the most abstract and hermetic language is telling a story. Even a short film that only showed a glass of caipirinha abandoned on a deserted road would be suggesting many emotions and many stories. What is that glass doing there? Who left it there? Will it be crushed by a truck wheel? Will a stray dog drink it or destroy it in a sudden hail storm? If you want to show the invisible, don't show everything.


8. You've received several IMBD awards and have published novels in Spain. What differences do you find in expressing your ideas through cinema versus through literature?



In my writing I am less abstract because literature is made with the words that we commonly use in our lives. The tools of a writer require us to be more concrete. In my short films I give free rein to my unconscious because cinema is a more universal language and there is no language barrier, especially if the film reduces dialogue to a minimum or renounces it completely.


9. ENNUI explores a kind of paralysis caused by metaphysical boredom. In a world that seems obsessed with speed and constant stimulation, do you see your film as a form of resistance or critique of modern life?

I guess both. I do what I do because I fight against a society that only gives value to money, easy success, the possession of objects, the instrumentalization of people, the destruction of the planet with ideological pretexts of various kinds. I don't believe in violence. That's why I fight this way. That doesn't mean I consider myself a political artist. I'm just trying to make some people feel less alone in their moments of anguish and frustration.




10. What do you find to be the most difficult aspect of working within the experimental genre, especially when it comes to connecting with audiences who may not be familiar with this type of cinema?



I know that many people are not going to understand me. And I understand it. But I can't give up expressing my own voice. If I make concessions to gain more audiences, I will be nothing more than another creator of conventionality and banalities. And the world is full of that. I'd rather make a bad movie with personality than a good movie without personality. I address myself to people who fight to be themselves and who have a critical spirit. I will never seek the applause of those who are fascinated by power.


11. How do you personally measure the success of an experimental film? Is it about the emotional or intellectual response it provokes, or something else entirely?



I think I've had some success when someone writes to me to tell me that one of my short films has made them think. I also consider it a success when someone insults me for believing that I have done something boring and incomprehensible. If someone wastes time insulting you instead of ignoring you, it means that you have not left him indifferent.


12. Lastly, what advice would you give to filmmakers who are interested in pursuing a more experimental and abstract approach in their own work but might be hesitant to take that leap?

If you are afraid of failing and being considered a weird person, don't go down experimental paths. If you are afraid to look inside yourself, don't do it either. If you're embarrassed about looking ridiculous, do what everyone else does. If you overcome all these fears and you want to make something genuine that belong to you before you die, dare to tell your obsessions following your intuition. You are not an artist useful to society by applauding its illnesses, but rather by proposing others ways of seeing life.