Morelia 2014: Fernando Eimbcke Celebrates 10 Years Of DUCK SEASON

Yes, it's been 10 years since Brazilian soccer player Ronaldo was part of the Real Madrid team, Xbox's Halo dominated the videogame world, and Fernando Eimbcke premiered his first feature length effort Duck Season (Temporada de Patos). 

It was on October 22, 2004 when this black-and-white comedy about a couple of teens without anything to do on a Sunday arrived to Mexican cinemas. And exactly 10 years later, on October 22, 2014, Morelia screened the new remastered version of this little film that introduced a new voice in Mexican cinema.

Eimbcke, now close to turn 45 and with two other awarded films on his resume (2008's Lake Tahoe and 2013's Club Sandwich), returned to Morelia and immediately witnessed the influence of Duck Season. Curiously, hours before the 10th anniversary screening, Morelia hosted the Mexican premiere of Güeros, the debut of Alonso Ruiz Palacios, another filmmaker from Mexico City.

Güeros shares several elements with Duck Season, including the black-and-white photography, the music of Natalia Lafourcade, and the narrative of youngsters without much to do. Jokingly, Duck Season's producer Christian Valdelièvre said, "with Duck Season we didn't patented the black-and-white." He also commented to Eimbcke that people in Morelia were already saying that Güeros is "the Duck Season of 2014."

Later, both the director and producer introduced the film to the audience, expressing their excitement for watching the remastered version. "The remastering process has been hard work. One think that when you finish filming a movie, that's it, but I think you can't leave it as an obsolete cassette", said Eimbcke, who also confirmed that a Blu-ray with this new version will be hitting shelves soon.

After the screening, there was a Q&A session with Eimbcke, in which he revealed the main influence on Duck Season, what the title really means, and why he decided to shoot it in black-and-white. You can read what Eimbcke said in the gallery below.

The disastrous first cut of DUCK SEASON

Eimbcke: “You learn a lot when you watch the mistakes in your movies. When we watched the first cut of Duck Season, it was disastrous, and produced a sense of anguish. We sent this cut to a festival and they turned us down, luckily. Eventually, the editor Mariana Rodríguez did an amazing job.”

The main influence on DUCK SEASON

Eimbcke: “I was reading the book High Fidelity. I really liked this situation with the characters that worked in a record store and their absurd dialog. The characters that had nothing to do; we started working with this idea of some characters on a Sunday without much to do. It was an absurd idea, but I think there are no good or bad ideas, and you just have to work them. The premise was that of the Sunday without anything to do, but it was just impossible that the characters really ended doing nothing, so certain things would start happening.”

The meaning of the title

Eimbcke: “One of the initial titles was Compañía de Luz y Fuerza (referring to the name of a Mexican company of electric energy). Later the Duck Season title appeared; there was a rock band from the eighties with the same name, after a cartoon in which Daffy Duck fights with Bugs Bunny. It came from that and later I began to research about ducks, found meanings, that phrase about ducks that the Ulises character says, and the Galiano poem on ducks. An universe around the ducks was built.”

Why black-and-white?

Eimbcke: “The principal reason was because I thought it was going to look more artistic! Later we realized the black-and-white photography gave equilibrium to the comedy, we found that the geometric forms were more forceful, and we said it was the grey of the city entering the apartment… many theories. But the initial reason to make it look more artistic. With the decision, the funding went down.”