Sept 1999
• Paulina Robles, my wife, and I want to write a screenplay together. We decide on a love triangle involving a Canadian man and two women. The man is a middle-aged teacher named Norman, who hides passionate feelings beneath a reserved, gentlemanly exterior. Gladys is Norman’s internet bride, a young, smart, Mexican woman, desperate to get out of her hometown, but unable to detach herself from her mother Fernanda, a youngish widow, somewhat old-fashioned yet independent, guarded yet sensual, the unexpected object of Norman’s passion. We decide to make the film both comic and dramatically realistic, a modern fable about loneliness and desire. We write up a treatment, and with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, we write a first draft of A SILENT LOVE (ASL) during 2000.

Aug 2000
• François Dagenais, my old friend from film school, and the guy who will eventually be the cinematographer on ASL, encourages me to meet Pascal Maeder, the intrepid producer with whom François had gone to Havana, Cuba to shoot Attila Bertalan’s Between the Moon and Montevideo.

Jan 2001
• On the basis of a first draft of ASL, Pascal and I agree to work together to develop the script and shoot the film. We initially consider a Fall 2001 shoot, but for logistical and story reasons, we decide on 2002.

April-Aug 2001
• Thanks to early support provided by The Harold Greenberg Fund, we are able to invite playwright and theatre director Nick Carpenter to join our team as script editor. Nick brings insight and enthusiasm, and many visual ideas that wind up in the film, such as the neighbour’s red ball that plunks down on Norman’s head in Mexico.
• We also receive development assistance from Telefilm Canada and SODEC, and are able to start planning our first preparatory trip to Mexico.

Dec 2001
• Pascal and I arrive in Mexico City. My good friend Bernardo Ávila joins our team. He seems to know just about everybody and coordinates everything from meetings with local producers and officials to casting and location scouting. Bernardo is a multi-tasking speed-demon, reading names and addresses from his text-pager while zig-zagging through Mexico City traffic from one appointment to another in record time. Through Bernardo, we meet an extraordinary location manager, Claudia Puebla, who takes us to visit several small cities nearby.
• A high point of the trip is meeting actress Vanessa Bauche, who reads our script and likes it. Like many in Canada, I had first seen this excellent actress in González Iñárritu´s Amores Perros. On this trip, I see her give a sharp-edged performance in Animales Insólitos, a play by Humberto Leyva. In her reading of ASL’s Gladys with me, Vanessa finds the perfect mix of innocence and resentment for the part of this apprehensive, small-town schoolteacher.

Jan 2002
• We set up shop at ATOPIA’s St-Laurent Blvd office. Production Coordinator Patricia Diaz commits to keeping track of myriad documents and personnel from two countries and a dozen cities, an exacting job that she carries out with skill and vitality.
• As Pascal and I scramble to get the project ready in time for financing deadlines, ASL Associate Producer Luc Déry gives us a huge boost by securing the film’s Canadian Pre-Sales.

Feb 2002
• Another trip to Mexico. We meet the splendid actress Susana Salazar, through the efforts of Alejandro Caballero, Mexican casting director. We’re immediately taken with Susana’s warm, light reading of Fernanda’s part.
• We’re invited to see Carmen Salinas’ spectacularly popular cabaret La Aventurera. Carmen is a consummate and beloved performer, and she treats us to a delightful evening of tequila and satire. She will eventually sign on to play Fernanda’s good friend, Georgina.
• We make contact with Carlos Taibo and Hugo Villa of Hartos Indios, the dynamic Mexican production company we will eventually work with during the shoot.

Mar 2002
• During all of these months, Paulina and I review the tapes of auditions and locations I made in Mexico. Her intuitions and experience are a key part of the selection process. We also continue to develop the script. We must continually have ready a bilingual version (the one we’ll use for filming), and an English version for use by our collaborators in Canada.

May 2002
• We’re ecstatic to find out we’ve secured production financing from Telefilm Canada and SODEC. Yip, yip, yippee!!!

June 2002
• We cast Noel Burton for the part of Norman. He generously submits to a grueling trial where he must learn to seduce his alarmed mother-in-law in Spanish, a language he doesn’t speak a word of. Fortunately for us, Noel is a real craftsman; he has a great ear and is a fast learner; he delivers his lines flawlessly.
• Another trip to Mexico. I audition actors, check potential locations, and discuss the art direction for the Mexican sets with Carlos Salom from Hartos Indios. In the look of the film, we’re aiming for textures that are subtly stylized, but not obviously picturesque.

July 2002
• In Montreal, we cast one of the friendliest guys on earth, actor and poet Maka Kotto for the part of Norman’s friend, André.
• François Dagenais, our methodical DP, has started shooting tests to find a low contrast 16mm film that will look good when blown up to 35mm. François and I have worked together before, so we have a quick and easy rapport: he does everything I say whenever he feels it is appropriate to do so.

Aug 2002
• We cast two more key Montreal parts: Lisette Guertin as Norman’s old flame, Joyce; and Paula Jean Hixson as Gladys’s feisty new friend, Molly.
• Our location scout in Montreal, Patricia Durocher is hard at work looking for the perfect apartment for Norman. What she finds is a real treat, an apartment only a block from my own!
• I return to Mexico to start rehearsals with Vanessa and Susana, and to finalize supporting roles. Versatile comic actor Jorge Zárate agrees to play Mr Valdivia, the agency rep. Regina Orozco, who was the outstanding female lead in Arturo Ripstein’s Profundo Carmesí, agrees to the role of Ana Francisca. Rosario Zúñiga agrees to play Fernanda’s colleague in the hair salon. And Ariadna Álvarez, with permission from her parents, agrees to play Lucy, Gladys’ young student.
• We finalize our locations in Toluca and nearby Metepec. The Hotel Colonial is where Norman will arrive, and it will be the Canadian crew’s residence for the duration of the Mexico shoot.

Sept 2002
• In Montreal, Production Designer Gabriel Tsampalieros and his team are working overtime to get Norman’s apartment repainted and redecorated almost entirely. Gabriel works with an amusing, minimalist touch that really suits this quietly eccentric character.
• Also working day and night, with her own team, is our funky Costume Designer, Maory Gastelo. Her vivid wardrobe choices will highlight Gladys’ evolution during her first months in Montreal.
• Vanessa Bauche and Susana Salazar arrive in Montreal. They meet Noel Burton. The three leads are finally together in one room. This is a nerve-wracking, but extremely satisfying moment for me as the three of them hit it off right away.
• Bernardo Ávila, from Mexico City, is here too, helping us, as usual, in everything. Pascal Maeder relaxes from the stress of closing our production financing by discussing the finer points of Montreal traffic regulations with Bernardo.
• Great news: the final addition of The Harold Greenberg Fund as an equity investor. Now we’re really set.

Oct 2002
• Principal photography in Montreal. François’ soft lighting effects are amazing, one among many impressive feats. Our cast and crew are very generous and very inventive. I learn a lot about filmmaking.

Nov 2002
• Principal photography in Mexico. We take a small crew, plus lead actor Noel Burton, from Montreal and team up with Hartos Indios’ crew and staff, who are technically superb and highly motivated. We feel very warmly received. The last day of the shoot requires a small security force to contain the multitude of Metepec residents that turn out to see Carmen Salinas in person.
• All that’s left is in Montreal: the winter exteriors and the Sushi Restaurant scene.

Dec 2002
• I go to Toronto and hold a long-delayed meeting with resourceful actor Peter Kosaka, who agrees to play the sushi chef.

Jan 2003
• Vanessa Bauche returns to Montreal to shoot in -25 weather that actually freezes our camera. But Vanessa is totally enthusiastic. We need to warn her that the numb sensation she feels in her feet and hands is a customary Canadian warning sign to run for the nearest shelter, right after I say cut, of course.
• Final wrap of the shoot.

Mar 2003
• Picture is locked on schedule. We start working with a very witty and perceptive composer, Robert Marcel Lepage.

April 2003
• The post-production sound team at Premium is terrific. We do our final mix. We’ve made it this far… Pascal breathes a sigh of relief. I sit in a corner in stupefaction…

May-Aug 2003
• But we’re not quite there yet. The blow-up turns out to be, as in most cases, much more complicated than at first imagined. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is the 16mm negative cut, which must be done with meticulous perfection in order for the rest of the process to be achieved. We become very familiar with the lab guys.
• We work on the subtitles, which are essential to this authentically bilingual film.
• Finally, we have a screenable print for our cast and crew in Canada.

Nov 2003
• We receive confirmation that our World Premiere will be in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. We’re stunned. It’s really an incredible piece of good news for us!!!

Federico Hidalgo
December 2003