GRISES PERMANENTES was born out of the constant necessity to express my repetitive lifestyle and anxieties. It was the push to accept them as they are inside myself.

Where does it come from?
Of course, another introspective project was made during the last winter months in Berlin. I had just finished completing an essay for the university, and through the process, I was silently overcoming a personal breakthrough, just a classic Berlin winter scenario. I managed to survive by infusing even more introspective music into my brain: the magical sound of Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions, specifically the album Through The Devil Softly, which inspired the whole direction and mood of the film. After filming Alone and I a couple of months prior, I felt the need to explore myself in a personal way, making a reflection on the character of Lima, and how I am her as well as the character of Alone. I understood that this task was even more personal; I was showing myself vulnerable, which was going into a different path, into the self-narrative direction, similar to the early films of skateboarder Jim Greco.
In that manner, I accepted this project as having to arrive before Alone and I, as this would be an introduction to myself and what shaped my life.

How did it happen?
It was a very quick situation. I was moving out of my apartment at the time, and I wanted to show the moving process in the film. I had the whole film in my head; I didn’t write anything down.
We had a couple of days before I had to leave the apartment, so we shot it some days before, as I knew it would be better for us to flow from one house to the other and not wait in between. I needed to carry the mood across. We filmed in the first house, where most of the film takes place, and then we filmed in the new house by the end of the film. I had asked my classmate Marcela Faganello to help us, and she ended up being the entity in the first house. By the time we reached the second house, I had the idea to cut my hair and make a sort of symbolic, ritualistic act from it. So I asked my partner at the time, Kat Le, to do the deed and put on the entity costume. I wanted it to be similar to Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain intro, but with my own symbology. We had set the lights and made practice tests of the action, as we only had one shot to film the cutting of my hair. It was a very interesting experience, and I couldn’t stop laughing during the practice sessions. When it finally did happen, I felt something come out of myself; it was a great experience. Everything ended up coming together nicely; it was not exactly what I had imagined in my head, but thats also what I was expecting: for the film to create itself. I was open to it being moulded into what it needed to be. We made it fairly quickly, and I edited it all in one day, but what took months was the writing of the poems and recording all the narration and effects. That took me way too long; it was too hard to write about myself so openly, about what I had in my head and who I thought I was then. It was one of the hardest projects I’ve ever done; it took me about four months, if I remember correctly. That is also why Alone and I took so long to come out. Firstly, I had decided to make this one come before it, as an introduction, delaying my post-production work on Alone and I. But in the end, I was very happy with the process; it was worth it. I became better at editing after GRISES and Alone and I thanked me. I also learned a lot about writing narration, recording it and making effects, both visually and with sound. I learned a lot with GRISES PERMANENTES, both about myself and how I wanted to express myself through film.

What did it mean?
The film, like most of my work, carries a lot of personal symbolism. I see it as an exercise to understand how to use symbolism in the correct manner, or just to learn by practice. GRISES carries mainly personal symbolism. I believe some of it can be shared with others, and some may stay longer in the unconscious mind. The film was a great exercise in order to see myself from the outside. After the film was made, I shared it with my parents and friends. I felt as if I was somehow dying, like I was leaving a part of myself inside to transform into something else. It helped me understand myself better and accept my life through new eyes. The audience helped me shape my perspective by looking at things from a different angle. It definitely feels like something that I had to do for myself both artistically and personally. After seeing the film for some time, I also realised the relationship with myself had changed. I see my life and how I begin to accept it differently, especially the idea of moving around so much throughout. I believe the film has also had an impact on my overall artistic research into personal introspection, and by putting myself in the front, I can get closer to knowing how to direct others.