In Charcoal, a Brazilian-Argentine coproduction now playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, Irene, a middle-aged woman (Maeve Jinkins), is living a complicated life in a desolate rural area in Brazil. She is married to a man who is secretly having a gay affair, cares for her elderly father who is in a vegetative state and is also raising a young boy. The family is struggling financially, even though they make some side money with a charcoal furnace next door. But when a nurse (Aline Marta) comes to check on the old man and offers Irene the deal of the family’s lives, Irene goes for it. She just needs to get rid of her father and bring in an Argentine Mafia boss on the run (Cesar Bordon) to take his place. It seems very easy, but once things are put in motion, everything will fall to pieces. The film is the first feature for Carolina Markowicz, a veteran commercial director who has won several awards with a few amazing shorts. But now that she has reached this point in her career, it is clear that she is here to stay. Carolina has just finished her second feature, Toll, in which Jinkins also has a leading role. We spoke with Markowicz just before TIFF via Zoom, in a lengthy exclusive interview.

You have won many awards with your shorts and you are also a successful commercial director. Why did it take you so long to make your first feature film? 

I have been raising funds for six years for this film.  So I guess that is why, because it took time for us to raise the money to do Charcoal.

What does making a feature give you that you don’t get doing commercials?

Well, I enjoy shooting, I like to be on set, and for me, commercials are what pay my bills nowadays. So as long as I need commercials to make a living, I will have to do some, but I am not completely focused on that. I do like to do three or four commercials a year and it’s good for me, but I don’t want to be doing more than that. It’s not that hate doing it, I like to shoot, I like to understand, it’s good to use equipment, it’s good to have money to shoot and it’s good to be on sets. But at the same time, I am completely focused on my other work, on the work that I write and direct, and on the short films I have been making, and now on my feature films – on this one, Charcoal and then on Toll, the one that I will be releasing next year.  And the other ones that I will be writing and mailing, so I think I will be making some commercials until the day that I don’t need them anymore to pay my bills, to be perfectly honest. 

What tools did making commercials give you to make the features?

I think it’s a very different profession.  In terms of what you can learn from one to another, there is the experience of being on set and of trying cameras, lenses, equipment, technicians. And this is something that I find valuable. I had the opportunity to do that because I had the opportunity of shooting a commercial – “Oh, I want to shoot with Phantom 4K.” I don’t think I would ever have had this opportunity right now in making feature films, especially because I don’t film things that need that camera, the stories that I tell doesn’t require this thing. But it’s good to know, it’s good to understand, it’s good to have the experience with some equipment. 

How did the story for Charcoal develop? 

Well, I was raised in the countryside, and I lived many years there. And for me it was very weird how people had to perform a role that they often weren’t comfortable with, families stayed together even though they had nothing to do with one another and couldn’t stand each other. And people who were gay needed to pretend they were straight, although everybody knew. So, it was always very fascinating for me that social environment, where you think you have more freedom than you’d had since you were a little kid but at the same time you are always felt very much pressured to be something. And I always wanted to write something about that. Also, when I was there, I remember meeting a woman who lived far away and she was very tough. She had a husband who didn’t work very much, she was clearly the head of the family, which was socially weird because there the man should be the head of the family. Once she had a fight with a person from the city and she threatened this person with death. I found that very fascinating and I thought what could happen in that house, when no one was looking, with that woman who clearly has this weird relationship with her husband. So, I think this ultimately made me create Charcoal.

Where does your passion for dark humor come from?

I love it, it’s the way I see life, even in its most tragic moments. I am like that, so it’s natural for me to tell stories this way. I was raised with this kind of humor as well, so it’s something that is part of my life. The people who are around me are used to it.

Maeve is the heart of the film.  And I know she is also in your next movie.  How was it to develop her character with her?

I invited her to do the film a long time ago, and I did the same with Cesar Bordon, the Argentinean actor. I was lucky enough that Maeve accepted the invitation. Since it took a long time to raise the money, from time to time we spoke a lot about the film, and about all the changes that the film was undergoing. And then one month prior to the shooting, she came to the countryside, and we got acquainted there. We became very, very close, and we worked very well together.  She is such an intelligent actress. She has this sweet and sour element that I wanted the character to have. She can act it perfectly, but she is like that in person as well. Before we shot Charcoal, I had already invited her to do Toll, my other film.  Actually, she and Aline Marta, who plays the nurse, are in both films. 

I read that your second movie also involves an ingenious criminal way to make a living.  So why are you attracted to those kinds of stories? 

I am obsessed with Mafia movies. I am obsessed with this organization, how they think about these things, and how they work them out and make a living from them. It’s obvious that I have a fascination with this. I’m also interested in how people who seem to be normal – like this family in Charcoal – can be as sketchy as those people: I like exploring the parallel between the two.

How was it to work with Cesar Bordon in the film? How was it to have this intruder in this dysfunctional family life?

Well, Cesar has been a colleague for a long time because he did one of my short films, and he has also been in this project for a long time. He has created a lot of ideas together with me, and the way he came to this filming was very special.  He was shooting another film, so he was only able to come to the set very close to the day we filmed his scenes. When he came, we didn’t even rehearse with him and the other actors, but that was something that we thought could be good for him, not to get intimate with the other actors, because Maeve, Camila, even Jean, the boy who is from the city, had already been together for one month when Cesar came. And the idea was for him to speak Spanish usually but with a bit of Portuguese when he wanted to be understood a bit better. When the character couldn’t care less – because he was always patronizing that family – he would speak Spanish, and they wouldn’t understand. So, I think it’s interesting to have a foreigner who speaks Spanish, which is quite similar to Portuguese, so sometimes you understand and sometimes you don’t. But the context made them understand a lot. And even in the scenes that have more conflict, we did improvise. The same went for the huge fights – we felt that it was working out well because it was messy because of the language and everything.

Most films from Latin America in the Toronto Film Festival are directed by women.  Do you think we are living in a special moment in Latin America for women directors?

Right now we are still far away from having the same opportunities as male directors, but women are doing such great films that they are getting a lot of recognition. Because of their artistic qualities, women have a sensibility and a sensitivity that allows them to portray something in a more interior way and I feel very proud to be one of these Latin American women who are having their works screened at this important festival. 

How did your love for film start?

Since I was a little kid, I have been obsessed with films. I remember when I was in my family’s house in the countryside – everyone gathered together to watch films and the whole family was crowded together on the couch. I loved the stories more than anything: I was obsessed with stories. Not so much with images, but I am obsessed with people’s stories.  That’s how my passion for film came up. I remember very clearly watching Empire of the Sun: this is a film I watched when I was a kid with my family that inspired me to be a filmmaker. 

How difficult was it to get into the world of commercials as a woman? 

Yeah, I think it’s always harder for women to get into the world of commercials – it’s an industry that involves a lot of money and it’s always very male-oriented. So, it was difficult, but I have no intention of just being a commercial director, it’s not my goal at all. But in terms of films, I think women are getting more of the spotlight, which is good, but we are still far away from getting our stories into the world with the same level of opportunity that men have. It’s difficult to be a woman on set, and it’s difficult to be a director. It’s still very complicated to tell people what to do when you are a woman because people don’t like to receive instructions from women.