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With the rise of the media culture surrounding the famous-for-being-famous—from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Kim Kardashian, we are fascinated with stories about people who can ‘skip the line’ in seemingly effortless attainment of stardom and popularity. However, it is an old but tried truth; there is always a price paid for cutting corners.
There is no such thing as something for nothing.
For local director and writer Rodrigo Moreno Fernandez, this message is the root of his newest short film, “Strings” where he explores his twist on the age-old deal with the devil.
The film centers on Penny (Jamie Hundt), a homeless drug addict, who wants more than anything to be a famous guitarist, but has no guitar or ability to make her desire a reality.
After a failed attempt to get on stage with a stolen guitar and no talent, Penny is ejected from the venue (with a cameo by Brownsville’s The Kraken Lounge) into the alley and meets, or is found, by Mephistopheles (played by Fish Fiorucci and voiced by Emma Perez), who offers magic guitar strings for souls.
Pain for choice; pity for desire; love for dreams. Penny must provide a person who invokes each feeling to sacrifice for her desire to become a reality. Penny eagerly accepts.
For Corpus Christi actress Jamie Hundt, playing Penny was an exploration in contrast to herself. Hundt describes herself as someone always reaching for ways to learn and hone her skills, but Penny is not.
“I wondered what is it like to feel that you should just get this because you want it,” she said.
In the chosen sacrifices: her drug dealer and mechanic Ramon (Oscar Valdez), homeless veteran Don Rafa (Jesus Treviño Mendoza) and former lover Rocio (Daniela Rena), the viewer explores the world that Fernandez has created for Penny.
“I am always interested in stories about desire and cutting corners and making it big instantly—and how that always fails,” Fernandez said. Growing up, Fernandez says that his mother always instilled in him that you must be willing to do the work.
Fernandez grew up in Matamoros, Mexico before coming to the United States in 2006.
As a child, he loved movies but felt like he never had the chance to explore his love for filmmaking. Growing up, he says his father always advised against it as a career.
“Growing up in Mexico, it was not practical,” Fernandez said.
But he had a powerful desire to tell stories, so he read books about filmmaking, saved up enough money to buy a camera, and taught himself how to use it.
After Fernandez married and had a child, the couple had some savings, and so he embarked on what would become his first award-winning feature film, “The Whole”(2017).
“Strings” is his third film to direct in addition to writing the script.
While Fernandez says the idea has been in his head for several years, he was inspired to create the film after re-reading an old favorite, “Pedro Páramo” by Juan Rulfo.
The feeling of a world of uncertainty between what is real or fiction, alive or dead, was something that interested him. He also was inspired by the popular films he grew up with, like Marcario (1960), directed by Roberto Gavaldón.
“With “Strings”, I wanted to make something more like the movies I used to see when I was a kid. In Mexico’s folklore, there is always a tale of a guy walking up a road who encounters the devil,” he said.
Filming started in late 2021 on location in Brownsville and Rio Hondo with a final cost of around $25,000.
Alongside cinematographer Marcel Rodriguez, Fernandez worked to create a film that would have American imagery, but at its heart would still be a Mexican film.
Fernandez and Rodriguez worked together to create a movie that feels very early 1970s punk through strategic light shaping, color and suggestive use of iconography of famous dead young musicians and music with a strategic departure from this theme for Rocio’s scenes as Penny’s romantic interest.
One of the film’s unique performances comes from local model and f10 modeling agency founder Fish Fiorucci, who plays the physical form of Mephistopheles. Emma Perez acts as its voice in a strategic move by Fernandez to create a character that continually contradicts itself.
For Fiorucci, this debut role required a deep understanding of the character and how Emma Perez developed its voice.
On-screen, Fiorucci is an almost serpentine creature, constantly in some form of movement and shadow in a way that unsettles but also compels you closer. While Fiorucci’s performance looks somewhat effortless, the actor shared that it came from months of study into the character and constructing a physical presence.
“The idea for me of just finding specific movements that I could continuously do throughout the recording of this was something I had to work on the most. I had to find some very recognizable movements that I could do over-and-over so that they could get the character in place,” they said.
The trailer for the film was released by Fernandez’s production company Pink Ape Media on its Facebook Page, Strings Short Film, on April 18 with a positive review from Mexican film producer Nicolás Celis who produced “Roma” (2019).
“I liked it, it’s fun, innovative, it hooks you for being so unique,” he said in a review displayed on the film’s website stringsshort.com.
“Strings” has been submitted to more than 10 film festivals, including the Austin Film Festival, where Fernandez is hopeful to be accepted.
While the film is not yet released, Fernandez plans to hold a local screening of his film at a future date once post-production finishes.
Watching the film, Fernandez and his cast and crew use each minute to the hilt to tell their unique spin on Faust. The cinematography is also a thing of beauty, with its dream-like sequences, staging, and meticulous use of color and shadow creating variety in the film’s small number of locations. With cinematography forming the most sizeable team in the production, each shot shows a tightly controlled and detailed filming style, where less is always more.
At just under 14 minutes, the film is an enjoyable dive into the contradictions of desire and love and the truth that, sometimes, you are the antagonist of your own story.
