José María Cabral, a three-time Oscar hopeful for the Dominican Republic and the first Dominican filmmaker selected for Sundance, with 2017’s “Woodpeckers,” is set to deliver with the Tallinn competition entry “Sh*t Happens” his first dark comedy.
An Almodovaresque tale of social divide and powerplay in a Dominican household where – literally – shit happens, the film has been picked up by Madrid-based Latido Films ahead of its world premiere in competition at Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival.
The feature was produced by Rafael Elías Muños and Sárah Pérez Báez for leading Dominican player Lantica Studios.
An admirer of Cabral’s work – ever since his outlet handled “Hotel Coppelia” (2021) and long-time collaborator with Lantica Studios, Latido Films’ managing director Antonio Saura said, “This film is brilliant, the premise is original and provocative and performances are great; it is not only entertaining but also has a deep clever analysis of class and racism that makes you think after you’ve seen it.”
Indeed, in the film (formerly known as “Gut Feelings”), shit does happen for the family of three: the father Raúl (played by Spanish star Fele Martínez of Almodovar’s “Bad Education” and Netflix hit “Alpha Males”), his wife Véronica (Lizbeth Santos) and daughter Isabella (Leonoro Forero).
To cure his sickly daughter, the biotechnologist Raúl finds the cure… inside Lidia (Cindy Galán), her nanny. “When Lidia and the maid Dominga (Isabel Spencer) grasp the value of what they’ve been unknowingly providing, they decide to challenge the upstairs-downstairs dynamic in the household,” the synopsis runs.
Cabral spoke to Variety about the pic’s social commentary, well-calibrated absurd humor, Almodovar influence and… shit!
First of all, could you comment on the title in Spanish “Comemierda?”
“Comemierda” has a double meaning. Literally, ‘Come Mierda’ translates to “shit eater,” but in the Dominican Republic and much of Latin America, it’s commonly used to describe someone who is snobbish, or looks down on others, often associated with wealth and privilege. The expression has different meanings across cultures, rarely referring to its literal translation. By combining the two words into one, we’re playing with both meanings, creating a new interpretation that audiences will fully understand once they see the film!
What triggered your desire to dive for the first time into dark comedy, although the social critique, often depicted in your works, remains very much at the heart of this movie?
I don’t think I consciously decided, “Now I’m going to make a dark comedy.” I think the story demanded it. I’ve always been interested in social issues, class and the contradictions of the societies we live in, but I didn’t want to make a film that felt like heavy and charged. By using comedy, it gave me permission to go into uncomfortable places differently. You laugh first, and maybe a second later you ask yourself why you were laughing. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable and hopefully be provocative.
The miracle microbiotic cure that Raúl invents (we won’t reveal its secret ingredient) is a pretty wild and insane idea. Where did it come from?
It started with something much less wild: thinking about the relationship many Dominican and Latin American families have with the people who work inside their homes. A nanny can raise your children, know the most intimate details of your family, be emotionally indispensable, and yet there can still be this very clear social hierarchy separating her from everyone else. Then I started asking: what could happen that would completely reverse that relationship? What if suddenly the family needed something from the nanny that money couldn’t simply buy?
That question eventually led me to the very strange treatment at the centre of the film. I had been reading about different wellness trends and alternative medical treatments, and when I came across this particular therapy, everything clicked. The possibilities became increasingly absurd, and eventually very funny. But more importantly, it felt like the perfect metaphor for the power dynamics we wanted to explore and challenge.
What’s the core of the movie for you?
For me, it’s about class, dependency and power. At its core, the film explores the power dynamics and contradictions that arise from social inequality when people from different social classes live under the same roof.
We tend to think the person paying the salary has the power. But domestic relationships are much more complicated than that. What happens when the person you employ becomes the person you desperately need? I’ve been thinking about this subject for years because these relationships are so normalized in this part of the world that sometimes we stop seeing how strange some of them actually are.
And while this particular story takes place in the Dominican Republic, it’s actually universal. The circumstances and cultural details may vary, but these unequal power dynamics between families and their domestic workers exist everywhere, to different degrees.
I didn’t want to speak on behalf of domestic workers or make a movie with easy villains and victims. I wanted to look critically at a world I know, and use comedy and absurdity to make the audience uncomfortable enough to look at it differently.
How did you work with scriptwriters Miguel Yarull and Nathalie Peralta to find the right tone? What other movies or series did you have in mind?
We were aware of the potential pitfalls of such a premise, but we really wanted to push some tonal boundaries. All three of us agreed that modern writing and filmmaking should be about taking risks, therefore we dived in, taking all of that in consideration.
The biggest rule was that the characters could never know they were in a comedy.
This premise becomes increasingly ridiculous, but everyone has to take it completely seriously. That contrast is where much of the humor comes from. Miguel, Natalia and I spent a lot of time calibrating that.
There’s also something of the uncomfortable social observation of Ruben Östlund, Bong Joon Ho or Yorgos Lanthimos, and the freedom of filmmakers who allow situations to become absurd without explaining the joke.
Ultimately, though, we wanted the film to feel deeply rooted in the Caribbean, and particularly in the Dominican experience, while still exploring themes that are universal and resonate with audiences everywhere.
Can you say a few words about the impeccable ensemble adult casting?
The casting was essential because the film only works if everyone commits completely to this ridiculous situation. Fele Martínez has this incredible ability to be funny without playing comedy. Raúl does increasingly questionable things, but Fele keeps him human and driven by something very simple: he wants to help his daughter.
Lizbeth Santos brought to Verónica exactly the complexity I wanted. It would have been very easy to turn that character into a caricature of a wealthy controlling mother, but Lizbeth gives her vulnerability and humanity underneath all that control.
Cindy Galán and Isabel Spencer were equally important because the film depends on the relationships among the women inside the house and how those relationships begin to change as the hierarchy shifts.
The visual style “à la Almodóvar” is striking, with vibrant colors, composed framing and rich interiors that enhance the characterisation and extravagant storytelling. Could you comment on how it came about?
I’m happy you mention Almodóvar, because we definitely wanted composition to play an active role in the comedy, particularly like Almodóvar uses his camera placements and character movements.
The house is almost another character. At the beginning, everything feels controlled, clean and carefully composed, reflecting how this family wants to see itself. But as the relationships inside the house begin to shift, that carefully constructed order starts to feel increasingly strange.
It was also very important for us to shoot as much as possible in wider, ensemble compositions. Rather than cutting to a close-up for every line, we wanted the characters to move within the frame, and allow the audience to decide where to look and whom to follow. This is a film about a family, about a group of people constantly reacting to one another, so it felt natural to let those dynamics unfold within the same shot. We tried to be economical with our coverage, carefully choreographing the movement of both actors and camera, and relying on fewer cuts.
What were the biggest challenges during filming?
Definitely keeping a straight face sometimes. There were days when you would step outside the scene and realize, “We are spending an enormous amount of time and work very seriously discussing … shit.” Hahaha.
But actually, the precise challenge was to not treat it as a joke. The moment the actors wink at the audience, the movie collapses. Fele could be delivering an absolutely insane line and we would be discussing motivation and emotional truth as seriously as if we were making a Bergman film! That became part of the fun of making it: the more absurd the material, the more seriously we treated it.
