THE INTERVIEW
Mars, 2024
NAHYR GALAZ RUIZ
DIRECTOR OF PLATONIC LOVE
BEST ROMANCE
Nahyr, tell us a bit more about yourself. Where does your desire to be a director come from?
I think the desire to direct has always been somewhere within me before I knew what directing was. When I was a little girl I loved reenacting scenes from telenovelas that I watched with my mom and grandmother or from Disney movies. But it wasn’t a solo affair. I often enlisted my friends at school or the children at my grandmother’s work to be part of my mini-productions and would direct them.
As I grew older, I would often choreograph dances for the school talent show and then at university and it sort of further exercised that leadership and directing muscle. However, without realizing it, over time I continued to develop a directing style that came from a highly collaborative approach.

What is your background?
I was born in Querétaro, Mexico and brought to the United States when I was about five years old. I grew up in San Diego and have lived in California my entire life. I began dancing when I was ten years old and I majored in Dance with an emphasis in choreography in college. My loves have always been dance, writing, film, and acting respectively and they’ve always found a way to intersect with each other in my academic and professional pursuits. In 2022 I earned my Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting & Directing.

What were your reference for Platonic Love?

Nahyr, you won Best Romance at the RED Movie Awards, what does that mean to you?

There are many romance films, how did you find your originality?
How has your dual culture enriched your cinema?
You’re hitting me with the loaded questions! Ha ha. I think really it’s a matter of the perspectives and the voices I was exposed to. I grew up consuming many great movies from the golden age of Mexican cinema with actors like Pedro Infante, Cantinflas, Maria Félix, Dolores del Rio, and Jorge Negrete and enjoying the golden age of Mexican Telenovelas with my family. Simultaneously, I was growing up in San Diego, California and a typical 90’s kid who watched Animaniacs, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty & The Beast and the like. I lived i two cultures and my writing often reflects this perspective. The feature version of Platonic Love really highlights that duality. I don’t make my characters’ Latinidad a label that hits you over the head in a stereotypical way; I just write characters who happen to speak Spanish and who’s heritage is woven into the fabric of their everyday life.

Tell us about the production methods of your film, is it self-produced or produced? What were the constraints?
Do you have an anecdote to share with us in particular?
What is your next project?
I have a couple of scripts in development at the moment and I’m currently producing another short film, but my main focus right now is to get our feature version of this financed and ready to film.
