Q: Tell me about your short film, FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING, and how you came across actors Victor Rasuk and Judy Marte, who also star in your first feature RAISING VICTOR VARGAS.

SOLLETT: Eva Vives, who produced, cast and edited FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING found Victor and Judy the way she found the majority of the cast for that film by putting up fliers in our Lower East Side neighbourhood, attending school talent shows and organizing open calls.

Q: Was your short film originally written for a Latino neighbourhood and Latino characters?

SOLLETT: No, I wrote it for the neighbourhood in which I grew up, Bensonhurst in Brooklyn - a white, predominantly Italian and Jewish neighbourhood. The script was autobiographical, and we tried to cast the film with the type of kid you would find in that part of New York. We tried casting child actors in the traditional ways but that didn’t get us anywhere. The kids all seemed to be either mimicking the kind of "acting" they see on television or weren’t actually interested in acting at all; their parents were. So, Eva began posting up fliers in our neighbourhood inviting people to open casting calls. By virtue of where we put up those fliers -- around our apartment in the East Village of Manhattan -- the majority of the kids that showed up were Latino. When Victor, Judy and the others came in to audition we were truly amazed. They were fantastic and obviously belonged on film. So, I reset the film on the Lower East Side.

Q: How did you further transform this autobiographical story of yours from the "Five Feet High and Rising" short to the feature RAISING VICTOR VARGAS? Many elements of the feature - the depiction of Victor’s family life and his grandmother, for example - could not have been inspired by your own life.

SOLLETT: FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING was a translation of my biographical experience to the world of the kids we cast. RAISING VICTOR VARGAS is a direct reflection of their experiences. During the two years between the short and the feature, we spent time with the kids, befriending them and observing them, communicating with them about what was going on with their lives, and, consequently, developing the script. They have become an incredibly important part of our lives and I greatly value my friendships with them.

Q: How did you specifically mine their experiences and transform them into drama?

SOLLETT: I tried to build the characters in the movie around some real-life aspect of who these people really are. For example, a couple of years ago, around the time we made the short film, there was a side of Victor that was very cocky, so I built that into his film character. But there is another side to Victor - that of someone who is sensitive and loyal to his family - and it was that complexity that allowed me to build the character we see in the film. And in terms of developing the story with the kids, it was a matter of getting their points-of-view on certain situations, talking to them about their friends, and getting a sense of the climate in which they lived. Everything is grounded in some way by the relationship of the actors to some aspect of who they actually are - or were, at some point.

Q: Many directors work with non-professional actors, but often just in short scenes, or they just use them as secondary characters. Here you have constructed a movie that is very much about characters who undergo subtle changes, yet you’ve made it with people who are very new to the craft of screen acting - people who don’t even see themselves as actors! How did you work with them both to maintain their own authenticity but also to get the performances you needed from them?

SOLLETT: I started by deciding not to give them a script. Acting in RAISING VICTOR VARGAS was not an interpretative endeavour for these actors. They didn’t read a piece of material and then deliver a performance that embodies their take on a scene. Instead, I continually asked them, how would you react in a particular situation? This put them in a vulnerable position in a way. Not knowing what kind of scenario they would find themselves in when they got to the set in the morning can be very scary. But it also demands that the cast exists in the present while acting in a scene. If an actor looks surprised, it’s because he was surprised when we were shooting. They’re not pulling faces on cue. The most important thing was that they all had the imaginative capability to detach from reality and resign themselves to the situation before them in a scene. Having accomplished that, they were free to act and interact as they would in real life.

Q: You say that you didn’t give the script to the actors, but there was a real screenplay, with dialogue and action, for RAISING VICTOR VARGAS. In fact, the script was rigorously developed at both the Sundance Institute and the Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation program. Obviously, however, it didn’t function the way screenplays normally function during the film making process. What purpose did the script serve?

SOLLETT: The script was really there for the crew and me. It was a way to get the movie going and to get people excited about it. And, it provided a narrative guide and basis from which to start making the film. But the strength of these actors was their ability to bring their own experiences to the scenes, and I felt that if I gave them a document, I would have crushed that. I didn’t want them to execute my script; I wanted them to create their own. So, I rehearsed with them for one month before we filmed. During this period I guided them through every scene of the film using a process of improvisation. And, in their moment-to-moment decisions, the actors would reveal pieces of themselves that they wouldn’t have if they were reading off a script. These improvisations and this guided rehearsal period provided a wealth of material and moments that the actors could draw upon during shooting. From these moments, I would make script revisions and, if an actor struggled during the shooting, I could remind him of something he did during the rehearsal. For example, the way that Victor explains to Nino that he needs to lick his lips to get the attention of the opposite sex was part of an improvisation. They knew that the scene was about one trying to teach the other about girls, but the way that they accomplished that was their job. They had to find it. My script was really just part road map, part safety net.

Q: What did you look for when casting these actors? How would you know if someone was right for a part?

SOLLETT: The most important thing was that potential cast members could detach themselves from reality and exist within a fictional situation. The second most important thing was that they be dedicated and would show up! Those were the questions I had to answer in rehearsals. But it’s pretty simple - if you put someone in an improvisatory situation and they run out of material in ten seconds, you know they are not going to bring an awful lot to the film. But the kids who wound up in the movie could take a situation and stretch it out for fifteen minutes.

Q: Audiences of this movie who don’t know New York may be surprised at your portrait of the neighbourhood. With the chicken run and the secluded gardens that the characters meet in, the Lower East Side seems removed from the hustle and bustle associated with New York City.

SOLLETT: It’s just a fantastic neighbourhood, and it hasn’t been on film this way before. Matt Damon may walk through the Lower East Side in a movie, but you don’t see how people who actually live here interact within their environment. It’s one neighbourhood where people have managed to bring an awful lot of what life in their home countries was like, whether it’s something like keeping chickens or attending social clubs and soccer matches...Unfortunately, the neighbourhood is changing. Rent is increasing, people are being priced out - some of the locations we shot on are already gone! The location for the chicken scene has been paved over and turned into a parking lot. They guy who lived in that place slept in the little shed you can see in the film. He fixed old bicycles and sold them for a living, but that’s over now. One of the most important things about this film for me is that it creates a record of a special place at the end of a very special time.