Amid stacks of money and liquor bottles, Tony Montana and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán sit collectively inside a portray. One fictional and the opposite actual, the drug lords look nonchalant.
“That’s us!” says filmmaker Raúl “RJ” Sanchez with joyful mischief after I level out the centerpiece on the primary wall of their workplace in Downtown L.A. Sanchez’s accomplice in creative crime, Pasqual Gutiérrez, tells me they obtained the body close by at Santee Alley.
Positioned on a road nook within the Trend District, their area, which doubles as a person cave, displays their artistic influences, their ties to L.A. and their offbeat humorousness. Earlier than they moved in 2021, the place was a shoe retailer referred to as Latino Trend — the storefront signal stays.
Stroll in and also you’ll discover the underside half of a model flaunting male genitalia (“That was our stunt penis from [the short film] ‘Shut Up and Fish,’” says Sanchez laughing). There’s additionally a cumbersome steel construction that resembles a torture gadget, a teal inexperienced sofa (which they obtained for underneath $100), pictures books and keepsakes on cabinets that when displayed footwear. It’s a mini museum to their historical past thus far. Or, as Sanchez calls it, it’s “a living brain.”
Recognized artistically as Cliqua, the in-demand duo has already labored with a few of the music trade’s greatest names. Their resume contains directing movies for Dangerous Bunny (“La Difícil”), the Weeknd (“Save Your Tears”), J Balvin (“Reggaeton”) and Rosalía (“Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi”).
On display, Gutiérrez and Sanchez play variations of themselves: music video administrators in an trade that takes itself too critically. Whereas anticipating his first youngster with accomplice Christine Yuan, additionally a filmmaker, Gutiérrez discovered himself caught between his dedication to his partnership with Sanchez and his duty as a soon-to-be father. The Gutiérrez in “Serious People” hires a doppelganger to exchange him in his skilled commitments.
“There were some things coming our way where if both Raúl and I weren’t available to do it, they would go away. Clients would be uninterested if it wasn’t the Cliqua brand,” Gutiérrez says. “That was deeply frustrating and haunting for me because it was like, ‘Raúl isn’t choosing to have a baby, but I am. And this is affecting us, because he can’t do everything on his own because people aren’t letting him do it.’”
Although each Gutiérrez and Sanchez match underneath the generic id umbrella of “Mexican American,” every of them knowingly embodies a definite “flavor of Mexican.”
“I definitely identify with Chicano a lot,” says Gutiérrez. “I am second-generation and growing up I knew about lowriders and East L.A. barrio s—.” Raised between East Los Angeles and Pomona, Gutiérrez believes his Latino id is exclusive to L.A.
Sanchez, however, is the kid of immigrants from Mexico Metropolis and Jalisco. As a first-generation child within the South Bay metropolis of Gardena, his worldview was formed otherwise.
“We’ve always had that split. You represent more what it is to be in this country for more generations, and I feel like I’m new. The culture I associate with more is Mexican but more rancho s—,” Sanchez explains. A vivid reminiscence for Sanchez is his grandfather slaughtering a pig and driving round South Central on his pickup truck promoting it. “The Chicano heritage wasn’t a thing for me, it was more the immigrant experience,” he says.
“I grew up speaking more Spanglish,” says Gutiérrez. “But Spanish was Raúl’s first language.”
Their creative alliance is an amalgamation of what every brings to their friendship. Sanchez obtained Gutiérrez into Los Tigres del Norte and corridos, whereas Gutiérrez launched him to Lil Rob’s “Summer Nights” and the 1993 film “Blood In Blood Out,” which Gutiérrez considers a foundational cultural artifact in his life.
“Both of us have crossed towards the other’s side a little more,” says Sanchez. The 2 met via their then-girlfriends (now their wives and moms of their respective kids) virtually a decade in the past. At that time they every have been already directing music movies.
“We really bonded over that shared experience of, ‘What’s it like trying to navigate this industry as a Latino?’” provides Sanchez.
For Gutiérrez, one in all 5 siblings, his curiosity in filmmaking is linked to one in all his older brothers who had a little bit of a double life. “He was a gang member, but he was also a low-key cinephile,” he says. “He used to work in art house theaters, and we used to just watch weird stuff for a little kid to watch. A lot of ‘Blood In Blood Out,’ but also stuff like ‘Amélie.’”
Together with his father’s help, Gutiérrez attended Chapman College to check movie manufacturing.
“My pops said, ‘Growing up no one ever asked me what I wanted to do. That wasn’t even an option for me,’” Gutiérrez recollects. “‘And the fact that you got accepted to this school, we’ll just find a way. We’ll take all the loans out. Go try and see how it is.’ My father empowered me to follow my dreams for sure.”
Sanchez had a much less linear path into filmmaking. He graduated from UC Berkley with a level in historic historical past with the intent of going to legislation faculty. As a substitute, he returned to L.A. to attempt his hand at movie, an curiosity that advanced from his enjoyment of video video games rising up and movie research programs in faculty.
However how does one break into making music movies?
“In the beginning, a lot of times you’re shooting videos for your friends,” says Gutiérrez. “If you are creative in L.A., you know other creatives and one of them is a music artist or one of them is a rapper or in a rock band. And you start that way.”
“My sister was dating a rapper, so I was shooting his videos,” provides Sanchez.
Nonetheless, they each aspired to make characteristic movies.
“Even when we were at the beginnings of Cliqua, the language we have always used to even talk about music videos has always been film-centric,” says Sanchez. “Those are the influences. We speak in movies.”
After assembly and hanging out for some time, Gutiérrez and Sanchez have been desperate to work collectively. That chance got here with the video for J Balvin’s “Reggaeton,” which they needed to signal on to do with out with the ability to do a lot preparation. Within the aftermath of that optimistic expertise, they determined to create Cliqua, which initially additionally included music artist Milkman (MLKMN).
The title comes from the ebook “Varrio” by Gusmano Cesaretti, an Italian photographer who documented East L.A. tradition within the Nineteen Seventies, together with the Klique Automotive Membership.
The video for J Balvin kick-started their careers. They quickly discovered themselves a distinct segment as reggaeton grew to become globally well-liked and a brand new crop of artists revitalized its aesthetic. However at the same time as they ultimately crossed over to different corners of the trade and landed constant work with the Weeknd, they have been conscious of the bounds to their artistic freedom.
“Music videos are funny because they’re obviously not truly our work either; we’re at the service of another artist,” explains Sanchez. “We’re executing someone else’s vision even if the brief is generally open. It’s not truly us, but we’re in there.”
“Music videos are hard, man,” provides Gutiérrez. “The difficult thing about music videos that’s different from feature filmmaking is that it’s so fast. You get a concept, and you maybe have two days to come up with an idea and write a treatment for it. Then from there, you have a shoot date, but the shoot date can get pushed and it can get pulled depending on the artist.”
In 2023, Gutiérrez and Sanchez launched their first narrative quick movie, “Shut Up and Fish,” about 4 “Edgars” (younger Latino males with bowl cuts) on a ship. Their impetus was to subvert the expectations of tales involving characters from their group.
“We wanted to make it feel like an [Ingmar] Bergman film, because we’d never seen that, especially with these kids,” says Gutiérrez. One of many actors they solid within the quick, Miguel Huerta, performs Gutiérrez’s chaotic doppelganger in “Serious People.”
For “Serious People,” Gutiérrez and Mullinkosson invoked arthouse references, such because the vignettes within the movies of Swedish auteur Roy Andersson, or the surveillance really feel of Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.” Gutiérrez makes some extent of mentioning these inspirations in Q&As and interviews in hopes of igniting the curiosity of these watching “Serious People.”
“Making [that culture] accessible has always been a goal, whether that’s conscious or unconscious,” says Gutiérrez.
It was an anxiety-induced dream that first impressed Gutiérrez to jot down “Serious People” to satirize the leisure trade. Within the dream, Gutiérrez went on Craigslist to rent a look-alike with a purpose to stability his private {and professional} commitments. As quickly as he awakened, he instructed his dream intimately to Yuan, who steered he flip it into a movie.
Gutiérrez introduced Mullinkosson on board given his background in documentary, and since he thought co-directing it with Sanchez may make it too meta for consolation.
“This industry is so competitive and so demanding that every single director has a fear that if you say no to a single project, you’re never going to get hit up again,” says Mullinkosson on Zoom from Chengdu, China, the place he lives. “At the end of the day, we’re just making movies — like, this isn’t that serious.”
Sanchez hesitated at first in regards to the thought of being on digital camera, however his loyalty to Gutiérrez proved stronger than the reservations. “I actually got a kick out of seeing myself on screen,” Sanchez says. “When you see yourself projected that big, you start to understand what you feel like to other people in the world, which was a very interesting out-of-body experience.”
“Vulnerabilities are what make movies special, especially this one because Pasqual, Raúl and Christine opened their real lives to being on camera, and it’s very personal,” says Mullinkosson. “When you can be as brave as them to share your real life, something beautiful happens.”
Gutiérrez and Sanchez, who additionally grew to become a father quickly after our interview, are at the moment creating a brand new characteristic movie, “Golden Boy,” which they describe as a “Stand by Me”-type of story about 4 Edgars. One in every of them thinks former boxer Oscar De La Hoya is his long-lost father. They go on a journey throughout California to confront De La Hoya.
“Music is where we started, but the goal has always been to do long-form, to do features,” says Gutiérrez. “And now with ‘Serious People,’ one is out there.”
