Elda Broglio

1stAveMachine, Buenos Aires

What was your first professionally directed work and when was it?
The first piece I solo directed was a very small but beautiful breast cancer awareness animated spot that I wrote, directed and illustrated in 2021. This passion project gave me the final push and served as a starting point for my directing career. Later that year, I joined the talented 1stAveMachine Buenos Aires directors’ roster, and my first project was a series of commercials for Ericsson combining live action interviews with colorful animations.

How did you get into directing?
It was a natural evolution, I suppose. For several years, I made my way in prestigious animation studios; my passion and curiosity drove me to immerse myself in every phase of the process. I delved into storyboarding, illustration, design, editing, photography, and animation. I transitioned from being a designer to an art director, and, even though I wanted to direct, somehow I felt that was the ceiling in the industry for me. It wasn’t until Director Mercedes Lopez Flores – after sharing some projects together – asked me why I was not directing, that I realized I had all the tools necessary to do it. She was the one who recommended me, and thanks to Lautaro Brunatti and Tomi Dieguez, who saw my potential and gave me the opportunity, I am here today, directing and even co-writing scripts. I am very grateful and happy for this.

What is your most recent project?
I am writing and developing my first intellectual property (IP), which is a fully animated fictional series centered around women and sexuality with an unapologetic style and humor, addressing subjects in a way I have not seen before. It is not an easy process but I believe so much in it that I just keep on moving forward. The characters and the animation proofs make me smile every time. I have just finished the pilot script, and I am now working on the storyboard.

What is the best part of being a director?
The best part is witnessing when all the pieces come together, making the story and the feelings you wanted to convey visible. Everything suddenly falls into place, and the stars align. A baby is born. For me, that’s magical.

Additionally, I thrive in teamwork. I have always enjoyed collaborative work more than working alone. As a director, I have the opportunity to create a secure environment of creative collaboration. It is deeply gratifying to work with others, learning from the team and sharing our individual experiences and skills for the improvement of the project.

What is the worst part of being a director?
Like everything else in life, being a director has its two sides of the coin. The most challenging aspects are dealing with time constraints, budgets, and the stress that comes with the responsibility for a project and a team. Dealing with frustration or external expectations definitely requires developing a thick skin.

What is your current career focus: commercials and branded content, television, movies? Do you plan to specialize in a particular genre–comedy, drama, visual effects, etc.?
Right now, I’m very interested in branded content and developing IPs. I’m focused on directing pieces in mixed media and animation. I love the power of illustration and animation for telling stories, and it is the medium I feel most comfortable with. Also, I am writing my first animated short film, and I would like to start exploring with AR and immersive experiences.

Have you a mentor and if so, who is that person (or persons) and what has been the lesson learned from that mentoring which resonates with you?
I’ve had several mentors throughout my life, including my parents, who taught me that everything would fall into place as long as I kept moving forward.
I also had the privilege of studying drawing in Buenos Aires with Julian Gatto, an Argentinean designer and visual artist. From him, I learned to embrace my curiosity and dilettantism. That it’s okay not to confine myself to specialize just in one thing but to explore a wide range of subjects. Nursing my curiosity expanded my toolbox and proved invaluable when it came to directing.

Mercedes Lopez Flores, who showed me how committed a director should be and how important it is to support other female directors and new voices. Last but not least my friends Braian and Agustina, both directors and DPs, who taught me, even without knowing it, a lot about filmmaking, editing, and photography.

Who is your favorite director and why?
Naming one is, for me, just impossible. I admire Agnes Varda and Greta Gerwig for their cleverness and humor, Ulrike Ottinger for her unique and over the top visuals (her script-books are a work of art themselves). Kelly Reichardt, Céline Sciamma, and Lucrecia Martel for creating films that deeply moved and continue to resonate with me, and Paul Thomas Anderson for his distinct voice, which he manages to maintain without repetition, always crafting complex characters that show the density of human connections.

What is your favorite movie? Your favorite television/online program? Your favorite commercial or branded content?
My favorite movie is Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s perhaps the film I’ve seen the most times in my entire life. There are many reasons for this (and I still can’t believe he wrote it in his mid-20s), but from the moment I saw it at the age of 16, something was suddenly unveiled for me, and cinema became a very important part of my life.

I will be forever grateful to directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, who blew my mind when I was a teenager with their amazing music videos. My favorite series from this year is an impeccable dark comedy called Rain Dogs by Cash Carraway.

Tell us about your background (i.e., where did you grow up? Past jobs?)
I spent my teenage years between MTV music videos, the early stages of internet social interaction, and a very patriarchal culture that clashed with my ideas of femininity and life. So, as a teenager, I had an urge to express my voice. I studied music, fine arts, photography, and art history and finally graduated as a Graphic Designer from the University of Buenos Aires where I taught Illustration and design for several years.

A professor used to call me “The Renaissance girl” because I was always engaged in studying and doing a lot of different things. I am a curious person, and I wanted to try and learn everything that felt interesting. I still do.

While working in Buenos Aires’ best animation studios, I got to know illustration and animation, and I fell in love with them immediately. Since then, these have been my favorite tools to express and communicate my ideas and tell stories. In 2015, I went to NYC for the SVA illustration residency, and after I finished, I decided I wanted to start my freelance career and that I wanted to live abroad for a while.

Two years later I moved to Berlin, a vibrant multicultural city full of art and open to different voices, where I live and work now.

Contact

• 1stAveMachine Buenos Aires (1stAveBA), www.1stave.ba, EP: Lautaro Brunatti, lautaro@1stave.ba