55DSL Presents "Beyond Mountains, More Mountains" - A Film by CANADA

Furthering last week’s 55DSL teaser to the Canada-directed “Beyond Mountains, More Mountains” film, we discuss with the creative collective about the happenings in the post-modern love story. In the film created in conjunction with VICE, the adventures of a young couple are perfectly captured as they first find each other, and later journey off in search of a missing boot. Venturing through Italy, the couple’s relationship mimics that of the Sicilian landscape, from extreme euphoria — reflected in the peaks of Mt. Stromboli — to shattering uncertainty which is depicted in Carrara, the location where Michelangelo sourced the stones required to make his sculptures. Much like the masterpieces carved from rough stone, an end product is achieved through this adventure, and rather than finding the missing boot, the couple find Italy — perhaps a subtle nod to the geographic shape that mimics that of a boot. Watch the video above to see the story unfold while at the same time, getting a preview at the ready-to-wear label’s 2012 fall/winter collection.

How did you guys originally get into filmmaking?
We came to this from different backgrounds and approaches. There’s not a specific way to get to do this job. Just plain love for moving images, truth and beauty, maybe.

How would you describe your style?
We leave the creation labels to you guys, we just do the thing the best way we know.

What were some of the challenges to capturing footage from the two-week trip in Italy?
We were a very small team with a tight schedule and a short budget, so everything was done with a lot of effort and an open mind to improvisation. The hardest was to travel and shoot at the same time. When you hear we were in Italy shooting for 10 days that’s quite wrong because most of the time we were just traveling. We were always in a fucking rush. We hardly even ate during the shooting. It was hard, but it was worth it.

55DSL has consistently professed their desire to “fuel creativity.” Entering into the project, did you have everything planned out strategically or did some of the creativity in the final film develop organically from being on the road?
We had a strategy to approach this, but we were also open to what we’d find, the final edit is a mix of things in that sense. Most of the ideas were established previously, but worked out adapting ourselves to the reality we found.

What was the inspiration behind the film?
The Italian culture, which we love.

Did you have a specific personal message behind the film?
Not really. There are not answers but maybe just questions.

How did the setting and location play into the development of the film?
The landscape, it’s actually another character. We approached this job as a piece about what we know about Italy, and trying to find if that idea of Italy we had still existed. The film’s structure was based on some locations that meant things to us, like Carrara, where Michelangelo took the stones to make his sculptures, or Stromboli, which means a lot to us in terms of our memory of Italy through cinema. So locations played a major role regarding the film.

What was the most difficult part of creating the film?
The shoot was certainly hard, as we had to work with a very light unit. It was very hard to have things in place and we had to be open to constant improvisation.

The style of the film’s color and setting weren’t shot to reflect a modern outlook, what are your thoughts on your current videomaking landscape?
There’s a lot of interesting things going on, that’s for sure. The film was shot in 16mm and that gives it a feeling that we love, but we were not looking for a retro feeling whatsoever.