'Variations on a Theme', la película sudafricana escrita en Microsoft Excel, llega al BFI London Film Festival
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Londres, 18 de octubre de 2026.- La película 'Variations on a Theme' (título original 'Variasies op 'n Tem'), de los escritores y directores Devon Delmar y Jason Jacobs, se proyectó en la 70ª edición del BFI London Film Festival (LFF). El filme ganó el Tiger Award en el International Film Festival Rotterdam de este año y es la entrada de Sudáfrica para los Oscars 2027, según el título de la nota de THR.
El personaje principal es Ouma Hettie, una pastora de cabras octogenaria en Kamiesberge, Sudáfrica, víctima de una estafa que promete reparación por el servicio no remunerado de su padre durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Delmar también editó la película y viajó a Londres para el festival, donde habló con THR.
El origen del proyecto está en Jacobs, según explicó Delmar: "It all starts with Jason being a very perceptive and observant person. He is from this village you see in the film. He was born there, went to school there, and then came back after living in Cape Town to live with his grandmother". Los dos cineastas, que previamente hicieron 'Carissa', habían rodado un cortometraje en ese pueblo años antes.
Delmar describió la materia prima de la que parte el filme: "Anyone would be able to observe the routine, the rhythm of this space. If you sit in a corner for long enough, you'll start to notice the routines and the rhythms that occur naturally. 'Here comes Mr. So and So with his goats when the sun is setting,' and so on. The routines are very ingrained into the space, and it's very beautiful to observe the musicality of the space within that rhythm".
Esa repetición conecta la estafa actual con la explotación histórica, según el director: "harmonized, to use a musical term again, with the awareness that the exploitation that's happening there in 2026 is merely history repeating itself. What's happening with villagers being scammed out of money is exactly what happened in the 1940s to [the protagonist's] father, who was being exploited by the government at the time, which is exactly what happened to the people who were colonized going back several generations". Y añadió: "So this idea of repetition became very important to our way of thinking, and then it was very natural to incorporate that into the structure of the film to show this repetition and the cycle of violence, and the daily routines of this woman".
De ahí surgió el método de escritura que Delmar destacó con humor: "I've joked that it's the only film ever, potentially, to be written on Microsoft Excel. Because we have five story days, so we has five columns and then 30 shots that repeat like clockwork". La estructura se organizó así en Excel, con cinco columnas para cinco días de historia y 30 planos que se repiten.
El filme se inspiró en el compositor estonio Arvo Pärt. "We were borrowing from an Estonian composer called Arvo Pärt. He's the big guy in Tallinn in terms of music, and he wrote music very formulaically. He came up with these almost formulas or equations for his music. He would work on a very small kernel of an idea or a seed, but once he unleashes that little seed, it manifests the most unbelievably beautiful and spiritual music", dijo Delmar. "We were interested in how we could contain the film into one core idea, and then almost press play on it and let it unfold. It's like an origami thing you do, and then a pop-up book appears".
El sitio web del BFI London Film Festival describió la película como "A poetic and distinctive visual style infuses playfulness into this insightful study of a woman's resilience and a community that exists close to the land".
