Interview curated by Luca Ciuti CCS

El Nido was filmed at the end of 2021, during the pandemic, and, after some setbacks, was released between 2022 and 2023. The feature debut of Mattia Temponi, it is an Italian-Argentine co-production starring Blu Yoshimi and Luciano Cáceres. It tells the story of a well-off young woman who is bitten, faints, and wakes up imprisoned in a bunker. This shelter, called El Nido, was created during a pandemic that has turned humans into a kind of murderous zombie. Violence in the film is more suggested than shown; it is not the central focus of the story. Rather, the heart of the narrative lies in the atmosphere within the shelter, which houses volunteers trying to monitor the progression of the disease in infected individuals. They attempt to treat them but must eliminate them if the illness takes over. The protagonist is meant to be killed, but the volunteer does not go through with it. This sets up a unique dynamic (without revealing the ending). It could be described as a psychological horror, if I’m not mistaken, right?

Exactly, that’s precisely what I would say: it’s a genre film with intriguing nuances. The director conducted the casting and considered other cinematographers. When we met, after I had read the script, I made an observation that he greatly appreciated: the film is only lightly a horror, but in reality, it is about domestic violence. That was my interpretation—not a straightforward horror, but a story that delves into a complex theme. The focus on the psychological violence between a man and a woman, confined in a closed environment, is what convinced me to join the project. Director Mattia Temponi wanted to tell an intense, psychologically deep story using the language of genre cinema—a story that, despite its specificity, could reflect many similar experiences.

Was this your first time working with Mattia Temponi?

Yes, he had only made short films before. He is a very cultured person. I was impressed by how he approached his first feature film.

How did you prepare for the film? Did he give you specific references? Where did you start?

He didn’t give me any film references, but we worked a lot on colours, some photography, psychological concepts, and we talked about painting. Pre-production was crucial, especially because the budget was small. It’s important to remember that this is an independent film.

The film is set almost entirely within this “nest.” I assume it’s an environment you created from scratch.

Exactly. The set design was handled by Giada Calabria, who is truly talented—a fantastic, friendly, and highly skilled woman. She was responsible for building the bunker. We constructed it at the Videa studios, in Teatro Uno, the largest stage, which we used entirely. The director wanted to create a real environment and make the two actors feel like they were actually inside a bunker. We shot for five weeks, from September to October, but as early as June, the director and I had started following the bunker’s construction step by step. We chose the textures, the colours, where to place the lights, and everything else. This allowed us to witness the set being built, which was very interesting, and we made adjustments along the way. While the bunker was being constructed, the director and I were also planning the shots. For example, before the walls were even painted, we filmed with a phone, using an app to map out long takes, deciding where to place the kitchen, the beds, etc. That’s how we designed the film. As we progressed, we realised that some things didn’t work. I suggested keeping the bunker fully enclosed but allowing for an open roof in case we needed overhead shots, as well as making some walls removable if necessary. So, together with Giada, we developed the structure in a very interesting way. The director wanted a specific visual language for the camera, and I agreed. Since the setting was confined and there were only two actors—except for the final scenes when the villains enter the bunker—we needed to create a sense of time passing. I proposed using different lighting transitions, with three distinct setups for morning, afternoon, and night. This added visual depth to the film and helped the audience perceive the progression of days.

These light transitions are often visible within the same shot.

Yes, I even did them live, transitioning from day to evening within the same shot. This simulated the passing of hours inside the bunker. The goal of showing real-time light changes required a fairly complex lighting setup. In the story, the shelter is self-sustaining, so there’s a fourth atmospheric light. Then, when someone tries to break in and the bunker goes into alert mode to preserve energy, a fifth lighting situation is created. None of this was originally in the script—it was the result of the work I did with the director, Giada, and my gaffer, Antonio D’Arienzo. The camera had to move within tight spaces because, although the bunker seems large, it actually isn’t. We designed a diegetic lighting system, incorporating slits in the walls and custom-built chandeliers by Giada. Every light source was planned according to the shots we had envisioned. This added a great deal of depth to the film.

That’s clear. I also noticed some interesting details, like a strip of light around the mirror on her bedside table, or similar elements. These aren’t conventional choices—it’s not just a simple lamp or bedside light added in, but something designed as part of the set, giving it a sci-fi feel. What kind of lighting did you use, and what system did you have to control all these lights?

My gaffer knows a LED wizard who often sets up massive lighting rigs both in and outside of film sets. He got in touch with him, and we purchased a large quantity of high-quality LEDs. We calculated the necessary length, power, and wiring, then ran tests. I dedicated a whole week to testing both the lights and the camera, as I shot in anamorphic—another key aspect. We placed these LEDs in the slits, measuring how much diffusion we needed, and created various LED strips along the walls and ceiling. Giada built three chandeliers for the three main areas. At that point, I wanted to keep the lighting consistent, so together with Tonino, we made portable LED fixtures for close-ups or for adjustments when needed. Every single light in the film was custom-made by us.

Were they all RGB LEDs?

No, I could change the colour temperature, ranging from 2800 to 6000 Kelvin.

Why is there an entire sequence at the end where El Nido is predominantly lit in red? The tone of the film suddenly becomes much more horror-like.

It’s a deliberate visual choice to stay within the horror genre. From my perspective, it was a very interesting approach.

It’s a beautiful choice, something I really liked—it adds variety and a sense of progression. I was wondering if you used different lights to achieve it.

That’s the only moment where we introduced other elements. Throughout the film, the lighting remained consistent with the director’s vision of gradually lowering the camera height as the story unfolded: very high at the beginning, very low by the end. I applied the same idea to the lighting. The film starts with overhead lighting and ends with lighting from below. This shift in atmosphere was achieved by moving the illumination from above to ground level. We added additional slits near the floor, lighting from outside with PAR lights, and I ran tests with red gels—which are tricky to handle, as red can be overwhelming. I always kept a faint, almost imperceptible diffused light using LEDs as a soft ambient source. By the end, the film becomes very dark. Managing the lighting was a real challenge.

This change in the direction of light as the story progresses, along with its use to mark the passage of time, is very interesting. In terms of visual language, it’s clear that there was a well-defined approach. How did you develop this language? The film is highly varied, featuring well-thought-out movements and carefully planned ideas. The scenes follow a precise progression—there is never a generic découpage.

That’s all thanks to Mattia Temponi, the director. He had very clear ideas about the découpage and the shot list, and we managed to follow it exactly. I simply created the conditions for him to achieve it. Working on the first shot of the film was a great experience—a long take in a confined space. We spent a lot of time rehearsing that camera movement and carried out two days of testing. Beyond the lighting preparation, as I love operating the camera myself, I spent the two months of pre-production working with the director on the storytelling and the cuts—deciding where to use long takes and where to opt for shot/reverse shot sequences. We planned the filming process with great precision, and all the lighting was controlled remotely, which was crucial. Managing the light was essential, as we moved the camera in many different ways, allowing it to circulate freely within a real bunker.

LIGHTING PLAN LEGEND 1 Ceiling Lights Day: LED / 4 strips of 3.63m – 1 strip of 4.5m – 4 strips of 3m (total LED 31.02m) 2 Low Lights Night: LED / At 80cm from floor – 7 strips of 1.5m – 1 strip of 80cm (Sara’s bathroom) (Total LED 11.3m) 3 Integrated Kitchen Light – worktop illuminated from within 4 Emergency Lights: 3 at floor level – height 15cm – Width 1.5m (illuminate from behind the set) floor projectors 5 Vertical Corridor Lights: LED / height 1.5m – width 8cm (total LED 9m) 6 Chandelier Lights: 3 Arri Skypanel 60 – Pantograph or lighting truss Notes: LED strips should be considered double 51.32m x2 = 102.64m. Consider reserve and small portable lights Walls marked in red are movable, Consider independent connection.

I also used all these LEDs in a project some time ago. The company we used managed them with a computer, with a sort of controller, like a mixing desk. They could create movements, light changes, intensity adjustments, etc. It’s a bit different from the cinematographic lights we usually use, but the principle is the same. You mentioned you had a remote control too?

My chief electrician was at the monitor outside the set, in the theatre. We were very comfortable. Each zone had a remote control, for example, the right side of the room, the upper zone and the lower zone had two different controls. There were two remote controls in the small rooms and four in the large room, plus one remote control for the ceiling. I always had two remote controls to manage the shots quickly, moving the light from one side to the other to achieve the desired backlight. It was very useful. To conclude the discussion about lighting, I set the camera to a colour temperature and didn’t touch it again. The set lights had colour temperatures, both cool and warm, not too far from the colour temperature chosen for the camera. This allowed me to switch from night to day live and without wasting time, which was essential because the film wasn’t easy to shoot and we had few days.

Which camera did you use and what was your selection based on?

I used an ARRI ALEXA Mini. With other cameras, we wouldn’t have been able to work in that space. Regarding lenses, I suggested anamorphic. Being an independent film with a limited budget and shot in a “studio flat”, I wanted to give more depth to the images. I tested some Zeiss and Cooke lenses, but they were too soft. In the end, I opted for Atlas Orion, an economical series, and did tests with the set design. I couldn’t try other anamorphic lenses, but the results with the Atlas Orion satisfied me. We went for a screening at Cinecittà to test the apertures more or less open, and the director was enthusiastic about it. I was also very satisfied, and we proceeded with this choice. I believe the anamorphic gave an extra touch to the visual monotony of the enclosed environment.

Translation to British English:

I agree. I noticed some horizontal flares and wanted to ask if they’re the result of the lens or if you used other filters or similar techniques.

I didn’t use filters. The Atlas lenses have that magnificent flare that somewhat resembles the Panavision one. If I understood correctly, someone from Panavision participated in the construction of Atlas Orion lenses. They aren’t Panavision, but the result, that blue flare, is copied from Panavision lenses. The front lens was designed with that flare concept in mind.

After the tests, which aperture did you choose?

When I used the 32mm, the widest lens, I shot very open to give even more depth. But never below 2.8, because opening to 2 made the image quite disturbing.

Did it create optical aberrations?

Yes, all the aberrations were accentuated. Not all lenses are identical in colorimetry, but they have different aberrations from lens to lens, and they’re clearly more noticeable in wide-angle lenses.

During production, did you have any preferred focal lengths?

I did have preferred focal lengths, yes, but it depended greatly on the scene and the effect we wanted to achieve. Working with anamorphic gave us a lot of creative freedom and added a unique quality to the image. In the end, we primarily used the 32mm and the 40mm, very close to each other. The 40mm was very beautiful, but also more flawed. Due to its optical difficulties, we would turn it from one side to the other, depending on the close-ups, whether shifted to the right or left. With those two lenses, we were very close to the actors. Then we used the 80mm for some more distant shots.

But did you use any in-camera filters or nothing?

I didn’t filter anything.

How did you plan the look? Did you develop a LUT with the colourist before shooting? You mentioned that you did many screen tests, trials and tests, but often these tests concerned the framing, spaces, and lenses. How did you approach the colourimetric and aesthetic rendering of the film? Did you work with the DIT? With the laboratory? How did it go?

When speaking with the director to establish the colours and our direction, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to achieve a film look, something very classic. We started with the idea of a Kodak, because we wanted fairly warm tones, with minimal grain. I did tests with the DIT who gave me a basic LUT that he had, and we made adjustments using live grade on set. It was very close to a Kodak 200. We added grain and modified the blacks slightly at the colourimetric level, cooling them slightly. I did this with the DIT. When I went into colour grading, I made few modifications because, having worked in the studio with live grade, I had already corrected many shots on set. The lighting was always consistent, I must say that the final colour work was straightforward.

Where did you do the colour correction?

At Cinecittà, with Ivan Tozzi. I’m very pleased with it.

So your workflow was to have a live grade on set with a preset LUT and CDL, and then, once you had the edit completed, in Conforming, you worked on the colour. There was nothing else.

Yes, very straightforward.

This film seems to allude to the pandemic situation. Shot during the Covid emergency, it must have been a particular experience being all together for 5 weeks in an enclosed environment.

You’ve touched on an important point. There’s also an anecdote: the Argentine actor, who is excellent and very likeable, arrived the day before we started filming. Due to Covid, he couldn’t leave Argentina. I don’t remember the exact details, but the producer had to insist with the embassy to obtain his work visa, because they wouldn’t let him leave. We only had certainty of his arrival the day before shooting. We were all wearing face masks, it was the second wave. We did Covid tests every day and in the film the actor wears a mask at the beginning too. This helped us build the atmosphere of the story. We were experiencing the same things as the characters, a pandemic that none of us had ever known before. There’s only one external shot in the whole film, a man chasing a girl; for the rest, the characters experience a very, very severe lockdown. Obviously there were some differences! In the film, the pandemic turns people into a sort of zombie.

“El nido,” I believe by choice, has quite a measured pace. It makes you feel trapped, in an oppressive atmosphere. You can feel it from the beginning, it works very well. Would you like to add something about the actors?

Blu Yoshimi learnt Spanish in six months; the film is performed in Spanish. And then they began rehearsals. In the film, she’s an Italian emigrant in an unspecified South American or Spanish location. So the character wasn’t a native speaker.

It’s a co-production with Argentina. Was the fact that the film was shot in Spanish due to production necessities or was it the director’s idea?

The Italian producer took the director to Ventana Sur, a film market in Buenos Aires, important for South America in its entirety but partly also for North America and Europe. Mattia Temponi presented the project and they connected with an Argentine production company that provided the actor, post-production and a music group of Astor Piazzolla. The film’s music is light, very light, but it’s performed by a group of outstanding Argentine tango musicians. The post-production in Argentina then fell through due to difficulties that I didn’t explore in depth, and we ended up at Cinecittà.

Given all the Covid issues, were you able to do screen tests with the actors?

When the actor arrived, we tested him too. We had seen Blu before. I had done tests with her, close-ups and certain wounds on the body. With him, they were very brief tests. We even simulated a shot/reverse shot to observe the result with the right lighting, the completed set design, the actors’ faces.

Stefano Paradiso on the set of El nidoHow did you plan the movement within this very particular set design?

We used a fully equipped Panther dolly, which has the capability to have a small crane. This allowed us to create very interesting movements. We also used an ARRI Trinity. There are shots that I couldn’t have done otherwise, like flying above the bed, travelling the entire corridor, moving rapidly from low to high. Some of these things perhaps aren’t noticeable, but the Trinity did its job. The camera doesn’t move a great deal but there’s always something in motion. Towards the end of the film, in the most tense moment of the story, we also shot some scenes with a handheld camera. We used a very long arm to do the only somewhat strange and out-of-context shot, where we follow the protagonist in a Top Shot, that is from above, as she moves through the bunker.

You had to remove the ceiling, I imagine.

Yes, there we removed the ceiling, which fortunately we had planned to be able to open. We only did it at the end because we had to dismantle the entire roof of the bunker. We also created double bathrooms, mirrored, to do shots where the actress looks at herself in the mirror. In short, there’s a lot of set design work.

You mentioned that the film was released in Argentina and was well-received. Where can one see it?

It hasn’t had much luck with distribution, even though it deserved it. It’s on Apple TV and other platforms.

Thank you, Stefano.

EL NIDO

• Set designer: Giada Calabria
• Make up artist: Ilaria Zamprioli
• 1st AD: Maurizio Simonetti
• 1st AC: Michele Cherchi Palmieri
• DIT: Flavio Lombardi
• Key grip: Alessandro Ramadori
• Gaffer Antonio D’Arienzo
• Colorist:: Ivan Tozzi