Sebastian Silva

Humor isn’t always something that translates well across cultures. But don’t tell that to local gay filmmaker Sebastian Silva, whose dark comedy The Maid (TheMaidMovie.com)—opening October 16 at the Angelika— turned heads when it premiered at Sundance last spring, winning the Chilean-born director the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize. “Shame, for me, is a good ingredient for comedy,” the East Village resident tells us on a sunny bench in Tompkins Square Park. “Larry David makes me laugh in the way he portrays what he thinks is funny—it’s really natural.”
 
Silva’s Spanish-language film follows a devoted live-in maid who begins to psychologically torture those whom she perceives as her replacements. “It feels very documentary-like [because] it’s based on real experiences,” says the out director, who sees himself more as a painter and an illustrator than as a filmmaker. However, despite Silva’s newfound notoriety, he isn’t slowing down, and is in fact working on multiple art and film projects at once, including his reverse perspective on coming out, Second Child. “Most of my gay friends say they were born gay,” he explains. “My idea for the film is [what if] all kids were born out of the closet?”
 
But most of all, Silva would love to finally make a film in English. “The biggest reward for a filmmaker is how many eyes see it,” he admits. “If you make a film in English, lots more people are going to be able to watch it.” —Benjamin Solomon