The Neo-Tarkovskians – Moviemeter.nl, 9th Feb 2014

Nathalie’s five tantalizing answers about the directing and filming Dutch – De Nieuwe Regisseurs, Nov 2012

Binger Filmlab: ‘Ten days and then you will like it’ – Skrien, Jun-Jul 2007

The endangered Sound Magician – NRC.next, 7th Sept 2006

Nexus nr 48 article by Nathalie Alonso Casale: ‘I am a Crowd of Images’ 2005

Off-screen interview ‘Man looks at Woman Woman looks at Man’, 2000

NAC: The script was all written in images. It was the entire city, all the monuments of Rotterdam: the Willemsbrug, the Erasmusbrug and so on.

CvS: The atmosphere is not at all Dutch or Rotterdam-like. Even though it was entirely shot here.

NAC: I get to hear that a lot. People watch my short films and they say: "What a beautiful series of Russian shorts". It was here in Rotterdam that I shot the town hall in the mist and the frozen Maas river. But they think it is in Russia.

CvS: There is also the heron.

NAC: Right, the heron flying along while I bike. It was pure coincidence, even though coincidence does not exist. I was biking along the Kralingse forest lake for the third time in a row and the camera was following me from the car. Then suddenly the bird starts to fly along. We did not even use all of the material you know, he followed me for another two minutes. I have a good connection with herons. In all of my films sooner or later a heron appears.

The film was mute. And I had the sound made later on by Mister Figner and his son, the last remaining foley artists of Saint Petersburg. That shot where the water is pouring out of the man's belly... the the water at Lenfilm studios had been cut off for two weeks in a row. So Figner's son moved around with his hand inside a bowl of water, while Mister Figner made a hissing noise. That is how it sounds like a running water tap, with air coming through. I believe it is done well. Even knowing how it has been made I would not doubt its "reality" for a second. They made the sound for the entire film and that was an amazing thing to witness. I suppose the audience may expect to see a series of strangely beautiful and captivating images. If you think too much and try to understand it all, it might get pretty confusing. It's best to just allow yourself to experience it. That should not be that unpleasant.

 

Bus Passengers in a Noggin – NRC Handelsblad, 6th Nov 1996

Fourty Premieres to be expected at the Filmfestival – De Volkskrant, 19th Dec 1997

After Rudolf van den Berg (De avonden) its the turn of director Nathalie Alonso Casale to go after Reves novel Werther Nieland – De Filmkrant, Jan 1997

All of the Dutch movies from 1996 till 1999

Nathalie Alonso Casale Memory of the unknown: ‘Above all do not forget to live’ – de Filmkrant net-version nr 164, Feb 1996

IFFR interview, 1996

I feel that there is this regular group of people who always get subvention, no matter what they film, while it is hard for a fledgling filmmaker to interpose.
I was asked by TV to direct some stuff but I don't want to work with them. TV is not the same as cinema. When I asked the national Incentive Fund for support once, they said that I had to work with the TV and as I chose not to, the incentive funding was a no go as well.
A year ago, I was confronted with a quite terrible choice. TV asked me to direct a feature. But then they wanted me to choose between doing what they expected and changing essential aspects of the film, or not making anything at all. Well, I chose the latter, even if I was well aware of the risk of never making any other film. That was pretty hard. We are no longer talking about budget possibilities here, but about interventions inside the soul of a film. How something is going to look, whether you will shoot in that particular setting or not, the overall rhythm, all those necessary things for it to become a real film, are being decided by people who do not necessarily know that much about cinema. They maybe accidentally enrolled into these TV companies and have been working there for a couple of years. In any case you can't expect them to know what cinema is or to give you the necessary space as a director. So I gave up and chose not to make the film.
In the end I was terribly lucky, because the Dutch Film fund offered their support. I was able to make the film after all. Amazing. I was convinced that as a fledgling filmmaker it would be the end of me. That is what usually happens when you are having trouble with TV. You can be sure that from then on it's going to be a no go. You also can't make that movie you had in mind while suddenly being all by yourself.

It is quite frustrating that a lot of small experimental films are being made with huge budgets and bigger features are entrusted only to well known directors with a lot of experience. That way, there is not much space left for emerging talents, even though I'm sure that there are quite a few of them to be found in the Netherlands.

‘Advocaat van de Hanen is a long vodka ad’ – de Volkskrant, 29th Jan 1996

‘Nathalie Alonso Casale captured a Bus Trip as an endless Moment’ – de Volkskrant, 25th Jan 1996

TVO interview ‘Memory of the Unknown’, 1995

I love working in Spain. My father is Spanish and I was raised with his language and with the Spain of twenty years ago because that is when he left his country. I have always been extremely interested in the History of that country, more than in its present state. I'm interested in the contrast between the present state and what it used to be. I like to choose a region of Spain and then see what I manage to extract from it while collaborating with the locals and their traditions, or anti-traditions...  On this particular occasion we will shoot in the provinces of Cataluña and Castilla y Léon.

I shot my first movie at the age of fourteen, on video and then I entered film school of Amsterdam when I was seventeen. There I made three or four shorts on 16 mm.
I love movies and I have always been very much attracted by the image and the sound of things. In movies, these two things happen to congregate. I eventually completed the film school with my short film Memorias sin Batallas. After that, I worked as an actor and as an editor for Argentinian and Dutch directors. And for the past two years I have been preparing a movie in Russia. It is complex, because we work with a very international crew. Quit similar to the situation we are facing right now, actually. Right now we also work with Russians, Armenians, Austrians, Catalans, Dutch, English and Germans. It's not easy to manage such a diverse group of people, but at the same time that is also what makes it so interesting.

The subject of the present film is in fact the questioning of myself and the spectator about where the truth is. Truth is something that can be manipulated in many ways. For example in a global way, through History. When after a period of fifty years things have been hidden and might just as well never have happened. Then they state that there have never been concentration camps during World War 2, and as the witnesses have died (or just because nobody wants to talk about it), in the end people really believe this.
Truth can also be manipulated on a more personal level, for example when we present ourselves to the outside world the way we want to appear. We leave  out from our curriculum vitae the experiences we don't like and we don't want to remember.
This film is supposed to confront the characters with their own, possibly ugly, past.
There is this international group of people, who travel with a bus from the Netherlands to the sunny beaches of Spain. But during the night everything burns down and when they wake up next day, all the passengers can see through the window, is smoke and soot. They don't know where they are and then they find this little village where an old lady has been waiting for years for her husband to come home. She believes one of the passengers of that bus is her husband and came back to her. A village festival is being held and little by little the passenger whom she believes to be her husband actually starts believing this too. When in the end the passengers continue their trip we see them being surrounded by black fields while they believe they reached the sunny beaches.

At present we are searching various extras for a scene in which people are running from a fire, possibly a war. We need old people and women with children, to help us shoot this scene an hour before sunset.

‘Mild vision on Armenian village life, wisps of damp mist and dancing dust particles’ NRC Handelsblad, 29th sept 1993