Kouros Alaghband is a California-based filmmaker whose short film WIGLUM (15 ‘) is being screened at this year’s Cannes Festival as part of the Short Film Corner showcase. WIGLUM, a surreal parable on our jaded vision of what life may be told from the point of view an office worker on a coffee binge. Film was lensed by cinematographer Alex Vendler (THE WOMAN) and stars the actor Barry del Sherman (THERE WILL BE BLOOD, AMERICAN BEAUTY).

Besides being gifted and exhibiting a genuine passion for cinema Alaghband also speaks its grammar, as evidenced by his short film.

I caught up with the young director in between film screenings.`

ON PICKING THE TITLE: WIGLUM is the lingual embodiment of the mood of that character (played by Barry Del Sherman). It came intuitively.

ON CASTING DEL SHERMAN FOR THE MAIN ROLE: he hasn’t done a short film before, this was his first short. We auditioned fifty actors for the role. He sent us an audition tape from the set of Kelly Reichardt’s NIGHT MOVES.

ON THE GENESIS OF THE PROJECT: I was reading a lot of Samuel Beckett at the time. The contradictions inside Wiglum’s head is something that came out from that.

ON THE CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alex Vandler, who shot THE WOMAN, joined the crew and saw that we had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to do.

ON THE SHOOTING LOCATIONS: We shot in Oakland and Sonoma, where Wiglum’s house is located.

ON COMING TO CANNES: We met with some producers while here as I want to develop this story. We’re in talks to make WIGLUM into a feature-length film.

ON FINANCING HIS FEATURE-LENGTH FILM: we’re looking for private sources of investment and will possibly mount a new Kickstarter.

ON WIGLUM: We’re not seeing everything so clearly in the end, the film is about that blindness that we have as people. We think we’re seeing everything, and we get defeated because of it. You look at the space you inhabit differently after watching WIGLUM.