On My Radar: Xavier Tera

What the most creative advertising idea you’ve seen recently?

I don’t watch a lot of advertising, but I love when it’s short and sweet and it still makes me feel something grand. Jonathan Glazer has done amazing stuff, and more recently Megaforce has created some strong short pieces.

What website(s) do you use most regularly?

Probably Google... for nothing and everything

What’s the most recent piece of tech that you’ve bought?

Just got a new iPhone. My phone was too old.

What product could you not live without?

My headphones. Music is a big part of my process. I need to find the right song for the feeling I’m looking for, before I start writing any scripts or treatment.

What’s the best film you’ve seen over the last year?

I just watched The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer, and it is probably the most interesting war film I’ve ever seen. How to portray violence without showing it at all is a challenge and he does it perfectly - chills from beginning to end.

What film do you think everyone should have seen?

A Brighter Summer Day, from Edward Yang, has always sat in my top three. A subtle coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a war and the advent of cinema. From the same era, but a completely different style, Cyclo, by Anh Hung Tran, is such a beautiful and sensual film.

What’s your preferred social media platform?

I don’t think I have a favourite one, but the one I use the most is Instagram. It created a big visual community, based on images and not text, which make sense with my work. But it also annoys me to be attacked by images continuously, so I try to not spend too much time on it.  

What’s your favourite TV show?

The Wire is probably one of the best TV shows ever written, and recently I’ve enjoyed Barry on HBO. The mise-en-scene and the dark humour makes it a great piece of television!

What’s your favourite podcast?

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is great! My parents are academics, more precisely in history, and I always loved sociology and anthropology through history. Trying to understand humans that way is interesting. I never studied film for that reason, I prefer concentrating on my understanding of the world first, and I think the rest followed. Dan Carlin synthesises really well big and complex parts of history with a very objective eye. 

What show/exhibition has most inspired you recently?

Pipilotti Rist Immersive show at the MOCA in LA, which I saw a year ago is still one of my favourite exhibitions ever. You really felt like you were in her head. I went twice.

If you could only listen to one music artist from now on, who would it be? 

Radiohead. I got In Rainbows for Christmas when I was 14 and, to this day, I’ve probably listen to the album almost every week or two. It still hits me as hard as the first listen.