This week filmmaker Gala del Sol will premiere her ambitious film Rains Over Babel at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie has a vibrant aesthetic combining all the influences of her home, Colombia; this is felt in the fashion, the dancing, and the character designs of the film. Adding to this, the movie explores interesting themes involving the LGTBQ experience, prejudice, God or Gods, and the importance of love.
The Cosmic Circus was lucky enough to catch up with del Sol to discuss her latest film and how the ideas behind Rains Over Babel took shape. During the interview, we discussed a variety of subjects, including the weight and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic and the spiritual journey she went through in her youth, from wanting to be a nun to becoming a theater-loving adult, all thanks to the encouragement of family.
Here is our interview with Gala del Sol from the Sundance Film Festival 2025. Check it out via YouTube below, find us most places podcasts are available, or read on for a few highlights from our chat!
Interview with Gala del Sol, talking about Rains Over Babel
[Editor’s note: Portions of the transcript appearing below have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.]
You have made a pretty complex film for this budget, how did you go about getting this produced? What was the process like? Did you have setbacks?
Gala del Sol: Well, it was during the pandemic. I had just returned to Colombia after living in Los Angeles for six years. My parents thought the world was ending, basically, and so I returned home on the last flight that got into Colombia before the airport closed. So it was around like April 2020, and I was really going to shoot another feature, which was meant to be my first feature in 2020, and obviously, it got canceled because of the pandemic. And so I found myself locked in my room for 20 days without knowing what to do in my life, basically.
And I did theater since I was four years old, and I still love working with theater actors. And so I called up a friend who moved in the theater circles of the city, and he gathered a group of very talented young actors that I started working with through video calls. But we didn’t know that this was going to become a feature film, or we were not aiming to write a feature anything. We were just hanging out through video calls and trying to cope with the existential crisis of the pandemic, basically.
And so, they do theater, and then my specialty is directing actors for film. And they all wanted to start getting into film. So, we did a series of workshops. And then one of the activities was a character creation exercise where I asked them to create a character that they’ve always wanted to play, and to create a character that helped heal something within them.
And so that’s literally how it was born. Because what I usually say is that it’s a film that was made upside down because first I had the actors, then I had the characters, and the last thing was the story; because I didn’t get into the story until we started meeting in person and doing improv exercises. And then I saw themes, you know, that cross the characters, because naturally, the film is a reflection.
We were all between 20 and 25 at the moment, so like we were doing these things to help heal what we were going through, in a way. So the film is a natural reflection of what this group of 20-year-olds was living during the pandemic and so, obviously, for most of us, and personally, it was a first time that I truly wondered about death and illness and all of this, like the possibility of my loved ones getting sick, you know?
So naturally, the character that came up that, like crosses all the narrative lines, is La Flaca, who is Death personified. But it’s like a Latin American Death, you know? Like, I wonder how will the Death of my city look like? And my city is very much like gothical… Gothic, tropical, you know, in a way, it’s like Cali, Colombia.
Also, my city is known for its Salsa dancing, so, of course, the city of Cali wouldn’t be like boring or dull, or terrifying in a way, or dark as we surely imagine death, you know, like the death of The Seventh Seal. I like the way that I imagine her is, you know, like how it turned out to be, like this beautiful black woman with a giant Afro and yellow bell bottom pants that loves to Salsa dance, that doesn’t like to do her job, you know? She just loves, kind of like gambling in like, seedy bars with drunkards.
John Dotson: By the way, she’s my favorite.
Gala del Sol: Mine too! I was like, well, if I put years of life against death personified, what would she look like and that’s what came out. But, yeah, it’s my favorite character as well, definitely. And then what happened is, we were working for a whole year until I had the first draft ready. I think we started working April 2020, and I had the first draft by, I believe, December 2020-January 2021 and then a solid draft by April of next year, like 2021. I kept working on the script, and actually, fun fact, my parents asked me when I was finishing the script, where did I imagine the premiere, the world premiere to be at? And I said, Sundance.
John Dotson: Congratulations.
How did you go about finding and filming the locations in Rains Over Babel?
Gala del Sol: Everything was shot on location. Okay, there are literally no studios in my city. So everything was shot on location. We rented a 1920s Art Deco building; it was empty, and no one lived there except on one floor. So we rented the whole building, and every floor was kind of like our studio. So, we built a different setting on every floor. So that was really fun.
And then also the motel, the My Little Pony, is actually the real motel from my city. It’s called the Motel Kiss Me. And it’s a thematic motel. We did intervene a bit for the movie, but for example, if people go, and they want to spend the night there with their partner, they can go to the polar room, or they can go to the Egyptian room. And it does have this 20-foot statue of Venus de Milo, which is so fun. I love shooting there. It was wild, you know, like the polar bears, the staircase. There’s even a staircase that says galactic, you know? I was like (laughs) this is perfect.
John Dotson: Yeah, I was watching it going, she’s got some great places in here. And when I saw that statue, I was like, where is this? Where is this place? But, yeah, it’s very good.
You have a very colorful film. Very colorful, like I felt like there was a little Baz Luhrmann in there. Very vibrant and pretty. I’m curious about the costume production design. I’m assuming it’s Colombian influence.
Gala del Sol: Thank you so much. Yeah, um, we worked alongside Jaime Luna, my production designer, and Felipe Giraldo, my costume designer, to create we wanted to craft this world that reflected, kind of like the alternative Latin American youth, like the punk youth in Latin America. But also for it to be its own thing, kind of like play with that retro Futurism and create a vibe through the aesthetics that made you feel like you were right in the middle between reality and fantasy.
You know, like the characters, some of the characters themselves are natural, like they’re very raw and very human and very realistic; and then they mix with these mythical characters, you know, like a guardian angel that personified the devil. So we wanted to create that, you know, like we wanted to be, right of the middle, so Latin American-like. You know, like paying homage to Latin American magical realism, but also with a punk twist.
What do you hope the people feel, or walk away with when they see Rains Over Babel?
Gala del Sol: Well, I guess, to be 100% percent honest, I feel that everyone’s going to have their own interpretation, and there’s some people who are going to like it, and some people who are not based on their own life experiences, you know? But the goal of the film when we started writing it was to allow people to heal through the characters because ourselves, when we were writing it, we were trying to heal aspects of our lives and questions that we had. So we hope that if we were able to heal ourselves, someone who might watch the film in the future will be able to heal as well, you know? But then obviously, a big part of it, and I think it’s important to say it’s a message of respect and allowing people to be like…
John Dotson: Be themselves, right? Be themselves.
Gala del Sol: Exactly. Unapologetically, be themselves.
More Sundance Film Festival 2025 coverage coming soon
That’s it for my interview with Gala del Sol about her new film Rains Over Babel. Be on the lookout for more coverage of Sundance coming soon. Be sure to join our mailing list and follow us on social media @MyCosmicCircus or @TheCosmicCircus.com on Bluesky! You can check out our YouTube channel for a preview of what we’re excited about at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
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