Direction and Creation: Leading Complexity Without Controlling It

 

If cinema is a complex system, then direction is the practice of navigating complexity. The director does not simply execute a plan; they sustain a process. Creation unfolds through uncertainty, negotiation, and continuous adjustment. To direct a film is not to eliminate chaos, but to work with it productively.

This process begins with intuition rather than certainty. Ideas emerge as hypotheses, not conclusions. Choices are tested, revised, sometimes abandoned. Creation advances through what can be called abductive thinking — a logic that explores possibilities instead of proving truths. The film gradually discovers itself through action.

Method, in this context, is not a rigid formula. It is a flexible framework that adapts to circumstances, constraints, and encounters. A good method does not close paths; it keeps them open long enough for meaning to emerge. Direction becomes less about control and more about attentiveness.

This attentiveness is relational. The director listens to performers, technicians, spaces, accidents, and even resistance. Unexpected solutions often arise from friction rather than planning. Errors become opportunities. Improvisation becomes structure. The creative process feeds on what was not foreseen.

Leadership within this system is not authoritarian, but catalytic. The director’s role is to activate energies, align intentions, and maintain coherence without suppressing individuality. This balance between guidance and openness is what allows the film to remain alive throughout production.

Creation, therefore, unfolds in cycles. Moments of expansion are followed by moments of selection. Freedom alternates with decision. The film oscillates between exploration and consolidation, gradually shaping its identity. Direction consists in recognizing when to open possibilities and when to close them.

This approach reframes failure as part of creation. Not every idea survives, but every attempt contributes to understanding the system. What matters is not avoiding risk, but learning from it. Cinema grows through experimentation, not repetition.

Seen this way, directing a film is an ethical and poetic practice. It requires sensitivity, patience, and trust in the process. Cinema does not obey commands; it responds to relationships. And it is precisely in this fragile balance between intention and emergence that the poetic force of cinema takes form.