The Night Buffalo (El Buffalo de La Noche), from first-time director Jorge Hernandez Aldana, is undeniably one of the most anticipated films at the Festival – and for good reason. The movie was adapted from a novel by Guillermo Arriaga, who also co-wrote and produced the film, who is best known for his longtime collaboration with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Peros, 21 Grams), and for making waves with their film Babel at the Golden Globes this year, winning best picture and six other nominations including best screenplay. And as of Tuesday, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for best screenplay and best picture (along with five other noms).

The Night Buffalo tells the erotic tale of, Manuel, a young man whose lust for beautiful women leads him down a path of deception, betrayal, and disillusionment. Arriaga (who co-wrote and produced the film), director Aldana, and lead actor Diego Luna recently answered questions after a recent screening about the experience of making the film.

Q: How did you and Arriaga meet?

Aldana: I met Guillermo by chance at a short film fest in Caracas. I was living in Poland – going to film school there. I had my short film in the festival and Guillermo was in the jury – he watched it, he loved it, we met for literally two minutes and he said he wanted to work with met. Two months later, he sent me the book and then two months after that I started working in Mexico.

Q: Guillermo, why did you choose to work with Aldana, a first-time director?

Arriaga: I can tell you that Jorge Hernandez Aldana is a great director. I had only seen one short film of his, a 10-minute short film he made in Poland where he was studying. As a producer, I decided to give him the film and I trusted him all the way. I’m very happy with the results of this movie.

Q:How long was the process of making this movie?

Arriaga: This is a movie that’s been in my head for a very, very long time – I can tell you I had it in my head for about 17 years before writing it. And then I spent five years writing the novel, and almost four adapting it with Jorge.

Q: Jorge, this is your first feature, what was it like to work with the actors?

Aldana: We have a great actor called Diego Luna, who’s had an important career and was willing to take the risk to work with a first-time director and to do things he’d never done before. It’s a difficult movie and I think he did the best performance ever in his life.

Gabriel Gonzales’ character – the one who is the other male lead with Diego – he’s never acted. He found a flyer in his hometown calling for casting and he went and he started a process of six months that ended up with the first day of shooting and starting this movie with us.

Q: Diego, what was it like playing this character?

Luna: It was a very intense character to play, he’s an obsessive guy. He loves women but he doesn’t know how to love. It was very tough because I couldn’t sleep for weeks and I had to lose a lot of weight and I really suffered a lot, but now I’m really happy that I made this. It’s a very different character from anything I’ve ever done before. I’m so excited to share this with everyone here.

Q: Can you talk a bit about the state of Mexican cinema right now?

Arriaga: I think that the Mexican culture has a lot of contradictions, and these contradictions show in the films we are making. I think that for us the most wonderful special effect is a human story. I think that’s what makes Mexican cinema, right now, different from others. Luna: They don’t know that we struggle a lot to do films in Mexico. We’ve been doing really well, we’ve been doing really good films but we don’t do enough films for such a big country. It’s good that this is happening and I hope that this helps. The audience in Mexico is ready to see different stuff. Now, we as filmmakers have to make the films.

Q: How do you feel about the screening tonight?

Aldana: I couldn’t imagine a better place in the whole world to screen my movie. I feel honored, happy and excited. That’s my dream and we are here. Arriaga: It’s an honor to be here at Sundance, and opening in the World Competition. Right now I’m just going to enjoy this, it’s been a dream for us. Right now I feel like the employee of the month.