Yeah.
Three or four years ago.
Why were you in Miami for the FTX Champions Chess Tour?
And for those who have watched, I guess, the *Untold* documentary now on Netflix, they will know that this is one of the big battles between Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann.
And you were there for it.
So, what were you doing there?
Tell me.
You know what’s so funny?
I was talking to my auntie about this recently because I actually went with her.
And I was asking, “Why did we even go to that?”
Because the original idea, I think, was that Carla was supposed to have a movie showing, but it never happened.
But I think that’s why we originally went.
I used to work for Chess24.
I used to do social media with them back when I was around 15, around the same time I started the documentary.
That’s when I worked for Chess24.
So, when we showed up to the event, they remembered me.
And we got media passes.
Oh, yeah.
So, we were there every single day.
It was such a surreal thing.
I remember I was still talking about the documentary at the time where I was at.
So, we were talking to people about it, getting people hyped.
You know, six years later, here it’s showing.
Which is actually also crazy.
Sorry, jumping off it.
There were some people that I met at that Champions Chess Tour.
I got a message from them yesterday saying that they’re going to be there tomorrow.
Oh, I love that.
And I was like, “I haven’t talked to you in how many years, and you’re going to be there?”
And they’re like, “Yeah, I remember you talking about it slightly at the chess tour, and now you’re here again, and you made a movie about chess.”
And so I was like, “That’s kind of crazy.”
But yeah, I was there.
I saw the whole Hans Niemann ordering food every day.
And what else happened?
Like, so much happened that entire week.
Yeah.
And then it’s kind of funny because we had also gotten invited to go to St. Louis the next week.
So, we were at the next tournament where the serious one went down.
We left the day before it happened.
Oh, no way.
So, you were at both of them.
That’s hilarious.
And so, we were there behind the scenes hanging out with everybody and talking to everybody.
I love that place, actually.
I used to work the Sinquefield Cup.
I worked for Rex, and I was literally at the first three Sinquefield Cups.
I was there working.
Yeah.
So, that was back in 2012 or something.
A long time ago.
2013, I think it was.
It was a long time ago.
And actually, I was the PR person behind the camera because now the chess players are great with media training, but back in the day they weren’t.
This was pre-streaming and before that sort of stuff.
They wanted to get good content.
It’s a great-quality tournament.
I think the St. Louis Chess Club and the Sinquefield Cup pioneered the quality of chess tournaments.
Walking into that chess club instantly made you want to play chess.
It was so luxurious.
So much quality.
Everything they did about it.
The GMs in residence.
The commentators.
The setup.
Everything was brilliant.
I have massive props for their team.
So, they hired me as the person to try and get the most out of the players because I knew most of them personally.
I was able to have conversations with them.
Me being so chatty and energetic, I was able to talk to them behind the cameras to get the most out of them in terms of conversation so that on camera we could get good sound bites from the players.
So, that was my role.
Basically, to make chess players sound eloquent for a day.
So yeah, I used to do that.
Then I obviously did loads of chess reporting and stuff.
So, I loved the Sinquefield Cup.
I used to stay in the house.
It was brilliant.
So, I wasn’t there the year the whole Hans thing happened.
I believe Carla was there.
She said the FTX event.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I feel like it was an interesting one.
But that’s crazy that you’re now here with your film, which is a very different thing.
And with the film, I want to go back again because I feel like you had an idea on a kitchen table.
Fine.
How does it go from a kitchen table brainstorm with your dad to actually being aired at a film festival?
Like, how did you know you had a vision?
Like Keanu said, “It’s your vision.”
But how did that actually become an actual script?
How on earth did you know where you wanted to film?
Because you were filming in different parts of the world.
How did you know who you wanted to be in it?
Like, you know, I was in it, which I’m so grateful for.
But you had so many amazing women and mentors along the way.
How did you know what to do and how that was scripted?
So, the creation behind the scenes, like pre-production, took a very long time.
We spent years working on it.
Zach, Carla, Angela, and I used to be in meetings all day.
Like, all day.
For a long time.
We would call in the morning and call in the evening.
“Hey, what do you think about this idea?”
It’d be the middle of the night.
“Hey, can we get on a call?”
It was really random.
But we would just sit in those meetings and talk.
Before we even had any idea of where we wanted to shoot or who we wanted to interview, we wanted to talk about what we thought was important to tell.
So, I think for the first two or three years of developing it, it was all about, “What do we want our audience to know?”
And I think, for me, they asked me a lot of those types of questions.
Zach would ask me questions, and then he would understand it.
Then his amazing mind—I don’t know how he does it—would come up with these ideas that were just so crazy and worked out perfectly.
So, we would start collaborating on that.
It would be like, “Okay, I want to talk about being Mexican-American.”
You know, my dad’s white.
My mom’s Mexican.
Living in a world where I don’t know where I fit in.
That’s something I’d struggled with for a long time.
So, I was like, “Okay, I want to talk about that.”
And include that with chess because I know probably a lot of other people struggle with that.
Or what’s the question of life?
Things like that, right?
I don’t want to give too much away about the movie.
But it was things like that.
What are the questions that I have that everybody else is also questioning?
Then after that, we kind of paired it with Paris because it’s been my dream to be there since I was a kid.
And Mexico because that’s where my family’s from.
New York.
You know, cities and dreams.
It was just things like that.
And then, for the women, I was very particular.
I’m going to be honest with that one.
I was very particular about the women.
Personally, I think with the chess world, it’s amazing that a lot of people are coming up.
But we still don’t hear a lot of stories from people.
We see a lot of the same stories.
It was important for me not to put the person who’s been in the spotlight into the spotlight again.
I wanted people to tell their own stories.
Something about me—I made this very open to everybody.
I’ve been taught that whenever you say your name, Bianca Michelle Aila, you’re not just saying your own name.
You’re saying the names of the people who came before you.
You’re holding the power of your ancestors.
So, as the interviewer and the host, I wanted the women to tell their own stories.
I did not want to tell those stories for them.
So, with choosing the women, it was more about, “I want them to tell their own stories, and I want to highlight them.”
That’s kind of where the whole six-year process came from.
Making sure that came through and that nobody changed that.
That’s beautiful.
Honestly, I think the way you’re talking is so mature.
And I don’t want to say that in a patronizing way because it probably comes across that way.
You’ve probably heard that a lot, right?
But you’re only 21, and you’ve been making this movie since you were 15.
I honestly could not even fathom doing that.
Listening to you, I would never believe that you’re so young because you sound like a professional filmmaker and storyteller.
You’ve been doing this for so long.
I just think it’s amazing.
Your dad must have a lot of wisdom.
He gave you all that wisdom along the way, and you’ve definitely picked it up.
It’s really nice to hear.
The way you talk about it and the vision you’ve got.
I can’t wait to see it all come together.
I know it’s going to be brilliant.
But what is next for you?
Because you’ve done this, and like I said, you’re 21 and you’ve already got a movie out.
This is crazy.
But what’s next …