Thoughts from a "guerrilla" filmmaker

From Vicente Fox's "cultural policies" to the Cannes Film Festival, Mexican
filmmaker Carolina Rivas holds nothing back. Not even the tears.

By Juan Pablo de Dovitiis and Ignacio Indacochea

It is not everyday that you can almost make a successful international filmmaker cry and feel good about it. But, then again, most filmmakers are not Carolina Rivas.

We first met this Mexico City native on the last day of the 2003 Toronto aluCine Film Festival at UofT’s Innis Townhall. AluCine is less known than some of the other Toronto Latino film festivals, but has a highly creative and original mix of local and international feature, experimental and documentary films, where Carolina had just received the award for the best film.

Donning a puffy lime-green top at the closing party, Carolina agreed to give us an interview by the entrance of the dark, loud and sparsely populated dance floor at Lula Lounge.

Mosaico 21: You just won the best film award today, and you were able to experience a film festival like aluCine from the inside. What was that experience like?

Carolina Rivas: I loved the experience I had here because it is so different and unique, both in terms of cinematography and storytelling.

In Mexico everything is very similar, there are a lot of light comedies, with the same type of production. And it’s those movies that sell tickets. Most of the time they try to make you submissive to sales.

That’s why I like Toronto, because they have a soul here. It’s not such a big deal if you don’t sell that many tickets. And that, without even mentioning all the support filmmakers get.

M21: Speaking specifically about your movie, tell us a little about it and what movie goers can expect from it.

CR: For me, in my movies, I like to show the human aspect of things, confrontations and the loss of humanity that takes place.

Flat Point is based in an experience I had with my sister, where some friends of her brought her practically dead to my house and we had to rush her to the hospital. People in the street could see that we needed help and they would not help us.

The movie portrays a truly devastating feeling, but, at the end, I bring forth a different point: that life goes on, that they can’t break you. You have to go on.

And that is the way I also deal with my job. Making movies is an unbreakable act of faith.

Though she also took her film to the Sao Paulo and Cannes film festivals before coming to Toronto, Carolina admits that her long journey has felt as difficult as the other inspiration for her movie, Juan Rulfo’s short story “Don’t You Hear the Dogs Barking?”, where a father carries his ailing son on his back through the countryside, only to find out that he is dead upon arrival.

CR: What you try to do is go for the innovative, but no, you can’t because there is a political monopoly for everything (in Mexico). Everybody is afraid to be confronted!

When I was invited to go to Cannes, I couldn’t get government funding. Supposedly, the representatives of IMCINE (Mexican Institute of Filmmaking) had to represent me in France, but then they backed out because ‘I was not a member‘.

I sent an open letter to (Mexican president Vicente) Fox, because they had promised in their campaign to create more opportunities for Mexicans. His secretary called me back soon after, saying that Sari Bermudez, president of CONACULTA (National Council for Arts and Culture), wanted to talk to me. She told me “Caro, I didn’t know anything”.

In the end, the Foreign Relations Office sent me the plane tickets to go, but they did it because I had balls, and because real power is in the media.

That’s the reason why I say filmmaking is an unbreakable act of faith. If I betray that, then I get sick. The worse treason is filling up your pockets but not your heart. That’s losing your identity.

Fortunately, that is only a sector (within the Mexican film industry), like in all Latin American countries.

M21: You mention that this is something common to Latin American countries. What do you see as the reason for that?

CR: Well, that’s something that you see even in politics, especially with (the ruling party) PAN. They are horrified at being Mexican. That’s something that I’ve seen a lot in Latin America. There are people who don’t like the bad side of society to be portrayed, they are afraid of their own, they only want people to know about the beaches and the nice things in their country.

That’s why I like to work outside of monopolies, with smaller, but more creative, groups. We may not have the resources others have, but we work guerrilla style. That’s me, the guerrilla of filmmaking.

M21: So, with your film, what is it exactly that you are trying to portray that some people may not want you to?

CR: In Mexico people fear everything, including a relationship with someone else, because they may rob you, because they may take your money. There is a feeling of hatred, of not wanting to help, and it intensifies with time.

When my sister was in the hospital we had to pay even for the nurses to give her serum. Getting sick in Mexico, when you are poor, is terrible, because your parents will even scream at you asking you “why are you getting sick?”.

M21: We saw a creative style that is very different from mainstream filmmaking in this festival. What is your opinion about experimental filmmaking?

CR: Making experimental films is not easy. I think that it is the most important vehicle to develop new ways to narrate stories. Filmmaking has more than 100 years of age, but the nice thing about experimental films is that you can say something that is directed to the subconscious.

My biggest influences are experimental filmmakers like Sergei Eiseinstein, Robert Bresson, David Mamet and Bruno Dumont.

People who make movies like that are explorers, they don’t give you everything already made, they give you the pieces.

Though she leaned forward, gesticulated with her hands and spoke fearlessly throughout the interview, Carolina suddenly stopped at this point and looked at us through lightly moist eyes, to inquire if “we knew much about films”.

Somewhat taken aback by the assumption that journalists may have to know anything about what they are writing about, we mumbled something about our journalistic experience.

To our surprise, she admitted that she was so glad and surprised to be asked probing questions about her filmmaking by journalists that she “almost cried”.

Yet, though it would be much easier to run with the compliment, our journalistic integrity (if not the fear of having this contradicted by people that know us) leads us to admit that it was the fearlessness and honesty of the long black-haired filmmaker that carried the interview.

But, despite having challenged film institutions, the established niceties of national filmmaking and even the Mexican president, the last question of the interview still remained to be answered: would the new found success, with its awards, travels, and even a four-month filmmaking scholarship in Paris, change the philosophy of this film guerrilla?

CR: For me, one of my next projects will be to work with a camera and a group of kids, because I want to develop a story about the lives of children, from the point of view of kids.

Myself, if the option is to commercialize but lose creativity, I’d rather be poor then. Otherwise, you lose your identity.

Sell out? Not a chance. At least not when your “identity” is worth that much.