07 · 16 · 07

Bajo Juarez: From The Sunny Side to BAFTA

Clara Sánchez

[imagen]Six years ago, Alejandra Sánchez, a native of Chihuahua, and José Antonio Cordero decided to take their camera and show the world the horrible killings that are taking place in Ciudad Juárez. Their short film received a Homo Sapiens Special Award at the II Encuentro Hispanoamericano de Video Documental Independiente: Contra el Silencio todas las Voces (II Hispanic-American Independent Documentary Video Meeting: Voices Against Silence). Thanks to the fact that Sánchez’s Te apuesto, te ganó won Best Fiction Short Film at the FICM’s fourth edition, she was able to raise enough money for her following project, which turned into Bajo Juárez, la ciudad devorando a sus hijas. This last piece, a feature length documentary, received an Honorary Mention and the Special Titra Award at the FICM 2006, Best Documentary at the Chicago and San Diego Film Festivals, and was part of Sundance’s Official Selection. Sánchez and Cordero’s profound commitment to documentary filmmaking established their work as one of the 10 best ethnographic documentaries at the Sunny Side of the Doc festival. Bajo Juárez, la ciudad devorando a sus hijas, will form part of the BAFTA goes to México program, which takes place from the 27th to the 30th of July in London.
How did you come to form part of the Sunny Side of the Doc?
José Antonio: One of the jurors at Morelia, Yves Jeanneau, organizes the event, which brings together documentary film directors and exhibitors in La Rochelle, France. He asked us to go. The French Embassy in Mexico bought our plane tickets.

[imagen]What is La Rochelle like?
Alejandra: It was all very new to us, we’d never had to sell a film before. We took an express course on how to deal with the film market. Sunny Side was full of stands: many important European and Asian television networks were there. We had DVD’s and press kits because we knew we had to treat our film as a product.
José Antonio: Out of the hundreds of films from all over the world, only ten were recommended to distributors. Bajo Juárez was one of them. The different associations involved presented three awards; our film received funding from the Adav Association which goes towards promotion and non-commercial distribution.
Alejandra: Bajo Juárez was the only film that Ives Jeanneau personally introduced to the festival audience. He said that our film had been a great discovery at Morelia.

What did you learn from the course?
Jose Antonio: “Everything from not giving senseless, two-hour speeches to the distributors, to things that we have to watch out for as co producers, though this is more IMCINE’s job, or, for instance, knowledge of sales parameters and how to deal with different TV networks. We had no idea what exclusive rights to distribute a documentary are worth within a certain territory.
Alejandra: I learned that one of the reasons IMCINE doesn’t make a profit is because it isn’t selling its products the right way; it isn’t screening and showing all it has to offer. I hope that things change with the new administration. They have to talk to the people that gave us this course, so IMCINE can learn how to sell a film. Brazil had a huge stand; there are many documentaries being made in Mexico. IMCINE and all of us dedicated to making documentaries should take notice of all the initiatives and developments taking place in La Rochelle. The Brazilian stand sold 15 or 20 films and ours should b