10 · 17 · 08

Short film winner criticized at 6th FICM

Clara Sánchez/Translated by Caroline MacKinnon

[imagen]The winning films of the Short Film category for the 6th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival were screened at Mexico City’s Cineteca Nacional yesterday afternoon.

The short films shown were La luz de la oscuridad by Gabriela Retes,  Honorable Mention; Jacinta by Karla Castañeda, Best Animated Short Film; La canción de los niños muertos by David Pablos, Best Fiction Short Film; and Zoogocho by Bernardo Arellano, Mejor Best Documentary Short Film.

La luz en la oscuridad tells the story of four people who get together in an apartment for dinner but when the lights go out, they show their true colors. Jacinta lives in a retirement home. Her life slowly goes by as she knits her memories with multicolored yarn. La canción de los niños muertos describes how after the death of their mother, which was their father’s fault, the children decide to carry out their own judgment. Zoogocho shows what life is like at a children’s boarding school in Oaxaca.

At the end of the screening, filmmakers David Pablos and Bernardo Arellano held a brief but intense question and answer session with the public.

How did the idea for this short film, La canción de los niños muertos, come about?
David: “From two things, it’s not that I have lived this experience, but it is very much inspired by the relationships with my father and brother, of course without being so extreme. On the other hand, I wanted to work with children. All the children that are in the story represent me in one way or another.”

How did you find the school?
Bernardo: “When I used to study anthropology, I had some friends that were working in the area, and they told me about this school. I thought it sounded good, so I went to see what it was all about and it was much better than I had imagined. Later, I went back with Damián Aguilar, the cinematographer, and we were there three weeks looking for this story, which was written day to day.”

What was the essence of the story that you wanted to share with the audience?
Bernardo: “To show the daily lives of the children in a simple way.”
David: “To show family relationships and talk about how extreme they can be. To talk about this very beautiful and terrible part that can exist not just in families, but in relationships. For me, the essence of this story is in the final scene when they decided to go to this place and that they needed to ‘kill’ the father.”

How was it working with your father?
David: “Difficult. From the point that I wrote the script I was thinking about him, because there are many parts of him in this character, without it necessarily being him. I showed the script to different actors, but they either couldn’t do it or they got afraid. I thought that my dad could do a good job although he had never acted and in the end it was fine. It was pretty therapeutic.”

What do you predict will happen to these children? What sort of adults will they become (Zoogocho)?
Bernardo: “The transition from childhood to maturity is something very undecipherable for me. All the children have a certain purity in their adolescence, crossing from one thing to another I can’t explain. I can tell you that there, they grow up with a lot of freedom. They are lacking a lot of material things, but are amused by many other things in the natural world. The ones that don’t have any family are friends and brothers; they grow up in a very healthy way. They are marginalized, in extreme poverty. I don’t know what will happen in the future, as they grow up. For now, they have very beautiful childhoods.”

[imagen]The audience criticized La canción de los niños muertos, making comments such as:

“I think that the mistreatment of this old man is terrible, it is very cruel.”

“This harshness reflects many things in real life, although we think they are unusual.”

“What we just saw fails to show what’s actually happening now in the country. People in Mexico City live like this were apparently protected but those who don’t have work are fighting to bring one tortilla or piece of bread home. Those who can’t do it are made to do other illicit acts. This short film is a reflection of the breakdown of a society, we must pay attention to what happens in Mexico. What David has presented is a very small point that alarms us because we don’t see it, we only read about it in the newspaper or see it on television.