10 · 09 · 07

¿Dónde están sus historias? (Where are your stories?) explores loneliness and lack of communication

Doris Morales/Translated by Vicente Castañar

[imagen]Vicente is a young man who lives with his grandma in Puebla. He hasn’t seen his mom since he was a young child, she works in Mexico City as a maid. Daily routine and lack of communication among the characters reflect what communities are going through currently, how they empty out because people go to the big cities searching for jobs, this results in families breaking apart.

This film was made by the young Mexican filmmaker Nicolás Pereda who on a press conference mentioned that the idea for the film came from his parents’ maid: “I only saw her twice with her son, I noticed their relationship was very strange, they barely saw each other, they barely spoke, she had a closer relationship to me than to her own son.”

Even though Pereda based his story on real facts he mentioned that his film was fiction: “I made it all up, but I was inspired by all the stories my maid told me, even the part where her mother was sick and she wasn’t able to visit her. All the characters are basically real. I was interested in exploring her days, the routine.”

[imagen]About the actors he said: “I met Gabino Rodríguez (Vicente) at the theater, he was the assistant director and Clarissa Malheiros was helping the actor director. I was making some videos for the play and I knew them from some other play and we became friends. As a matter of fact it is a friends’ movie, there was no casting. I met Teresa Sánchez at a project I was doing for Jesusa Rodríguez. I chose Gabino because I like his face; it is very flexible, like a Picasso painting. I love how he acts and I thought he was the right one to come out in the movie.”

When asked about the predominant silent in his story he mentioned that: “the characters are full of stories they are unable to unearth, that is why I follow them around, it is a way of emphasizing that people can not get close, we can’t really know who they are, we can’t really know what’s in their mind. I wanted to portray how they reflect their inner stories. I didn’t want to give all this information because it is not a theme film, it is a moment to moment film, and it isn’t searching for catharsis.”

Pereda admires Andy Warhol’s and Carlos Reygadas’ films. He mentioned that the long shots reflect the character’s emotions. “A contemplative film is like looking at a painting, I like people to watch films as they look at paintings.”