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Cinema as a Platform to Make Struggles Visible: Interview with Pablo Cruz and Andrés Martínez

Alonso Díaz de la Vega

La zozobra, dirigido por Pablo Cruz Villalba, forma parte de la Selección de Documental Mexicano del 19° Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (FICM). La historia se enfoca en los estragos que deja el capitalismo, en la manera en que destruye todo a su paso, y la lucha de una comunidad que resiste y, pese a las adversidades, sigue articulando su vida desde lo común.

La zozobra es el segundo trabajo que Pablo Cruz presenta en el festival. Su debut fue en el año 2018 con el cortometraje Las mujeres invisibles. Su apuesta más reciente se ubica en Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche, en la Laguna de Términos, una de las zonas manglares más importantes del país, región que sufre las consecuencias de la corrupción y negligencia.

El FICM tuvo la oportunidad de platicar con el director Pablo Cruz Villalba y con el productor Andrés Martínez de la Viña.

Alonso Díaz de la Vega: How did you discover the stories that the documentary addresses?

Pablo Cruz Villalba: Well, actually it arose from discussions that Andrés and I had constantly about what is happening in the world, what they say in the newspapers. It also came from a news item that we read, we saw photos, and we were talking. Then we decided to go travel and film.

ADV: How was the process of approaching the subjects of the documentary?

PCV: It was actually going to the place and asking for people, filming, asking and contacting people. Afterwards, people helped us, we made friends, we met a theater group and we began to meet people and many friends who opened doors for us to meet many more people on the island.

ADV: This sounds to me, to a certain extent, very journalistic, but it seems to me that the documentary, at least in terms of style, doesn't follow those conventions of gathering data, information, and so on. It even has many poetic moments. I'd like to know, was this something that was born during filming, spontaneously, or is it something that you were already very aware of from the beginning?

Andrés Martínez de la Viña: The project was born as a second-year documentary project in our school. What I find very interesting is that at the festival there are two documentary feature films that are in some way productions of two schools, there is also Las Hostilidades. I think that has to do with the question of what do you do, because there is this interest in doing something beyond a report and, in our case, it was very much Pablo's part, of the vision he has of cinema. The same theme sometimes asked for testimonies and interviews, but the place gave you these poetic moments, as you say, power in front of a ship that's sinking in the gulf. I think that the vision the documentary has goes along two paths, which have to do with our concerns as film students as well. On one hand, with this journalistic side with testimonies and, on the other, with the most cinematographic moments.

PCV: I think montage represents a bit of the way a filmmaker can explore. We do a bit of everything, we work in very small teams. The montage also works to relate the concepts that we have and the vision of the kind of cinema we want to make. Of course, with all the limitations that we have, including the material we got with our team and location limitations.

ADV: Does this cinematographic vision have any particular influence or is it something more spontaneous?

PCV: I think this particular project was born in a more spontaneous way. I do it based on my tastes. Andrés also works according to his tastes, but I think that we also adapted to what we had and what we could do, which also determines how a film is made. In the end, we did it with few resources, with limited time, and we wanted to express so many things in so many different ways that it was what we were able to put together.

ADV: The filming of the documentary was in 2018, surely we had many references from film school but I remember a lot of the Austrian director Hubert Sauper, I remember this film, We Come as Friends, where he is filming in a country in Africa and talks about a lake and how water-damaging tilapias get in. He also has his own technical limitations and I think that's a good reference for now.

AVD: Speaking of these limitations, Pablo, I noticed you write, direct and edit the film, is this due to these same limitations?

PCV: Yes, it sounds very strange to say it like that, but I also choose to do it that way. I have my own limitations in the work I do as a photographer, I have to edit with my tools because I like to be an integral filmmaker. In that sense, I am a big loner. I feel that it's important as a filmmaker to know how to do everything and really do it. That's how I like to do things and I really enjoy it. I like the whole process of making a movie, I don't like missing anything. There are parts I pay more attention to, for fun. For example, I pay more attention to photography at different levels. I like to go exploring process, and cinema has so many processes that you never finish. I like to get involved in everything. That's why Andrés and I work together, he has the same spirit with filmmaking.

ADV: Thinking about what you said about working with friends, I remember a little of Mariano Gimas's films, that whole collective works like that. Is the cinema something that makes more sense collectively, with a team you are close friends with?

PCV: For me, making movies is something that I like to do, having the freedom to do something that I enjoy. The moment I feel that making films is no longer pleasing me, no longer satisfying me, that'll perhaps be when I'm not doing it the right way. For me, to make it in a free and enjoyable manner is to share it with people who also feel that way, we have fun making movies. That's how making movies works for me.

ADV: Finally, I would like to ask, if the film has a lot to do with the effects of capitalism, oppression, labor exploitation, do you think cinema has a way of influencing these issues?

PCV: Yes, I think it can have an impact, like any other means of communication, I think it can have a greater or lesser effect. I think that unfortunately also, due to the same capital process, the same communication and artistic media sometimes don't have an influence in the field of economics or politics. They are simply different spheres, but all spheres of human production, both of the political-economic decisions and the artistic ones, are interrelated and there is a discussion and a criticism. We would like to insert ourselves as filmmakers from the interrelation that exists there, with what we can contribute from our personality.

AMV: I think the documentary is a complement to the part of labor exploitation that workers experience. It is one more tool where they can express themselves, which perhaps has new elements to the press; you can see them, you can see their faces, you can associate them with the space they inhabit and where they fight. In addition, this conflict is well documented from various trenches, I think the documentary has a great impact there, but the most important is the one carried out by these people who take advantage of this platform with us to express themselves and express their concerns and their struggles, but It seems complementary to what they do every day. It seems to me that it is one more platform where these struggles can be made visible, but there are more, especially them.