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Our Relationship With the Land Is Very Strange, We Feel Like We Own It,” Alejandra Márquez on EL NORTE SOBRE EL VACÍO

Gustavo R. Gallardo

Gustavo R. Gallardo

After the presentation of El norte sobre el vacío (2022), a film on the Mexican Feature Film Section, the production team offered a press conference at the José Rubén Romero Theater, as part of the second day of activities of the 20th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). 

The movie, filmed in the states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas and starring Gerardo Trejoluna, Paloma Petra and Dolores Heredia, narrates the changes in the life and relationships of Reynaldo, a renowned hunter in decline, who feels in danger of losing his heritage and his father’s legacy.

Director Alejandra Márquez Abella (Las niñas bien, 2018) said that the film addresses a “classic story of the Mexican Revolution” and beyond “observing masculinity”, she was struck by the fact of the idea of a man who “defends its territory,” because “first of all, whose territory is it?”

"Our relationship with the land is very strange, we feel like we own it, that we have to defend it because it is private property. It seems like an interesting reflection to me," said the director.

About the making of the film, producer Karla Hernández said they practically “went to the desert with a dolly to make a cowboy film;” however, when asked about filming in a region plagued by crime, she acknowledged that they had to pay a fee "because we did not want to risk it."

Actress Dolores Heredia, in reference to filming in the municipality of Villagrán, in Tamaulipas, said that the setting “really conditioned" them. “The place was already permeating us with a lot, we were all very close together, there sometimes was a sudden need to take a break from the cruelty of the place,” she explained.

At another point, director Karla Hernández said that it was important to make this film in the Northeast of the country because "there is something in the North that teaches you" that although "we think we know how to identify the good guys and the bad, it was a great lesson to see and understand how these changes.” And that beyond talking about the violence in the country, “which is very evident,” it is important to question “the patriarchal, colonial, sexist, classist, racist system in which we live, which makes room for these things."

“It’d be necessary to take a good look within, otherwise, the bad guy is always the other person,” emphasized the filmmaker.

Also present at the press conference were the screenwriter and producer, Gabriel Nuncio; producer Sofía Torres, and actors Gerardo Trejoluna, Paloma Petra, and Mayra Hermosillo.