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"Jugamos con la idea de las fronteras" : Entrevista con Trisha Ziff y Andrew Houchens

Alonso Díaz de la Vega

En el marco del 19° FICM se estrenó Oaxacalifornia: El regreso, de la reconocida directora Trisha Ziff. En esta nueva edición, Ziff forma parte de la Sección de Documental Mexicano. 

Oaxacalifornia: El regreso fue seleccionada en Impulso Morelia 2 y también en 2019 obtuvo el Fondo Documental del Instituto de Sundance. A la directora le llevó varios años terminar su película pues documenta la historia de tres generaciones de una familia mexicoameriana que vive en California. La familia Mejía, originaria de Oaxaca evidencia las complejidades, los matices de pertenencia y alteridad de migrar y de reconstruir sus vidas en Estados Unidos.

El FICM tuvo la oportunidad de platicar con la directora Trisha Ziff y con uno de los productores, Andrew Houchens.

Alonso Díaz de la Vega: I would like to start by asking you about something that seems to be very elementary but very important, like the difficulties of a project like Oaxacalifornia, which has been developed over so long and in different spaces. What does it mean to make a documentary like this?

Trisha Ziff: For me, when preparing the first film, I didn't think about a second one, so it was difficult because all the material for the first film was in London and I needed to check the quality of the material, and Mexico is not a good place for this type of conversion. So I went to Los Angeles with a suitcase, all the pentacam, and then I returned to Mexico. In twenty years, some of the material has been lost, I don't know what happened to all the 16mm.

There were technical problems in relation to including the part from the first movie in this one, I wanted to see all the material together. We needed a lot of time to organize the two films. Much of this process depended on my memory and there were many things that I no longer remembered, my team had aged and so did I. The film is a mix of before and now.

ADV: On the production side, what can you tell us, Andrew?

Andrew Houchens: It was a big challenge to change the whole format, adjust it. Fortunately, we finished filming before the pandemic started and just when it started we started editing. You are usually with your editor during this process, but because of the pandemic we had to have some distance, I suppose that maybe that changed the final product a bit. I think as a team we did very well and we found new ways to feel connected while still in our homes. During the shooting process, they found what we wanted to say about this family; we did a lot of revisions until we got to the final cut.

TZ: One of the things that I think helped us a lot was the team. My team already had a lot of experience with my old films, we've had a history together throughout my films, we have an intimate relationship; they know my ideas and that was very helpful. There were also moments of frustration because I was not in the editing room, this film was a very different experience because of the pandemic, it was a very difficult period in everyone's life, on a personal and social level and, of course, in terms of work.

ADV: Trisha, you mentioned intimacy with your team, but I imagine that a film like this also requires a lot of intimacy with the subjects you are documenting. How was that process of generating that trust with them?

TZ: Well, I had a long history with them, during the process of finishing the first movie and starting the second, I stayed in contact with them. I went to the girl's wedding, we are in contact at Christmas, every year they congratulate me on my birthday; this is a long relationship, maybe not that intimate, but there is trust. When I returned to see them for the first movie, I was not a foreigner to them, they knew things about me, we knew each other. That was easier, but also given this close relationship, I had to separate this relationship with them for the film. That's complicated, they participate because they trust me, but at the same time, I want to detach myself from the film.

ADV: I think that the main theme of the film or at least one of the most important is the idea of national identity. What reflections do you have left after having made the film? Does the Mexican, the American, really exist in the Mexican-American?

AH: The film talks a bit about this idea of not being neither from there nor from here, it is like being from here and there at the same time. For me, it was a very interesting opportunity because we had the film and to go back thirty years later and see what has changed, what hasn't changed. See how the grandchildren are more culturally American, they hardly speak Spanish, while the grandparents do. They are from Oaxaca, very proudly Oaxacan. When you see how the children go to Mexico for the first time and they see the dance that they usually dance in the United States, it is incredible because it is seeing tourists to their own town, you see them walking in the street and you see that they are not from there, but for them, it's home.

So, the film plays a bit with the idea of borders, who we really are and what creates identity. The grandchildren already know their grandparents' stories and how they came to the United States, and in the first movie, the grandparents talk about returning to Mexico. But after twenty years it no longer makes sense because their lives have changed a lot, their lives and their families are there, but if you ask the grandparents, they are still Mexican. That was what we wanted to do, demonstrate those complex identities, that there is no one way to be, a person can be many things.

ADV: How can documentaries influence these types of issues? Do they really have an effect on the social issues they represent?

TZ: I would like the audiences who see the film to have a different perspective on the issue of migration, I do a lot of work in culture here in Mexico; in art, in exhibitions, and I've observed a critical attitude towards Chicanos because they don't speak Spanish well and bring their ideas to Mexico. I hope that people will have a slightly different perspective, it is a simple film, it is the story of a family and its power is time and in the change of ideas. And I also hope that audiences in the United States can identify, not necessarily just the Mexican-Americans, but also the Korean-Americans, the Iranian-Americans, who find the parallels in their own experience since they also have another language, other foods.

I think that the history of migration is global and, especially now, everything is a mixed bag. Andrew is from Colorado, I am from London, and now we live in Mexico City. Migration is going in different directions. I think the strength of this film is that we have the past, we have 25 years of a family's history and it allows us to see what changes and what goes on. We see why life changes.