The bastard images
The Bastard Images takes you on an intimate exploration of the enigma of family, the force that shapes us and unveils our essence to the world. Temporarily blinded by a visual impairment, the filmmaker delves deep into a collection of home movies shot and narrated by her father during the early 1990s. She embarks in a decisive search to confront and challenge the looming specter of patriarchal dynamics that inhabit these archives, which have shaped her identity and suffocate her present.
As she transforms the images, she liberates the characters trapped in these family tapes, weaving a narrative that serves as a bridge to connect with her father and becomes a new lense to look at herself.
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Marianela Vega OrozaDirectorRolling Strong (2016)
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Isabel Madueño MedinaProducerOnly the Ocean Between us (2020)
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Marianela Vega OrozaWriterRolling Strong (2016)
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Sofía Velázquez NuñezWriterAbout everything there is to know (2021)
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Project Title (Original Language):El archivo bastardo
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Project Type:Documentary, Feature
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Genres:Creative Documentary, archive documentary
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Runtime:1 hour 2 minutes
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Completion Date:January 5, 2024
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Country of Origin:Peru
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Language:Spanish
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Shooting Format:Video 8, 16mm, HD
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Aspect Ratio:1.33:1
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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28 Lima Film FestivalLima
Peru
August 10, 2024
World Premiere
Latin American Documentary Competition - Official Selection
Marianela Vega Oroza (Perú,1978) is an independent filmmaker, professor and archivist. She has an MFA in Film Production from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master in Film Preservation from Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola and she’s an American Film Showcase alumni. In 2022, she created Blue Producciones, an independent production company with which she has made seven shorts and one feature film, exhibited in festivals and galleries around the world. Rodar contra todo/ Rolling Strong (2016) was awarded Best Feature Documentary at Le Festival de cinéma péruvien à Paris.
Marianela has twelve years of experience as a university film professor and has also taught film workshops for minors in rehabilitation centers in Peru. She was part of the project Desde Adentro, funded by the Prince Claus Fund. Since 2022, she is co-director of the Master Program in Documentary Film at Instituto de Cine Madrid. She 's also a member of the selection committee at Festival de Cine de Lima. The Bastard Images (2023) is her second feature film.
Filmography:
Rodar contra Todo / Rolling Strong (2016), 74 min.
Payasos / Clowns (2009), 23 min.
Conversations II (2007), 16 min
The light bulb (2006), 11 min.
Conversation I (2005), 6 min.
Distancia / Distance (2004),13 min.
Away (2002), 12 min.
Ausencia / Farewell (2002), 43 min.
At forty-four, I carry a single sick eye; with the other, I look at an elderly gardener, a father who, in his youth, wove his family into a visual fantasy. The Video 8 tapes, magnetic witnesses of those days, remained forgotten for over three decades.
My father, the storyteller. My father, the director. We were his actors. His films capture the execution of a pre-established script: a hard-working man who rescued his parents from precarity, chose a virtuous woman as a wife, raised his children harshly and whisked them away to fantasy worlds during vacations. A life sculpted with the precision of a meticulous director, from whom I inherited not only a video camcorder but also much restrained anger and the skill of finding refuge in fiction to mask the imperfect, the hurtful. Fiction as a contention wall, a shelter and escape strategy.
In this film, I compose a new narrative that challenges and transforms my father’s. It is a symbolic ritual in which I rewrite our family's memory from his reels, liberating myself from that inherited mandate and from an emotional legacy that suffocates me in the present, distorting my relationship with myself and others. And I do it with a veiled gaze, with a defective eye, an autoimmune condition that manifested itself in the middle of this process, which I decided to turn into a metaphor: the woman who only sees with one eye.
I immerse myself in filmmaking, transforming the very essence of these family archives. I digitize the magnetic tapes and then transmute the images into emulsions. I process them manually to truly feel them. I experiment with the materials to make space for the imperfect, the damaged and the silenced.
I do all this from thousands of kilometers away, with the desire to get closer to him.
My father is today a fragile and lonely old man, holding on to his routine, to the past and the caring of his plants to elude confronting the loss of the roles that have defined him since youth: provider, husband, and father. How do I confront him without dismantling him? Is it truly necessary? These two questions incessantly haunted this journey. Ultimately, this piece is a confrontation with myself. I, too, resort to fiction to construct a bridge, an encounter with my father in the present through our vulnerability and emotional awkwardness, through love. It's the tale of the gardener and the one-eyed woman.
From this vantage point, I aspire to resonate with the experiences and emotions of others whose identities were similarly shaped by patriarchal dynamics that we must continue questioning, not only in the public sphere but also within the family environment tapestry where they take root.
This film pays homage to imperfect, intimate and collective cinema. I’ve been artistically and emotionally supported by Lali Madueño, our creative producer, and Sofía Velázquez, our editor and co-writer. Crafting a collective first-person narrative has been both a challenging and an enlightening journey. We also see it as a way to validate production dynamics that diverge from the conventional ones, creating through constant dialogue, camaraderie and nurture. I’m interested in making and sharing this kind of cinema with other filmmakers and different audiences.