The Virtual Circle

My search in the cinema has to do mainly with the paradox of real and the fictional, all my previous films work on this construction in different ways, the topics change but the formal search is a constant. My first film Toro entre aguas, explores a mixture between a documentary of a popular pagan celebration in my home state Veracruz and a fictional love story with actors and non actors that go through it, the story develops by them entering the reality with written scenes and reality entering fictional stagings.
I see myself working on this conversation of genres as a long term goal. In addition to El círculo virtual movie, I am developing a musical feature film driven by actors and non actors that tell the story of the birth of our traditional music Son Jarocho. It follows a journey from Andalucia Spain and the Canary Islands into different countries in Africa and then through the Caribbean to arrive at the port of Veracruz, the first place where the Spaniards landed in México in the year 1500.
I’ve always been inspired by Tony Gatlif and its anthropological and magical storytelling. He is a marvelous example of a director that works with its community to build their own stories and interpret them. Always at the edge of what fictions means and the possibility to represent reality. I would also like to mention Pedro Costa, Agnes Varda, Nicolas Pereda and Kiarostami from which I've gained a lot of knowledge. From Pedro Costa, the work with non actors and actresses and the creative power to intervene reality with an own strong aesthetic point of view. From Agnes I admire the capacity to incorporate poetic voice overs on reality that construct a unique poetic discourse. From Nicolás I adopt characters that interpret themselves and the playful way of doing it with a brilliant humor, and from Kiarostami the profound commitment with his country's traditions and willingness to put them on stage in a very respectful but modern way.
Building this film from all these dichotomies allows me to talk about life itself and the fictions that inhabit our culture and my own life. The theme of virtuality that runs through the film comes from a visceral feeling of my own about gender violence in my country and the media, that toxic and lethal relationship. But also from a very liberating perspective where play and fiction can make us manage reality and hard topics in a different way. All the experiences that the actresses interpret are experiences that happened to me in my own flesh, which in the end is the flesh of all. Motivated by a self-portrait work, I reveal myself as the author and a character of this staging. My fears and doubts dialogue with other women. The limit between the imaginary and the real are blurred, both in the very making of the film, and in its content. This circle, beyond being a movie, is an aid to transformation through dialogue, a very important part of my life. Participating in the plurinational meeting of women in Argentina and living in this country for 6 years gave me the experience and the strength of the collective and of the organized dialogue. In this project we are documenting the first adaptation of this meeting, in the context of Veracruz.
The film is expanding my creative process as I can explore more deeply my capacity to build a complex story between so many characters and being able to manage them all in a deep loving way. I'm entering a new world of working for a longer period of time with them and also with my own testimony. I desire to achieve a riveting performance, that is the center of the film, the big day, the real conversation we will have. All the previous preparation we will have with the set, the technical aspects and the great work with actresses will be surrendered to the improvisation and the unknown. In the end, what pleasures and challenges me the most is the experiment itself and the amount of uncertain scenes that will occur even with our given structure.
With this challenge, of course I can see some failures or collapse of expectations, but even so, I see it as a nutritive material for the film, when the film addresses cinema itself. I learned this in other great movies and I adapted it to myself. I love seeing how cinema can fail, stagings can fail, dialogues, locations, characters that do the opposite as planned, all of this is beautiful if you use it to your advantage, and as part of the story. I've already incorporated it in my short film Griots where my main character doesn't want to be filmed.
Close up from Kiarostami is a great example of this, a fascinating story of failure. In my movie I can see something could go “wrong” with improvisation, timing, shyness, even myself getting overwhelmed by being in front of the camera, and I feel excited about what could happen. The way of filming the movie as a one time performance is also the show itself, and for us, a great motivation and challenge that we know we can achieve if we gather the right support.