The first time Ángeles Cruz encountered death, she was 9 years old. At that first meeting, when her father died, he just “surrounded” her, he remembers, he didn’t confront her. This loss left her in despair and a silence that she could not share with anyone other than her younger brother. It wasn’t until 2020 that he saw death before his eyes again, in what was a “fateful, pandemic and painful” year for many people. The “irrational fear” she had felt before, which made her tell herself, “I don’t want to lose anyone anymore,” had returned, but this time she decided not to turn around and face it. This is how she wrote “Valentina o la serenidad”, her second feature film, in which she confronts her own grieving process, which she had kept silent about as a child and which she can now express, like an embrace of death, in life through the language of childhood.
“I decided to talk from childhood about how children are alone when someone is lost. Adults grieve, people move on with their lives. I wanted to write about how we process these absences, and it was important to do this from childhood,” explains Cruz, the ñuu savi director of the state of Oaxaca.
Actresses Myriam Bravo and Danae Ahuja Aparicio in a still from the film. On Post Films
Valentina o la serenidad, his second feature film after Nudo mixteco, which won Best First Feature at the 2022 Ariel Awards, will have its international premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on September 8th, while it will be screened in Mexico at the Morelia film event which is scheduled to take place in October.
Valentina loses her father in an accident in the river. He is not satisfied with the explanation of death and looks for it everywhere. Since she can’t find him, she becomes a lonely girl. Her family and their time will help her cope with the absence and overcome her grief.
Ángeles Cruz after winning the Ariel for Best First Feature 2022.Edgar Negrete Lira (Cuartoscuro)
The director says that in 2020, as she was completing a first version of the script, her brother, who accompanied her through the loss of their father and inspired one of the film’s main characters, contracted Covid and died. In “Nudo Mixteco” he had already addressed trauma, loss and death, among other things, but not as personally as in this film. This fear drove her to face death. “I decided to talk about how painful it is to talk about loneliness, also about the sense of humor and about laughing about it. Also that life goes on and will go on; and we will make up for these absences to continue to laugh, run and enjoy,” adds the director.
In one of his legendary sentences, Alfred Hitchcock recommended not working with children on a shoot. There are many actors, actresses and directors who have recognized the difficulty of this task. However, Cruz admits that it was a pleasure and that she loves working with them. He admits that working with Danae Ahuja Aparicio, the protagonist, was a “loving and understanding” process that respected the nature of childhood. This was, in a work through games dynamic, the north of what the film wanted to convey.
“Childhood is a sponge that discovers the world, and it is up to it [a Valentina] his first pain, how to deal with losses from his early years. No one is ready to lose anyone, no matter how old they are. The film is about friendship, about nature and, moreover, about putting myself in that fragility, of not knowing what direction life is going to take and of holding on to a little breeze, an ant can be a strength, with very simple things from their everyday life,” says Cruz.
Alexander Gadiel Mendoza S. and Danae Ahuja Aparicio, in “Valentina or Serenity” (2023). On Post Films
In addition to the sense of community, Cruz also proposes an approach to Mixtec, language and communication with nature and living beings, based on metaphors that are part of the dream world in this hustle and bustle between life and death that he proposes for the film. . “Part of it is looking for the language in which he can meet his father. It means understanding that when someone dies or loses a loved one, the place where they lost their life becomes a place of respect. In 2020 we couldn’t get together, we couldn’t say goodbye to many people. Accompaniment is survival, it is strength. In rural communities we are one with nature, with the ants, with the texture of the wood and we share this with the community because it gives us a sense of belonging,” says the director.
The film benefited from the Incentive for Audiovisual Creation in Mexico and Central America for Indigenous and Afro-descendant Communities (ECOMC), a “small” incentive relative to film industry spending, Cruz says, but “very impactful.” Allow indigenous communities to make films. “I know there is resistance to making this film world more diverse. We have powerful stories to tell from communities and we need to bring them to the world. The world has a right to know them, just as we know what is outside. Cinema changed me and when I saw a film from another country, I found my reflection in it. I hope that our cinema can make other people feel or experience the same thing,” concludes Cruz.
More Latin American cinema in Toronto
Other Mexican films are also represented at the Toronto Film Festival. Michel Franco, who released his latest film Sundown, returns to Canada with a new work entitled “Memory”, starring Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard. Another guest at the festival is director Alejandro Lozano with The Taste of Christmas, a film produced by Salma Hayek and starring Mariana Treviño and Andrés Almeida. The Mexican representation is complemented by Mariana and Santiago Arriaga, who are making the international premiere of the co-production with Spain entitled A Cielo Abierto. While Mexican director Carlos López Estrada is co-directing a documentary about rapper Lil Nas X.
The new film by Argentinian Paula Hernández, The Wind That Devastates, and the premiere of Los Criminales by her compatriot Rodrigo Moreno will be presented from the south of the continent. Chile’s film “The Colonists” by Felipe Gálvez, chosen by the South American country as an Oscar bet, will also continue its international tour in Toronto, along with the films “La suprema” (Colombia), “Pedágio” (Brazil) and ” La.” wild woman (Cuba).
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