A Promising Outcome at the Cartagena Producers Meeting

A note by Jean-Pierre Garcia for correcamara.com

Cuando los hijos regresan, by Hugo Lara. In an interview tied to the pitch of his project in Cartagena, Hugo Lara, screenwriter and director, says of his proposal: “‘Cuando los hijos regresan’ revolves around a family made up of the parents, Adelina and Manuel, and their three children, Carlota, Chico and Rafis. It is a Mexican city family, it could be a typical family, but it can also easily be identified with residents and audiences of other great cities around the world, since it touches on universal situations. These characters, like those around them (spouses, children, girlfriends, friends…), form a web of contradictory, complex, paradoxical and endearing human relationships, which the direction—with the support of the actors, the production and the rest of the creative team—will be devoted to unraveling and lending authenticity to across their different layers of emotion.” Anyone with a little familiarity with the Mexican cinema of the golden age will notice the allusion to a classic family melodrama by Juan Bustillo Oro, “Cuando los hijos se van” (1941, cinematography by Jack L. Draper, camera by Jorge Stahl Jr., with the unforgettable actors Fernando Soler, Sara García and Joaquín Pardavé). The reality of 2015 is very different, and with the economic crisis, many of the children in this same middle class either do not leave or return to their parents’ home. So the ones who end up overwhelmed by this phenomenon are the parents, who already want to live in peace and free themselves from these “invaders” that are their children (despite loving them dearly). The theme is not entirely new and was quite successful in foreign films (as in France with “Tanguy,” 2001, a comedy by Étienne Chatiliez that was so successful that the name Tanguy became a concept used to describe these children who cannot move out of their parents’ home despite the financial independence they have had for years). In a way, that is what Hugo Lara specifies: “The protagonists belong to the working class, neither rich nor poor, like the vast majority of the people who live in Mexico City. The chosen neighborhoods are populated by ordinary people who nonetheless retain traces of an illustrious past, with some buildings of exquisite architecture that are deteriorated and run-down, decadent yet beautiful and authentic. Our choice of locations allows us to capture cinematography with a certain documentary texture, one that captures the atmospheres and architecture of the city, the faces of the people on the street and their places, perhaps with elements of filmmakers such as the Italians Vittorio De Sica or Federico Fellini, in their films transitioning between neorealism and comedy. But with the weight of a contemporary gaze, entertaining and pleasing to the sensibility, as in “Brutti, sporchi e cattivi” (Ettore Scola, 1976), “The Full Monty” (Peter Cattaneo, 1997), “The Squid and the Whale” (Noah Baumbach, 2005) or “The Descendants” (Alexander Payne, 2011). We also value as references the cinema of the Mexicans Alejandro Galindo, Ismael Rodríguez, Arturo Ripstein and Alfonso Cuarón, among others.” With these traits so full of Mexican identity, Hugo Lara’s project manages to avoid the dangerous paths of folkloric cliché and develops a very contemporary role, drawing on work very close to the actors. In such a way that “the lead family is a representation of the residents of Mexico City, as is its own habitat. In light of the above, sound and music will also play a fundamental role. In the central, densely populated neighborhoods, the sounds of the street establish an unmistakable mark on the identity of this city.” Among the several projects, others also stood out: “El Piedra” by Rafael Martínez Moreno (Colombia), “El Sueco” by Patricia Ramos (Cuba/Nicaragua), “Estela” by Liliana Díaz Castillo (Colombia), “La Mancha Blanca” by Daniel Llanos (Ecuador)… But it was a project by a woman, “Yo, Imposible” by Patricia Ortega (Venezuela), that won the 10,000-euro grant awarded by France’s National Center of Cinematography (CNC) to the best project at the Cartagena meeting. “Yo, Imposible” is a highly original and bold proposal about intersex children who, by their parents’ decisions, were transformed into males or females through surgery. There are documentaries on the subject, but very few fiction films approach this reality with such precision. There is more discussion of men who decide to become women (transgender people), but as adults. The major theme (in this fiction screenplay) is the respect owed to the freedom of every human being: the intersex adults ask parents to leave their sons and daughters the possibility of deciding what they will be when they are grown. The dramatic premise of “Yo, Imposible” is very powerful. The project unfolds from the concrete situation of Ariel, the main protagonist (in terms of her sexual organs), toward the discovery of the reality of her case. The film’s dramaturgy describes this discovery. In parallel, we see the progression of her mother’s cancer, a cancer that is both real and symbolic. All of this works very well. Brief testimonies are introduced (in a documentary style) as a way of marking chapters in this narrative. This aspect of the screenplay should give great strength to the content and rhythm of the film. We see very clearly Ariel’s anguish, the anguish in which she lives, until she begins to understand what happened to her. Discovering that truth is very painful. It is like putting your hand in the fire and continuing to burn. This proposal may constitute a very important phase in the thematic development of Venezuelan cinema, and could also become a true event on the international level.