Cecilia Aldarondo holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Skidmore College. She was the inaugural recipient of the Roberto Guerra Documentary Award in 2015, and has been named by FILMMAKER Magazine as one of 2015’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
“Memories of a Penitent Heart” will make its International Premiere at the 2016 Inside Out LGBT Film Festival on May 28.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
CA: “Memories of a Penitent Heart” is a personal documentary about my uncle Miguel. He died of AIDS when I was only six years old. A generation after his death, the film excavates the buried conflict in my family around Miguel’s homosexuality and charts my search for his partner who disappeared after Miguel died.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
CA: I became a filmmaker on the day that my mother gave me a box of 8 mm films she’d discovered in her garage in 2008. Visceral memories of my uncle Miguel’s funeral came back to me, and suddenly I found myself asking uncomfortable questions.
When I was growing up, people told two different stories about Miguel. The official story was about a gregarious, mischievous, brilliantly talented actor who died tragically young. The unofficial story was darker. Told in whispers, out of the sides of mouths: Miguel was gay. His mother didn’t approve. And they said that as Miguel was dying, Miguel asked to see a priest and renounced his homosexuality.
As I got older and began to care about social justice and LGBT equality, I was increasingly troubled at the casual way my family both did and didn’t talk about these events. Why had this chapter in my family history been forgotten, and what could I do about it now?
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
CA: When people ask me what I want people to do when they see this film, I always tell them I want them to cry. Not because I am a sadist or because I want the audience to feel manipulated, but because I believe that this story is more than just an interesting story.
It is a story I want people to see in their own lives — not just people dealing with the aftermath of AIDS, but anyone who’s had a conflict, a falling out, a seismic loss — and to ask themselves what they could do differently now. I don’t just want people to ask, “What did Miguel do on his deathbed?” I want them to ask, “What would I do on my deathbed?”
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
CA: The biggest challenge has always been persistence in the face of rejection and adversity. I always say that independent documentary filmmaking is like running a marathon where they keep changing the mileage on you — you think you see the finish line, then it turns out it takes another year. And another year. And another.
We faced so much rejection, and there was never enough to pay my team, or myself, what we deserved. There were some really dark times when I just didn’t know how I’d keep picking myself up again and again. But I had a support network of friends and family who always held me up during those times. And here we are.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
CA: Initially, it was next to impossible to get institutional support. It’s my first film, it’s an unusual, very arty, personal documentary, and a lot of funders told me they weren’t sure it would work. I raised almost half our budget through private donations: we did Kickstarter, Indiegogo, threw parties, did church lectures, you name it.
We were well into post-production when we got our first grant — the Sundance Institute. We about fell off our chairs when that happened. We still faced a lot of rejection, but fundraising became easier after that, and eventually we got grants from the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Carpenter Foundation, and several others. When we were in the advanced editing stage, Latino Public Broadcasting, ITVS, and POV came on board as co-producers, and that closed our budget.
It wasn’t just about the money, though. We also had some incredible mentoring and lab support. My editor Hannah Buck and I were able to really experiment at a joint residency at the MacDowell Colony, and we participated in some wonderful labs: Firelight Media’s Documentary Lab, IFP’s year round Doc Lab, and the Sundance Institute Edit and Story Lab. These programs did so much for us in terms of mentoring, feedback, and networking support.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
CA: Best advice: Take breaks, be nice to the people who love you even when you’re struggling, and learn to accept your mistakes with dignity. I’m still working on all of them.
Worst advice: To remove a scene I knew was central. I’m happy to say I kept it.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
CA: Trust your instincts. Don’t be too nice or accommodating.
Hire diverse crew whenever possible — the numbers are worse for filmmakers of color than women, so try to think intersectionally. If you succeed, use your power to make filmmaking more equitable for everyone else. Be loyal. Be honest. Be a bad ass.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
CA: Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels” will always be at the top for me. It’s an exercise in endurance to watch a woman massage meatloaf for 30 minutes. But it’s totally radical, and it tells us something massively important about the drudgery of domestic work. I gave it to my mother, who was a stay-at-home mom, on DVD one Christmas, thinking she would hate it. It rocked her world.
W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film screen at an LGBT festival?
CA: “Memories of a Penitent Heart” had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, which gave us really incredible exposure and made it possible for us to screen the film for a New York audience, which was really important to me. But at LGBT festivals, I can take the film to the people who relate to the film most intensely. The Q&As are deep and long, and very healing.
