Pilar Moreno is a visual artist from Spain and based in Panama, whose art projects address social and political issues. Her previous credits include documentaries “Reinas” — which she produced — and “The Joy of Sound,” as a writer. “For Your Peace of Mind, Make Your Own Museum” is her directorial debut.

Ana Endara is the director of the award winning documentary “The Joy of Sound,” which premiered at the IDFA Competition for Mid-Length Documentary, and “Reinas.” Her other credits include “Curundú,” and short film “Wata,” which she co-directed. Her work shares different perspectives on society in Panama, where she was born, and explores the sense of belonging.

“For Your Peace of Mind, Make Your Own Museum” is screening at the 2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival, which is taking place April 28-May 8. Find more information on the fest’s website.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

PM & AE: “For Your Peace of Mind, Make Your Own Museum” is a hybrid film in which artistic creation occupies a fundamental place and mixes elements of fiction and documentary. It takes place in a small town in the interior of Panama and portrays the ghost of an old woman named Senobia Cerrud who decided, a long time ago, to transform her house into the Museum of Antiquities of All Species. This portrait is conceived in a conceptual, extravagant, and poetic way, in a film narrated with humor and affection, which has a lot of artistic experimentation and places the elderly women of the Panamanian rural setting at the center of the story.

And it is a tribute to a very special artist, a visionary woman, outside her time and space, who created without having any formal education about art. She found a way to carry out her creative ideas, using any means at her disposal. An artist without realizing that she was one, and a feminist without even knowing the word, her artworks and her writings remain alive and powerful despite time.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

PM: For years I have been interested in the world of spontaneous creation, in artists who create out of pleasure and the need to do so, without following the rules of the art system. I wanted to talk about their stories, about how art that is born in this way can become a form of resistance.

I met Senobia and her museum years ago in the small town where she lived, and she made a very deep impression on me that stayed with me for years. She was one of the characters for the film that I proposed to Ana and when we found out that she had died and that her work was going to be lost, it seemed more important than ever to summon her to be the protagonist of this project.

AE: Pilar drew me to this story.

W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?

AE: We want people to think about the importance of art, about the importance of a room of one’s own, about their grandmothers.

PM: I think that when you finish any kind of artwork, it goes out into the world, and you can’t predict the response or what [audiences] will think when they see it. I also think that a finished film starts a dialogue with those who decide to see it. In this movie, we present things that seemed important to us, like having these old women occupy the screen with their stories, and also the idea of presence, of what remains when we are no longer there and the many forms that this can take.

“Do not forget: death does not interrupt anything” is a phrase from a poem that was an important engine for the film. Another important idea was to present Senobia’s feminist perspective on aging and her ideas about the right of older women to follow their lives in their own way, to humor, and to feel desire and love.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

PM & AE: The biggest challenge was that when we decided to contact Senobia we learned that she had died some years before and her museum was almost all gone. So we embarked on the adventure of filming a ghost and reconstructing her museum. Our motivation to do the film was not to make a biopic of Senobia, instead, we wanted to portray what is left behind after death: the influence she had on others, the resonance of her work on others.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made. 

PM & AE: Our movie was made possible mainly thanks to the Panamanian film fund — we obtained a prize to make a feature documentary film. We also obtained a development fund from Ibermedia [a program that supports co-productions within the Ibero-American audiovisual space]. And a post-production award from the CRFICC (Costa Rica Film Festival.)

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

AE: To make others feel the experience of inhabiting other lives, other realities, other worlds.

PM: It has always seemed to me that cinema is the most complete form of art. I love cinema. My greatest inspiration for wanting to become a filmmaker has been, without a doubt, having seen Ana’s work in that field up close and having the opportunity to learn from her.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

PM: The best: follow my instinct. It was recommended to me by a curator when I was starting to create and it has always worked. I don’t remember the worst, so I guess I didn’t pay much attention to it.

W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors? 

AE: We all have to believe that women can direct films and be artists anywhere in the world.

PM: Try to work with other women.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

AE: “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” by Céline Sciamma because she intended it to be a manifesto about the female gaze and it feels like a breath of fresh air that keeps the fire very much alive.

PM: “Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (The Gleaners and I)” by Agnès Varda. It was the first documentary that made me understand other possible ways of narrating in this genre.

W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?

PM & AE: Being able to keep creative was key to our mental health wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We finished filming our documentary in our house and edited the film during the lockdown in Panama.

W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color on screen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?

PM & AE: We think there is only one way to be more inclusive, and it is to be inclusive at all levels of participation. Including diverse people and stories in what we narrate is essential. But it is also crucial to include them in our teams and encourage others to do so on every occasion that we can.

Hollywood stereotypes can be terrible and it is important not to perpetuate them and initiate dialogues and work with groups that are poorly represented, to agree with them on the creation of new audiovisual representations of their experiences and stories. It is important to us to create with a feminist vision and we wish the production of films made from this perspective would be more supported.