Director and producer Fernanda Valadez’s short “400 Maletas” was nominated for a Silver Ariel and a finalist for a Student Academy Award. She produced Astrid Rondero’s “The Darkest Days of Us,” a film supported by Tribeca Film Institute, Berlinale Talents, and Women in Film, which was nominated for two Silver Ariels. As a producer, Valadez is preparing “Sujo,” a new collaboration with Rondero.
“Identifying Features,” or “Sin Señas Particulares,” will premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on January 25.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
FV: “Identifying Features” is a road movie. It’s the story of Magdalena, a woman who embarks on a journey to find her missing son, a Mexican migrant lost on his way to the U.S. border. On this journey, she meets a young man who’s been deported from the United States. They travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and him hoping to see his mother again.
Although the story is basically a drama that deals with issues that I believe are relevant in Mexico — violence, enforced disappearances, and migration — I tried to give the film the sensation of a thriller. It’s more lyrical than naturalistic. I wanted to capture the feeling of dealing with a dangerous reality that surpasses our understanding, but at the same time, leaning on an emotion that’s easy to relate to: the love of a mother for her son. What she finds in the end is the comment I’m trying to make with this film.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
FV: For more than 10 years now we’ve been experiencing a crisis of violence in Mexico. It’s a very complex phenomenon that involves drug trafficking, human trafficking, oil trafficking, migration, corruption, disparity, and social injustice, among other factors. Besides that, I come from a region in Mexico that expels many of its young people: they leave for the U.S. looking for a better future.
I think this film is my attempt to understand and process all of the violence that we have been experiencing through a story that feels familiar: the love we can share for each other.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
FV: Beyond thinking, I would like them to feel that the differences that we believe separate us—such as good and evil and victims and perpetrators—are not so easy to define. That those borders live within ourselves, and depending on the circumstances, we can cross them.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
FV: The writing process had its challenges. Even though I came up with the general elements of the story early in the process, it took me a while to find the tone and the structure that I felt communicated the emotion I was looking for. I was fortunate to co-write with Astrid Rondero, who is also the main producer and my creative partner from a while back. Having her as a teammate really helped me distinguish what I had to keep from what I had to let go.
The biggest challenge was the financing process. Our cash flow was very tight and we had to adapt our initial production plan to correspond with what we finally raised. The irony is that those limitations made the project grow. They made me change my approach in almost every sense, and forced me to really think about what I needed in order to tell this story.
After that process, the narrative of the film leaned more and more on what was beyond the frame — what we don’t get to see. I believe that helped me build the sensation of helplessness, of a journey into the unknown. It was serendipity. I was lucky.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
FV: In Mexico, most of the films are financed, at least partially, by public funds. And this film is not an exception. I’m a partner of the production companies Corpulenta and EnAguas Cine, and with them, we applied to Mexican film funds. We were very lucky to receive FOPROCINE (Fund for the Production of Quality Cinema). The difficulties we encountered came from the fact that public funding has been dropping, and the year we applied, the funds for first features were reduced by 50 percent with no warning whatsoever. So we completed our budget with co-productions and in-kind contributions. The state of Guanajuato, where I was born and where we shot most of the film, was very generous.
An important factor in the making of this film was that we found help from small companies that lent us some equipment. So we really tried to go with the flow, making the best of each piece of equipment. The exact same thing happened with locations, writing, and rewriting. We were able to prioritize my time with the actors, the light, and weather we needed. That was also possible because we really were a small crew. We shot during 9 weeks in the course of a year, and in some of them, it was only the cinematographer, Claudia Becerril, the producer, Astrid Rondero, who had to function as sound recordist on those occasions, one or two of the actors, and myself.
I need to say that my family, especially my mother, was a key element of the financing in terms of finding in-kind contributions in the communities of Guanajuato. We found that filmmaking can be an exciting journey for the people that knew you when you were a kid.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
FV: I’m originally a graduate of philosophy and Latin American studies, but I found that the way I wanted to express myself wasn’t through concepts. I wanted to get closer to emotions, and that was through storytelling. At some point I wasn’t sure if I mainly wanted to be a writer or not. It took me a while to convince myself that film was the way to go.
After a brief encounter with a production team, I discovered I loved being surrounded by people on a film set as much as the solitude of creating a story on paper, an experience that turns again into the messiness of a long shooting day and the catching of the bits and pieces that will become a film. For me, filmmaking is like building something out of nothing. It’s like being in two complementary and radically different ways of being. That’s why I also love being a producer.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
FV: The best advice, probably, is to trust your gut. And to let yourself and your teammates be playful.
The worst advice is that you need a very experienced producer to make a film. You don’t.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
FV: To work with people that believe in you, and most of the time that’s people from your own generation that have something to gain by working with you. The capacity to inspire others is the fuel to a great collaboration. I learned that from Astrid, my producer and co-writer.
Also, and I don’t know if this is useful in the U.S., but it has worked for me: to see yourself as a producer and be involved in the financing and the budgeting, in the decision-making of the whole production in a practical way. I believe it’s a complete lie that directors shouldn’t worry about production issues. In my view, that’s not only impractical but becomes a handicap, especially for minority and female directors. I believe if you are one of the production heads, you will always know where the money comes from. And nobody can take the know-how away from you.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
FV: It’s very difficult to pick only one film, there are many I love. But there’s one I turned to for inspiration for this story: “The Ascent” by Larisa Shepitko. It’s a film in a historical context — the German occupation of Belarus during WWII in a terrible winter — but all the external elements become an expression of the emotional landscapes and conflicts of the characters. It really amazes me what Shepitko accomplished with “The Ascent.” It’s a very powerful film.
W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
FV: The main difference, I believe, is that our colleagues, both male and female, have stopped thinking that feminism is a bad word. Our generation is the direct result of those who struggled before us. And we had forgotten that. When you look back, it’s easy to forget that when our grandmothers were born — in Mexico, at least — they weren’t allowed to vote. Now, we are making films.
Gender disparity is still happening, of course: for female filmmakers it’s harder to advance and we have to make a home run every time, whereas our male colleagues only have to make it to first base to keep playing ball. We are recognizing that and we are changing that.
