By Alonso Aguilar
The night before the first showing of Entre tú y Milagros as part of the Orizzonti Short Films Competition at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, director Mariana Saffon spoke with TropicalFRONT about the different layers of her film—one of the few Latin American projects to be featured in this edition of the festival and the eventual winner of the Orizzonti Award For Best Short Film.
There seems to be a trend in Latin American cinema towards more personal narratives. Do you see Entre tú y Milagros as part of that vein?
Traditionally, Colombian films had just “the one topic”, which was narcos and guerrilla violence. It’s important to reflect upon those things, but at the same time, I think there is a variety of other concerns equally central to being Colombian that weren’t being put on screen. In the last couple of years, Colombian filmmakers like Franco Lolli (Litigante), Fernando Trueba (El olvido que seremos), and Daniel Abad (The Smiling Lombana) have shown that there’s much more to Colombian cinema. There are new points of view and sensibilities, and I feel Entre tú y Milagros is also an example of that.
The film is indeed introspective in its approach, but at the same time, it doesn’t shy away from portraying a context of social inequity and violence. How do you work towards finding that balance?
The story has a lot of references to my own personal experiences. Although it’s focused on a mother-daughter relationship, the context in which I grew up leaks through. I’ve always questioned the type of social dynamics that we as a society have normalized. The way we look down to those called “the help” and the painful limits we put forward to anyone that doesn’t fit with how we project ourselves to be. The film isn’t approaching traditional violence directly, but there is this whole other layer, more subtle and ingrained, which comes to the forefront.
You’ve mentioned the personal layer that marks the whole project. Why do you feel portraying it as a coming-of-age story was the way to go?
When I look at the story of most of the directors that inspire me, I see a need to understand their beginnings...childhood, adolescence, those moments where we start to question the world around us. I wanted to do that, to rethink my own beginnings, and at the same time talk about the intricacies of Colombian society.
Entre tú y Milagros
The way in which you frame the low-income town of Ciudad Bolívar through sonic atmospheres and framing is very evocative. To what degree did you have those elements in mind when you were working on the script?
The process of making the film ended up determining the formal aspects of it. Our cast had no script. We just rehearsed different moments in the lives of the characters, so we couldn’t foresee how they would walk or where they would look. I wanted them to live in the scene organically, as their characters. I think that’s why at times the camera feels invasive, like it shouldn’t be there, and at others, it seems at a distance. I didn’t want “my voice as a director” to be featured in every frame; I preferred to have the camera flow with each of the characters’ movements.
I lived in that town for many years, so for me it was very important to capture those very specific sounds and the essence of those streets. The vivid memories of fireflies flying into the night and the non-stop barking of dogs ended up giving a real sense of place to the setting. We needed that in order to portray the isolation felt by Milagros when by herself in a farm in the middle of the night, or watching a group of strangers dancing in a town bar.
In terms of narrative, how do you build from the internal struggles of Milagros and those other challenges coming from the world around her?
It was essential to me that the film felt like real life. The films that leave a mark on me are more cumulative than narrative. Nathalie Álvarez, my fellow co-screenwriter, and I decided that we wanted to build from the different moments in the life of a teen in that context. Events didn’t need causality or a pay-off, they were just random vignettes that when put together gave a clear and deep emotional portrait.
I was particularly interested in the tension between mother and daughter. These are two women living very different stages of their lives. Milagros is just beginning her journey of self-discovery and liberation, while her mother thinks she has a last grasp on the vitality of youth before it fades away. They’re not in direct contraposition to each other, but their pursuits make them collide occasionally.
As a woman filmmaker portraying female desire in a socially turbulent context, did you approach the project with subversive intent?
I was very aware what I wanted to dispute. When I begin a project, I don’t really know the answers, but I need to put forward questions. That’s why I wanted to create these contradictions between characters and the usual expectations of society. The audience can fill in their own blanks with their preconceived notions of maternity, female sexuality, and social standings.
Cinema is cinema no matter who does it, but I can’t really escape my position as a woman. I don’t really think about it that much, I just am, but at the same time I know that it permeates the way I see things and how I frame them. At the end of the day, my sensibilities are my own, and I hope Entre tú y Milagros can be the first step to explore them in an audiovisual manner.
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Alonso Aguilar is a cultural journalist from San José, Costa Rica. He does editorial labor in Krinégrafo: Cine y Crítica and his writings have featured in Mubi Notebook, Bandcamp Daily, Film International, photogénie, Cinema Year Zero, Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine, La Nación and Revista Correspondencias.
