By Karina Noelle Castillo
Mexican filmmakers, Mónica Álvarez and Paola Villaneuva unveil an intimate look at the story Día De Muertos: Lake Pátzcuaro.
The Short will screen at the San Diego International Film Festival Oct 15-20
These days, it isn’t a surprise that if you mention Dia De Los Muertos to your non-Latinx friend they will, at least in some small form, know to which holiday you are referring to. For decades the beautiful and sacred tradition of Day of the Dead influenced American culture through its colorful traditions, but very few people knew the actual reason behind them when celebrating what they called “Mexican Halloween”. Now, with films such as Coco and Book of the Dead reaching an audience of millions, Dia De Los Muertos is no longer influencing the mainstream. It is the mainstream.
Every year, tens of thousands of people flock to Hollywood Forever Cemetery where Los Angeles puts on an impressive fiesta filled with booths lining the road to the sacred resting place of the past inhabitants of California’s great city. People paint their faces, buy screen printed T-shirts, and watch as Danzantes perform their beautiful and intricate dances from our indigenous past. It’s an environment of fun and revelry, especially for those who are just visitors to this hallowed tradition.
Yet what isn’t often remembered by those who attend Hollywood Forever Cemetery (as beautiful as the event is), is the absolute reverence for this truly special holiday, and for the people who have come before us that we gather to celebrate. That is what Día De Muertos: Lake Pátzcuaro presents in its bite-size, and beautifully shot running time of just 0:5:21. Told by emerging Mexican filmmakers, Mónica Álvarez and Paola Villaneuva, the film unveils an intimate look at the story of Lake Pátzcuaro, a town located in Michoacán and known for its vibrant Día De Muertos festivities.
The film opens with the beating of drums signaling, like a precolumbian drumroll, the great mountains of Michoacan where their story takes place. As we follow the harvesters of Marigolds, we learn that the flower, also called the cempasuchil, represents the rays of the sun under which the men carry out their sacred task. Over the course of the film, we follow the marigolds on their path to the altar and all the stops along the way such as the preparation of the tradition Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead), the journey to the altars with the fisherman who guide the spirits home, and finally to the Noche De Muertos where the community celebrates their gone, but clearly not forgotten, loved ones.
As we see the community come together we remember that while face painting and drinking tequila is fun, Dia De Los Muertos is a real tradition, with real people, and real emotions. The people of Michoacan lovingly place candles and their loved ones’ favorite things in life to adorn their ofrendas. They also place, of course, the beautiful Marigold with which our journey through the film started with. They sing, and dance, and tell stories about the ones who were here before. Most importantly, what Lake Pátzcuaro leaves us with, in one woman’s emotional recounting of how losing someone you love impacts your life, are the real tears that are shed during this important day. Dia De Los Muertos offers an opportunity, each year, to allow ourselves to acknowledge the bittersweetness of our short existence on this earth and just how much beauty there is even after it is gone. That is why so many people connect to it from all over the world. That is why it’s a celebration.
Día De Muertos: Lake Pátzcuaro will screen at the San Diego International Film Festival (Oct 15-20) and the Morelia International Film Festival (Oct 18-27), but you can watch Álvarez and Villaneuva’s film on Cuervo.com .
ABOUT MÓNICA ÁLVAREZ – Director
Mónica Álvarez Franco (Mexico) is a screen writer and director. She holds a BA on audiovisual studies at the Centro de Arte Audiovisual en Guadalajara and an MA in Creative Documentary filmmaking by the Escuela Superior de Artes y Espectáculos TAI, in Madrid. Her first documentary film, Bosque de Niebla, premiered in 2017 at FICUNAM, received Honorable Mention and was later awarded Best Cinematography at the Downtown LA Film Festival. The film also participated in festivals such as SXSW, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Do Rio Festival, Morelia International Film Festival and Ambulante.
ABOUT PAOLA VILLANUEVA – Producer
With an MA in Documentary Filmmaking by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Paola Villanueva (Mexico) has developed a career as a producer for different clients such as Sprout Pictures, Cineflix and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Her passion for documentaries started in 2002 when she collaborated on the documentary film Welcome Mr. Postman with Danish director Madeleine Bondy that formed part of the official selection at the Pärnu Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival. In 2013 she directed and produced her first documentary, While Waiting, which was selected at the Guadalajara International Film Festival (2017), Raindance (2017) and the Malaga Film Festival (2018). After her debut as a director, she collaborated as a co-producer for the documentary Agave: The spirit of a Nation, that premiered at the SXSW in 2018 and is currently starting its distribution.