Student short marks directorial debut for Mexican women duo
- casfreelancer
- Dec 23, 2015
- 2 min read
Verónica Jessamyn López Sainz and Andrea Fuentes Charles make their film directorial debut at Sundance 2016 with a documentary short film. The filmmakers made ‘Bajo las Brasas’ (Beneath the Embers) in their last year of college earlier this year.
‘Bajo las Brasas’ (Beneath the Embers) follows Isabel, a young woman from the sierra mountains of the Mexican state of Guanajuato, who is motivated by the love of her family and has learned that she must sacrifice her present in order to value tomorrow’s success and achieve her dreams. López Sainz and Fuentes Charles, both 22, co-wrote the screenplay.
The female duo lead a team of nine students who aspired to make movies in spite of filmmaking not being offered at their private school, the Universidad de La Salle - Bajío in the city of León, said López Sainz in an interview with the new website Zona Franca. The co-directors recently graduated with degrees in communications science.
The youths presented a proposal to the Guanajuato International Film Festival through the training program and competition Identidad y Pertenencia (Identity and Belonging). Once accepted, they used both film equipment from their university and their very own to complete the short, according to López Sainz. She also said that the project originally focused on the traditional trade of making vegetable carbon in the state’s sierra. But then, the story shifted to a young woman from those mountains, Isabel Chía Chía, who happened to be also a student at La Salle majoring in civil engineering. Isabel’s drive and personal sacrifice to pursue her dream moved the filmmakers so much they decided focus on her while at the same time keeping the theme of vegetable carbon in the background, according to the film director. ‘Beneath the Embers' is the only short from Mexico and Latin America competing in the short doc category. Other members of the 'Bajo las Brasas' production team are: Susana Conejo Ruíz, producer; Miriam Estefania Balderas Castillo, assitant producer; Julio Abraham Padilla Sánchez, photographer; Amalinalli Tecuapetla Elizalde, assistant photographer; Marco Antonio Mercado Estrada, sound producer; Stephanie García Mata, assistant sound producer; and Alan Martínez Lino, postproduction supervisor.
OTHER DOC SHORTS The film competes in a field 18 doc shorts from the US and all over the world
The other films are: “Another Kind of Girl” (Jordan)
“Bacon & God's Wrath” (Canada) “Chekhov” (U.S.) “Entrapped” “U.S.) “Figure” (Poland, Belgium) "Flower of a Thousand Colours" (Begium)
“Jáaji Approx.” (U.S.) “I Am Yup'ik” (U.S.)
“Mining Poems or Odes” (United Kingdom, Scotland) “Peace in the Valley” (U.S.A.)
“Roast Battle” (U.S.) “The Saint of Dry Creek” (U.S.)
“The Send-Off” (U.S.)
“The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere” (U.S.A.) “Speaking is Difficult” (U.S.)
“Territory” (United Kingdom)
“A Woman and Her Car” (Canada)
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