Meet The Filmmaker– Maria Teresa Rodriguez
What is it about film that you are the most passionate about? In other words, why film and why documentary?
Why documentary? As a child, I was fascinated by history and personal stories; I was often found with my nose in a book- one series of books I remember devouring in elementary school (often to the detriment of my math homework) was the “Childhood of Famous Americans”. While I love literature, especially poetry, it’s the non-fiction stories that I’ve been most drawn to since I can remember. So it’s not surprising that I spend a good portion of my time now immersing myself in other people’s histories and lives- most recently focusing on untold stories of Latinos in the Americas- and figuring out how best to visually translate those stories to the screen. Documentary has taken me to places both emotionally, politically and geographically that I can’t imagine going in any other profession. It’s an honor – and a responsibility- to accompany my subjects on their journeys and to develop a relationship with them. And in documentary I have the ability to be a visual storyteller, while at the same time, hopefully creating change on a personal, and maybe even a political level. Ideally the stories and issues raised in my work will challenge the way an individual looks at an issue, a community, at themselves. So to answer the question, I’m passionate about the fact that film allows me to be an expansive storyteller- didn’t Eisenstein call it the greatest of the art forms? It certainly is one of the most collaborative, and in the best collaborations lie untold possibilities.
Which artists have inspired you the most in your life/career?
A difficult question! I have so many influences from artists in different disciplines, and perhaps as much influence from people who don’t consider themselves artists. My parents came to the US to begin anew from Colombia and Ireland, and as their first “American” born child, their stories and lives have influenced me in a myriad ways. As a teenager I spent many hours in the theater (the role I remember most vividly is Emily from “Our Town”), and I thought that was where I would make my home until I took a film course my senior year in high school- which changed everything. The university I went to didn’t offer production courses, so as an undergraduate, I spent hours tucked away in the campus movie theater, taking every film analysis course that was offered-reading, writing, watching, reading, writing and watching again. I remember being enthralled by Maya Deren, Vertov, Brackage, Fassbinder, Truffaut, and so many others. I immersed myself in art history (falling in love with the Baroque), Latin American history (it was the 1980’s, – watching history as it was unfolding) and English literature (modern American poets, and Anglo Irish literature). And although I was disappointed at the time not to be making films (I had to wait until graduate school), I realize that it was a blessing in disguise: my base in the humanities is my base as a filmmaker.
When did you decide to make ¿Dónde Están?
I decided to make ¿Dónde Están? in 2007, when my co-producer Kaye Pyle approached me with the idea of making a documentary about the disappeared children in El Salvador. It was fortuitous timing as I had just finished a project, and the subject matter appealed to me on various levels. Through personal stories, I saw the possibility of not just highlighting the plight of children who were separated from their families during the war, but exploring the ramifications of that separation and the government policies after the war. It occurred to me that the US mainstream media had devoted very little time to El Salvador since the Peace Accords of the 1990’s, despite the fact that over a quarter of the Salvadoran population now resides in the US. I also thought that the program could speak on a very personal level to those Latinos whose families have been torn apart by war and forced economic migration, and who now live a transnational existence. Most importantly the documentary could explore the question that many Latinos grapple with: how does a country, a family, an individual, really transition from war to peace?
Who do you hope your film will reach when it’s complete? What kind of impact do you hope to have?
KAYE AND MARIA: The U.S. government was complicit in the human rights abuses in El Salvador, so we think it’s important that we as U.S. citizens take a new look at that – as a history lesson but also as a reminder that a moral compass can be overridden by politics but not destroyed. It’s important that Salvadorans, especially youth, both in El Salvador and those living in the U.S., know what happened; because of the lack of independent press in El Salvador, even people living there during the war didn’t necessarily know about the human rights issues unless a friend or family member disappeared or was tortured or murdered. The transition from war to real peace is a long process, requiring multiple actors, with the possibility of redress always there, even if only at the edge of memory. We hope that people will be inspired to revisit that time as a springboard to the present, through discussions within families, communities, work groups, schools and religious centers; to address the specific situations related to the film but also to extrapolate to other related issues like immigration reform, family reunification, cultural identity, economic opportunities and rule of law.
It’s easy to keep going when things are going well. What keeps you going when things are difficult?
Belief in the project itself keeps me going when things get difficult. Documentary filmmaking is not for the faint of heart. It’s all about perseverance- and the belief that the story we have invested years in, is a story that deserves to be told.
As we reach the end of the decade and look back on the changes that have occurred in the world of documentary film, can you identify a film or an event that changed the way you thought about documentary?
One moment that stands out for me -although not recent- is watching Michael Apted’s “28 Up” on PBS with my father one Sunday afternoon when I was in high school. I remember being captivated by many of the subjects and struck by the possibilities of personal stories to comment on larger social forces- possibilities in documentary that I had never considered before. It was a life changing moment, and unlike anything I had seen to date when I was 17.