Máquinas de palabras

In Spain during civil war, a seminarian, Teo, is assigned to a small, remote fortress on the top of the mountain. Teo has to share a tiny place with Silverio who is already stationed there. They argue with each other over all aspects, including their personality, values and way of living. As time passes they come to understand each other and strike the subtle balance of everyday lives together. But the balance starts to shake when Solska, a wounded militia woman, comes and lives with them.

What do you think is the desire of every human being?

From the 3rd to the 5th of November 2008, 60 median strips erased by the passage of time were repainted in the former Panama Canal Zone.

From the communal future, a woman recalls the words of her ancestors, women warriors who gathered to record their words about community service. At the same time she questions her own future: Will we ever stop fighting? Does anyone care what we say?

A group of children hold hands in a circle. The child in the middle plays the lamb, the one outside is the wolf. The wolf tries to catch the lamb by breaking through the human fence, but the kids crouch quickly down, blocking him with lowered arms. If the wolf does breach the circle, the lamb can duck out of it, while the kids now try to keep the wolf imprisoned inside. At times the cheeky lamb provokes the wolf, rushing out of safety almost into his path and darting back in. The lamb may be caught, ending that round of the game, inside or outside the fold; but these kids prefer close shaves, the dramatic prolongation of suspense.

A piñata is a papier-mâché figure stuffed with sweets. Common at birthdays in urban patios, here we find it in a field, where a garish Superman dangles between tall poles on a rope jerked by an adult, to make hitting harder. Each player is blindfolded and spun around several times before attempting to hit the piñata with a long stick. The kids’ wild swinging is directed by the shouts of friends, while the allotted time of each turn is counted down in a singsong about finding and losing one’s way. Fierce blows are dealt with varying accuracy until the piñata is fully smashed open and its sweets shower to the ground, leaped on by all the kids at once. The hollow, punctured figure is triumphantly dismembered.

The game is filmed from above in a single take, emphasizing the inexorable process of subtraction. Six children place five chairs in a row, facing in alternate directions. When the music starts, the players skip one behind the other around the chairs. When the music stops, everyone scrambles to occupy the nearest chair and one person is left standing. The loser carries a chair away, stomping out of shot to the left. The music starts again, and so it goes on until the winner claims the last chair. Then there is only an empty space.

A 10-year-old boy in a pink salwar kameez stands near a dune-coloured wall under a powder-blue sky. He frowns and gesticulates, conversing in stops and starts with the heavens or at least with the gusting wind because you don’t see his kite at first, and the string is so fine you can’t see that either. What you see is a body interacting with unknown forces, pulling to the left, the right, up, down, quick, over to the left again, and so on. Here is not only the body of the boy but the body of the world in deft mutual mimesis, amounting to ‘the mastery of non-mastery’ which is the greatest game of all: a guide, a goal, a strategy –all in one– for dealing with man’s domination of nature (including human nature). Afghan kite fighters often attach small blades to their kite strings, or coat them with ground glass and glue, the better to down their opponents’. Under the Taliban, kite-flying was banned.

Mexico 1968.

A 16mm film performance draws inspiration from the Nanacatepec, a rock traversed by a network that extends without a defined shape. Its fruits, in the form of mushrooms, serve as creators and transformers of everything in the world.

Pulsos Subterráneos is a subjective recording in 16 mm of the experiences of defense and resistance in the territory, culture and life of two communities in Mexico: Vetagrande in Zacatecas and Capulalpam in Oaxaca, facing the mining business.

Portrait of an old Mexico City neighborhood in the verge of gentrification.

The historical Estudios Churubusco lab, where golden era Mexican films were processed in the 1950s, is still open, pretty much untouched. This film is a desperate and loving attempt to keep memory of the people, knowledge and objects that coexist in this space, that risks closing at any time. Lab workers participated in the shoot as animators, actors and technical advisors.