LAFF | Crossing Borders for Water:  “Rehje” Directors Anais Huerta & Raúl Cuesta

We instantly got along with Antonia. She told us about her problems and her dreams, and invited us in her village. At the end of this trip, we knew that this was the story we were looking for, and we had a clear vision of the other topics that we would explore through her life: what it is like to be an Indian, to be a woman, to be an immigrant.  Our objective was to deal with the problem of water through the story of Antonia, the story of a journey of a woman who is aware she cannot come back home.

How did you approach making the film, and were there any pivotal moments of learning during the life of the project for you?

While we were filming, the personality and the internal conflict facing Antonia became the main theme of the film. Whereas water scarcity is an abstract issue, Antonia’s pain and feelings were real, deep, strong.  During the editing process, we found it difficult to put aside the problematic of water. Many documentarists face such issues: reality constantly impacts and modifies your work, and you need to adapt and change the structure of the film several times.  When editing, it was difficult to deal with the different aspects of Antonia’s life whithout compromising the unity of the film.

Two filmmakers, Paula Markovitch and Carolina Rivas, provided us with some valuable advice and helped us build the last cut’s structure. 
In order to be faithful to Antonia’s personal tone, we chose to use her voice to narrate the story.  Her life is narrated through her voice over, and she sometimes faces the camera.  We wanted to create empathy and understanding.  We did not want to film a political pamphlet. The problems that we wanted to unveil are highlighted in the content of the documentary. Our aim was to bring human dimensions to and deeper insight into what is currently an abstract problem.

What were some of the biggest challenges in making the film?

Being self-taught has been a mixed blessing. You feel free and passionate, but you suffer from lack of experience. Learning how to write a screenplay, supervise a team, and edit a movie takes time and requires maturity. Filming a movie means facing your own fears and insecurity, but also enables you to learn a lot about yourself and about human relationships.

The toughest part in filming was to work with other people and communicate our ideas about the movie to them. Our relation with Antonia and our point of view were very personal.  It was not easy to make her and the other subjects understand precisely what we wanted.  However, Antonia and her family were very cooperative and enthusiastic and we built a strong friendship together. We lived something like a catharsis together. Through Antonia’s story we dealt with our own loneliness, our own fear of being uprooted. Filming is a great way to get to know yourself while sharing something strong with others.

Are there any interesting anecdotes from the shoot?

Before the shoot we thought that Antonia would come back to her hometown and leave the city definitely.  But after a week in her village, Antonia had a sort of existential crisis.  She realized that she couldn’t adapt herself to this new life, and she missed her sons and felt uprooted from her community.  It was a very difficult and painful moment for her, and it wasn’t easy for us to understand what was happening. After a few hours of uncertainty we talked, and we told her that whatever she decided it was her story we wanted to tell. Finally “Rehje” ends with her decision to come back to Mexico City, the strength of reality overcomes our illusions.

What other genres or stories would you like to explore?

Nowadays, we are interested in working with this particular feeling of being uprooted, and we are interested in identity changes caused by migration in the countries we live in.

What other projects are you looking to do?

At the present time we have created a production company, Amaina Producciones, and we are working on a multimedia project called “All Of Us” (“Todos Nosotros”) about the Mexican identity, both in Mexico and in the United States. It is a series of twelve 3 to 5 minute-long portraits of Mexicans. We are using photographs and animation.