– The Spanish director talks about limitations, intimacy, brotherhood and the desire for visibility as he presents his new film, shot in a Guatemalan shelter
Shelter [+see also:
film review
interview: Adrián Silvestre
film profile] is the latest work from Spanish director Adrián Silvestre (My Emptiness and I [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adrián Silvestre
film profile], Sediments [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adrián Silvestre
film profile], May Your Will Be Done [+see also:
film review
interview: Adrián Silvestre
film profile]). The film has been premiered at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival and will soon be screened at the Guadalajara Documentary Festival in Mexico. Silvestre spoke to us about the complex process behind its creation.
Cineuropa: In Shelter, you have been a producer, director, screenwriter, and even editor.
Adrián Silvestre: It felt like a return to my roots, to when I produced my first two films and had to do everything myself. Shelter came from a commission at a moment in my life when I had both the time and the desire to take it on. I was invited to make a documentary with complete creative freedom, as long as it related to the reality of the LGBTQI+ community in Central America. I spent some time researching who could be portrayed and discovered a shelter in Guatemala for people who had fled their countries because of violence and were trying to reach the United States. But with Trump’s new immigration policies, they were automatically deported. Unable to return home, they were left in limbo. There are still places, organisations and people with a spirit of solidarity who offer them a refuge that goes far beyond simple shelter — a place of listening, love, care and guidance. These are things all humans need, and that’s what drew me to this story: the idea that tomorrow it could happen to any of us.
This is an ensemble feature film, like Sediments, centred on a group of people who have something in common and live together.
Yes, there are similarities with Sediments. My experience on that film helped me structure and organise myself for this new adventure, which has been the most unstable and unpredictable shoot of my life, because I don’t live in Guatemala. When I arrived, I only had a month and a half to return to Spain with a finished film. We’re talking about very vulnerable people — people who are here today and don’t know where they’ll be tomorrow, who don’t know me well enough to trust me immediately, to tell me their stories or travel with my team. As in Sediments, we were a small crew: four technicians and myself. But until I arrived in Guatemala, I had no idea who was living in that shelter. I didn’t know whether there would be 25 people or two, or whether they would want to take part in a film or send me packing. Fortunately, four of them wanted to participate.
And how did you achieve the level of closeness we see on screen, with such intimate conversations?
As soon as I woke up — at three or four in the morning — I would go with them. I cooked and ate with them, like any other friend, because that’s the key to making this kind of film. And in trying to find what we had in common, the shadow of colonialism reappeared, though from a more contemporary perspective. You can never fully shake that feeling when you’re filming in these contexts, because it repeats itself whenever production companies from Europe, the United States or elsewhere go to those countries to tell their stories; that utilitarian factor is present. For me, it’s essential to strip myself of that in order to work freely. When you’re trying to create something so intimate, you constantly feel indebted, as if you have to apologise for everything, as if you don’t have a legitimate place there. That’s why I would have liked to have had more time. With Sediments, I had five years to get to know the protagonists. With Shelter, I would have loved the same. Even so, we managed to build a relationship: we formed a small family that still exists today, and I continue to speak with them every week. This is a film made to raise awareness, to spark dialogue.
Despite the struggles the protagonists have gone through, there is light, humour and hope in this feature.
I think they are the most vulnerable people I have ever worked with, so I needed to find moments of hope and touches of humour — a way to have fun together before moving into more dramatic territory.
(Translated from Spanish)
