Mexican-Bolivian Gallardo makes her feature directing debut on Competition selection Robe Of Gems after working as an editor on Amat Escalante’s Heli, Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja and Carlos Reygadas’s Post Tenebras Lux.
Using dream sequences, symbolism and realism, Gallardo connects the fates of three women in a rural setting framed by Mexico’s culture of violence: a bourgeoise mother visiting the family’s country villa, a housekeeper whose sister has gone missing, and a police officer whose son flirts with a life of crime.
Nailea Norvind and Juan Daniel Garcia Trevino from I’m No Longer Here star. Argentina’s Rei Cine is among the producers and Visit Films handles sales. The film next screens in Berlin on Monday (Feb 14).
In your research you spoke to people from rural communities near your home in the central state of Morelos, some of whose lives had been impacted by kidnapping. What was that like?
I remember driving home after interviewing mothers with missing children and I felt a guilt over the difficulty of feeling their pain. I also realised I didn’t want to do a film that was a political or social statement but something that reaches the spiritual wound and the psychological dimension of this problem Mexico faces.
It is so complex because in my research I realised the people that could participate in a kidnapping could also be a loving father sitting in front of me. I always imagine Mexico like a Hindu god with a lot of faces and arms like a very abundant being, very complex.
Your visual and sonic style is alarming, haunting, beautiful. What was your approach?
I appreciate the cinematic tools: the cut, sound, the internal rhythm that you can create within the shot, the dialogue and all the construction… We are used to a narrative system based on plot – we try to look for meaning in everything – and I believe cinema is more related to the experience of the moment. I shot with natural light. It took a long time to find the locations and the actors and I found that process as important as writing the script.
When and where did you film?
We filmed in the dry season in Morelos in early 2020 until the pandemic came and everything stopped on March 13. We continued a year later. That period [in between] was a blessing of editing because I had 75 percent of the film in my hands.
How did financing come together?
Most of the money is from Mexican state funds; they’re fighting for their lives now. Rei Cine came on as a co-producer, then Visit Films from the US and then some producer friends.
What do you hope that people will take away from the film?
You construct a jar and my desire is that they could fill that jar with their own subjectivity.
What does the title mean?
In Spanish it is “manto”, which is a geological term referring to a layer of the earth. I read about the Buddhist idea of reality, a robe of gems in which every gem reflects the other. It was very important to create a collective thing to talk about the community and how everybody is linked with each other and to call for empathy.
What’s next?
I want to do a film near the water inside the jungle.
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