:: IFFK 2008 ::

“These are my childhood memories,” declares filmmaker Mariana Rondon when speaking of her film Postcards from Leningrad (Postales de Leningrado). Indeed, the first thing that strikes the viewer about the film is how closely she understands the mind of a child and how well she is able to visually translate it. Simple devices like animation are used to reflect a child’s psyche. Inspired by Rondon’s childhood in the Venezuela of the 1960s, the film is narrated from the point of view of a young girl and her cousin, children of guerrilla rebels. The film captures the lives of villagers who are sympathetic to the cause of the guerrillas.

Speaking at an open forum after the first screening of her film in Kerala, Rondon emphasized that the discordant structure of her film is essential because that is how a child would remember the past. I got a chance to interview her personally about her film, the technology she used, and her insistence on directing her own scripts.

AD: Your film reflects on a conflict situation, but doesn’t take any sides. Was that a deliberate decision?

MR: My film is about war from the point of view of children. It’s the infancy that touched me. The adults are the ones who make the decisions and I had to go through it. There was no choice. Children don’t take a stand and neither does cinema. I can speak a lot about the guerrilla part of it, but that is not what my film is about. How one sees it is what my film is about.

AD: Since the film is based on your own experiences, was the process of making it difficult?

MR: I had been thinking of making it for the past 20 years, but could not find a way to say it. Then I realized that there is only one way of saying it – as I remember it. It is not possible to say it from the outside.

AD: Speaking of the structure of the film, were you afraid that the lack of a chronological order and fragmented time would make it difficult for an audience to follow it?

MR: Yes, I was a bit scared. (Laughs.) But my line of baiting the public was an emotional, not an intellectual one. Yes, at times the time changes are confusing, but I have left markers in the time elapses. A sharp eye can see them. If you really care, you will see that.

AD: The technology you have used in filming is unusual.

MR: Well, I felt that since the story is based in the 1960s, I had to recreate the times. That is why I used 16 mm film and even the animation in the film is crude. That was the level of animation in the 1960s.

AD: The use of color in the film is intriguing. Was the emphasis on color deliberate?

MR: Yes, I worked on the script three times and worked with the theme of the script to over-emphasize the colours, but after a point it is not conscious. Venezuela is like this. You know, initially I thought of making the film in black and white, but then I thought that is not the reality of my country or the story.

AD: In general, you only direct films where the script is written by you. Why is this so?

MR: Because it doesn’t interest me, what somebody else writes. Cinema is an instrument to show your world – I have a vision. People ask me, why don’t you make a film on the works of Gabriel García Márquez? But that is not my vision.

AD: What are the other projects you are working on?

MR: Currently, I am the producer of a film. I also have another script in mind. This time, I won’t try a film with multiple story-lines (laughs), so the audiences don’t complain.