The Film Verdict: Sex at a mature age is not a usual subject in movies. How did you come to it?
Patricia Ortega: I was inspired by my mother and my grandmother, both very traditional women. I took care of my mother for two years, due to an illness. When I was tidying up and cleaning her room just to make her more comfortable, I found a photo of her in her youth, naked. Until that moment I had not thought of her in that regard. After that we had a very intimate conversation. Years before, my grandmother had told me that, for her, sex and pleasure meant nothing. From there came the idea, the inspiration, and it evolved into a fictional story.
TFV: In the press material there is the photograph of your mother. What does she think of this?
PO: Mommy is a traditional woman but she is used to the fact that I can come up to her with anything. When I started writing I told her, “Look Mommy, I’m going to have to use your photo, because it’s perfect for the pitch.” And she told me “but the whole world will see me naked!” And I told her, “Yes, but nobody knows you. If you didn’t make it public when you were young, make it public now so they can see what you looked like.” She laughed and gave me permission to use it.
TFV: In Mamacruz, there is only one male character – Eduardo, Cruz’s husband – and he doesn’t weigh much in the storyline. Why?
PO: My writing is something very personal, from the point of view of my experiences, and it was difficult to write the Eduardo’s character, exceedingly difficult! I don’t know what it’s like to have a family with a male figure. I lived all of my life with my grandmother, and she ran the house. I had to do a lot of research and started working from a disconnect.
I was interested in working with Cruz at this stage of her life, when she loves her husband, but more like a brother. She attempts to get closer and since that leads nowhere, she breaks free and pursues her own fantasy. For me that was the most important thing to say: our body is a being capable of satisfying its own desires. We do not need another person.
Emigration has taught me that I can be happy being alone, by myself without my family, without my house, without all that a home means to me. So after a while, you understand that happiness lives in your own body.
I was not looking to make a film about a couple, but about self-discovery.
TFV: In Mamacruz there is a group of women that seem quite comfortable talking about sex. They are from a generation where sex wasn’t talked about; how did you manage to create this ease?
PO: I did the casting from improvisation. I made a profile for each character, and every woman improvised a monologue based on that profile. This helped me to see their capacity as actresses to represent a character and also to establish an affective bond, the empathy that the woman present could establish with the character we were creating.
TFV: There is a scene in which the women smoke, it is very dreamlike and it seems that they are smoking opium and not marijuana. Was this the desired effect?
PO: Yes, it was! There was nothing structured. We did an improvisation, and I told the women, “This is a journey in which each of you may bring out your own sexual fantasy.” I had written the fantasies but then I told them “add what you like to it”. The woman who says “I’m with two Black men, one in front and one behind…” I didn’t write that. We did the staging with a handheld camera, I played very soft music as a background, and we did it in two parts. The first part was with them dancing, touching, caressing themselves or each other, and the camera moved as if looking for them, for a face, for hands… Then we recorded the monologues separately and edited them. It was an experience that transcended smoking a joint; it was a connection with themselves.
TFV: Why do all the conversations – even confession in church – go unfinished?
PO: Because there are always things unsaid, even when you are making a documentary. Cinema is there to ask questions, not offer any answers. I am interested in leaving a third possible way. What will happen to Cruz and her husband? I don’t know. Will they ever say what they have to say? I don’t know. I hate it when a film tells me everything because that leaves no space for me as a spectator to dialog with what I’m seeing.
TFV: What was it like working with Kiti Malver, an established actress?
PO: Working with her was very easy. I am very grateful for been able to have Kiti! She is a very disciplined and super respectful person, she is aware of what it is to make a movie, not only from the creative point of view but also from needs a production has. She does a super disciplined job with the script, text and subtext. Even the gestures. That was before the shooting. I knew that Kiti would become Mamacruz as soon as she arrived to the set – all we had to do was wait for the magic to happen.
