InSight

I spent yesterday morning in the nearby city of Pochutla with Miguel Ángel and Mariano, two young blind men that I met at Piña Palmera. Mariano works for the center and was giving Migue a tour of Pochutla and a lesson in urban orienteering. Lots of interesting dialouge and reactions from people in Pochutla made the shoot a very powerful experience in adition to its usefulness in telling these stories. I felt that Making Migue feel more comfortable in Pochutla was a good metaphor for what Mariano tries to do with Migue all the time.

In a similar vein, the more time I spend in Zipolite the more I realize that I am becoming part of the town. From the first day I spent here, from almost dying on death beach, I have felt a connection to the town. Until now though, it has always been internal. Now it is beginning to be externalized as people I don't know introduce themselves to me or I find myself welcome in places that I was not previously welcome. I remember the first time I went for a run on the beach and felt offended when I saw litter on the beach. People can sense that a bit, I think. It's funny how our intentions make us different people.

Two new characters

The more I try and make this film simple, the more complicated it becomes. It's as if there is always something just beyond my grasp smirking at me knowing that I can't comprehend it yet. But I see progress as well.

Today I met two important characters for the film- not just for background either- actual characters that I want to put in the film to tell this story. One is the oldest (and arguably the most hard-core) lifeguard in Zipolite. He told me that he used to do rescues with a buoy and that he swims (what I estimate to be) 10 km a day!
I also met the family of a young man that was a patient at Piña as a boy and then became a lifeguard in his twenties. The stories are amazing of him walking on his hands from his house to the beach to pull someone out of the waves and then come crawling out with the victim. I can not imagine what that must of looked like. In more ways than one, he acts as a bridge between important parts of this story So things here are always getting more interesting.

The General and the Specific

Lately, things have been moving very fast. I've started getting into interviews with some of the most important characters in the film, having established a general framework for the narrative arch and the important themes that I plan to touch on.

I recently realized something important partly on my own and partly by talking to my friend and compatriot Avishai, who has just arrived from DC and will be helping me out here for the next two months. I realized that whatever I present as Zipolite has the potential to be seen as a metaphor for Mexico. I think it is a natural tendency for us to draw parallels from the specific to the general when we see movies, and I feel like it is something that I could actually take advantage of. Why not make this film a comentary about Mexican society? All the powerful forces in this film (disabilities, tourism etc...) exist in other parts of the republic and their specific configuration in Zipolite says much more about the national culture than just this town. It is a culture of insensitivity towards people in wheelchairs that has resulted in there being almost no ramps in large cities or small towns ANYWHERE. Zipolite is an example of that.

Clearly Zipolite is a special place and I realize that. I wouldn't have chosen to make this film HERE if I didn't understand the uniqueness of this place. Nonetheless, Zipolite is a product of the people that made it and live in it.

Coming Soon

First version of a trailer. More to come.

Production stills as of January 2009.

The high tourist season is over here on Death Beach until Semana Santa in April.

2008 came and went without a single death on the beach, solidifying the first "saldo blanco" for the first time in Zipolite's history.

The lifeguards worked their butts off in December and January so far, keeping people from going in over the waist. I actually had a few people complain to me (because I follow the lifeguards with my camera and tripod up and down the beach all day) that they felt persecuted against and wanted to go swimming and not just wading in the water. It usually stops the complaining when I explain that deaths have dropped from 60 a year since the "Delfins" have been working.

My trips to two rural communities here on the coast proved to be quite fruitful in terms of developing the narrative structure of the film. Firstly, seeing the work that Piña does (rehabilitation based in the community, or RBC and the people that benefit from it was quite amazing. Education about disabilities is basicaly non existant in rural Oaxaca, as is knowlwedge about how to develop the abilities of people with downsyndrome or cerebral palsy or lack of hearing or sight. Flavia, the director of Piña and a big promotor of RBC plays the roles of therapist, parenting consultant and motivational speaker with people that have maybe never even gotten an official diagnosis of their child's disability.

Secondly, Piña´s emphasis on letting people with disabilities play important roles in the household and in the community, made me think imediately of the lifeguards. They constantly talk about the role that they play in Zipolite and the lack of apreciation that they feel. The give and take of interdependent relationships between the different sectors of a community popped out at me in both cases. The roles need to exist and they need to be apreciated just as much. Without either the people to fill them, or the motivation for the work to get done, the community loses.

So in this first month of 2009 I see my work begining to lay down in front of me brick by golden brick. There is a lot of ground to be covered, but I feel strong and I have friends with me, and on the horizon I can already see a glow of emerald green.

Filming

Lots of filming this week. I've been thinking about what it is I have to do, and have come to some interesting conclusions.

While initially I'm making a film, that does not really explain anything. Day to day, I'm recording images and sounds and then putting them into my computer to rearrange later with music and other elements.

In the moment, I have to keep in mind the thousands of little details required to get interesting shots: is my iris open enough? Can I hear whoever is taking without them blowing their levels? If no, why not? Is my shot crooked? And so on.

In between moments, I have to keep in mind the story and themes of the film. Is what I'm shooting really relevant to THIS film? Is there something I could do to change what I am seeing to make it relevant? That last question might make some film makers uncomfortable- changing reality can be a slippery slope. I decide case by case what to make of an image or a sentence. Sometimes though, changing an angle can make a big difference in the power of an action, for example. Or asking someone something can take the place of a voice over later on in post production. And if I am choosing to shoot something in the first place, chances are it has something to do with my idea for the film. So making that connection clearer doesn't change my intention.

In the editing suite, later on, the decisions are less immediate, but equally important. Especially when working with a 90:1 ratio of images shot to images used. Essentially, I find myself deciding how to represent what I see in an effective way using pictures and sounds of it. And there's a lot of it.