Queens World Film Festival 2019 – La Ciega
A blind mystic living in the shadow of the Spanish Inquisition finds the boundary between her visions and reality crumbling around her. A short film based on true events.
Interview with Directors/Writers Susannah Greenblatt and Raphael Linden
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
Susannah first came across María Cotnailla's story in the Inquisition Archives in Madrid, while doing research for her senior history thesis. The document had essentially been untouched for 350 years, but it was so incredibly full of life and imagination. The visual landscape of this blind woman's mystical vision world was so rich, and so in tune with Raphael's surrealist work in film, that we decided to team up to bring this woman's storytelling to the screen.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
This film is unusual because it tells a true story that is, in some ways, stranger than fiction. It's the story of a blind peasant woman, a self-proclaimed mystic, who was tried and convicted by the Spanish Inquisition in 1675 on charges of heresy for her mystical visions. We've reimagined the visions recounted by this woman, named María Cotanilla, in her trial; visions that are surreal, moving, wonderfully bizarre, and slightly disturbing at times. She was a remarkable storyteller with a powerful creative imagination. We like to think of ourselves as adapting her stories and artistry here. Everything seen in the film is based on an event or vision she recounted. To us, there's something here for everyone: for lovers of the surreal, visual experimentation, history, and forgotten stories.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
With this film, we've delved deeply into one peasant woman's story--a forgotten story, buried in the archives for centuries. And yet, it's striking and deeply exasperating how little has changed from 1675 to today in the lives of women. María was put on trial for daring to think and dream something different from the status quo. She was also interrogated by the Inquisition about her body, her sexuality, and a possible assault and abortion on Sept. 27th, 1675--343 years to the day before Dr Ford was called before the Senate Judiciary Committee this past fall. While the lack of progress is disturbing, it is also empowering to feel a sort of cross-temporal camaraderie between women and survivors of sexual assault. That's why we felt it was important to tell María's story; stories of people like her--of poor people, people with disabilities, survivors, and women--are still silenced to this day.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The character of María would not have been what she is without our lead actor, Olena Calderon. With her openness and insightfulness about her own experiences as a visually-impaired person, Olena helped us get closer to parts of María that we will never fully understand, from small details of daily life to life experiences and outlooks. Olena cohabitated the role with the historical María with such precision and grace, and she actively shaped and re-wrote the character with us.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
It's been so fascinating to hear what different viewers latch on to, what their questions and debates are, and where they draw the line between the character's visions and her reality. People have certainly been moved by Olena Calderon's performance (her first film acting performance, it should be mentioned), by how viscerally she's told this woman's story. We've received a lot of positive feedback about the cinematography (by Kelsey Talton) and the costumes and production design and art direction (by Kumie Asai, Mariah Rachel Burke, and Cornelia Lorentzen respectively). When people tell us that history felt surprisingly close to today's reality, it's very gratifying.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
While some viewers have really relished in the ambiguity of the line between vision and reality in the story, it's been interesting to see how much it can frustrate other viewers. They want answers from us about what "really" happened, but when you're working with trial documents (famous for conflicting accounts) and with mystical experiences, how can you know for certain what's "real"? It's been a really healthy challenge for us to advocate for the "realness" of someone's lived experience, even when there's no single, factual account.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We're hoping to draw more people in to see this film and join the conversations around it. It's certainly an unusual film, so we're very glad when people are eager to dive into it with us. We're always eager to talk to audience members and other filmmakers about the questions around the film, and beyond. We're also always hoping to meet more filmmakers, and expand our community.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We're hoping festival directors come on board. We are certainly hoping that La Ciega gets to reach festival audiences. We really want this story to be seen and heard. It's so crucial to show films where characters with disabilities are played by actors with disabilities. It's important to get films with thoughtful representation out into the world so that people realize how narrow representation in the film really is.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We hope that this film helps audiences feel closer to individuals who lived long before them. Even with all its surreality, we hope it makes very real how people have always had imagination and creative daring. We hope, also, that audiences come to see how relevant histories of authoritarian regimes are to our present moment. How there are still governing bodies seeking to squash out difference and creativity and daring--the very best things in our societies.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Early on we had a discussion about whether we were going to hire a blind or visually-impaired actor to play the lead role of María. We sat down and realized that we could barely name a single film with a visually-impaired actor in the lead role. We agreed that this was necessary to ensure our film would be careful and thoughtful in terms of representation. And that sparked other discussions with our friends at the Braille Institute of Los Angeles and with our lead actor about how to make our set safe, accommodating, and responsible.
Would you like to add anything else?
We really want to thank all of our Kickstarter backers and all our other supporters for making this project possible. We are so proud of what we've all made here and eager to see where it will go.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
We're working on developing the short into a feature script. We've been working on drafts, even before we began shooting the short. We're very eager to explore more of the story; this short only has room to tell a sliver of the full story.
Interview: March 2019
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
La Ciega
A blind mystic living in the shadow of the Spanish Inquisition finds the boundary between her visions and reality crumbling around her. A short film based on true events.
Length: 15:19
Director: Susannah Greenblatt, Raphael Linden
Producer: Rachel Day
Writer: Susannah Greenblatt, Raphael Linden
About the writer, director and producer:
SUSANNAH GREENBLATT and RAPHAEL LINDEN are writers based in Brooklyn. They met at Wesleyan University and have been collaborating ever since on writing, music videos, and short films. RAPHAEL was born in the Bay Area and grew up in San Jose, Costa Rica. He graduated with honors in film and creative writing in 2015. SUSANNAH grew up in New Jersey and graduated with high honors in history in 2016.
SUSANNAH also currently works as a translator and at a literary agency. Her work has been published in Words Without Borders, WWB Daily, and Lithub. La Ciega is based on her senior thesis. RAPHAEL works as a tutor and has been making films since age thirteen. His work has been screened at the Zilkha Gallery and the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, among other places.
RACHEL DAY's work in film began with Raphael’s thesis, Wald. Since then she’s worked as Head of Production for Illegal Civilization, producing short films Becoming Amine with Vevo and Summer of ’17 with The Fader, as well as Rex Orange County’s “Sunshine” music video. Outside of films, she has worked with the Center for Prison Education in Connecticut, the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles, and in live sound engineering and mosaic laying.
Key cast: Olena Calderon (María Cotanilla), Marián Aguilera (Ana Ruiz), Rachel Day (Virgin Mary), Luis Fernandez-Gil (Seducer), Heidi Mendez (Quitería), Vanessa Dorrei (Luisa), Gemma Alfaro (Talking Maiden), Mariah Rachel Burke (Silent Maiden)
Looking for: film festival directors, distributors, producers, journalists
Facebook: La Ciega
Twitter: @laciegafilm
Instagram: @laciegafilm
Hashtags used: #laciegafilm
Funders: Kickstarter
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Queens World Film Festival/Zuckor Theater at Kaufman Studios, Astoria, Queens, NY - Sunday, March 24th, 2019