“If they are jealous and they get angry it’s because they love you. You just have to accept all the pain and give it to God,” Karen Vázquez Guadarrama (35) recites her grandmother’s words in a conversation with The Northern Times. “How far can violence go in the name of love?”
Despite being a victim of physical abuse, Guadarrama says her grandma always spoke of her grandfather as if he was the “biggest hero in the world.” This triggered the Mexican-born filmmaker to start researching a topic that she says is “deeply rooted” in her native culture: gender-based violence.
What started as research for her project progressed into an invite to direct an episode for the documentary series Draw for Change. Each episode of the series follows a cartoonist from a different country who is breaking boundaries, addressing taboos, and drawing outside of the lines of what it means to be a woman in their society.
The episode was recently shown at Assen’s International Film Festival (IFA) as part of a lineup of films that focus on female stories and question gender roles, stereotypes and patterns.
“When everything is burnt, new things will start growing”
In Guadarrama’s episode, We Are Fire, the director enters the world of Mar Maremoto (27). With a large presence on social media, the Mexico City-based cartoonist uses vibrant colours to create art that cuts through the silence of the suffering of many women in Mexico. “Mar is an extremely energetic person and her work is also very pop,” Guadarrama says “She always says that she can be radical with the softness.” Throughout the episode, which features animations of Mar’s art, the cartoonist meets women who have been victims of gender-based violence and assault or have lost loved ones to femicide.
Giving a voice to these women, though powerful, took a toll on Guadarrama’s emotional state. “All these stories, all this pain,” she says, “it was hard. It was really hard for me to assimilate how bad the situation is because they are not numbers anymore” she explains.
While raising awareness for the violence women face in Mexico, Guadarrama’s work also aims to bring hope for change. For the director, the title of the episode, which originated from an illustration Mar made after going to a women’s march, fully captures this message: “When everything is burnt, new things will start growing.”
Planting the seed for dialogue
“I had this interview with a Flemish newspaper, and they told me: but the violent men or the machismo, they’re not gonna watch this film,” Guadarrama recalls “Only like people who are engaged with the subject will come to watch it.” Though she recognized there to be some truth to this at the time, as her episode started circulating among the big screens, she noted that its message still had a lot of reach.
“It opens up a dialogue between girls and boys that are teenagers,” she says “Boys are really starting to think about the impact that this micro violence has on women, and that it becomes also bigger violence.”
In addition to this positive reception, Guadarrama sees the changes in her personal circles as another achievement. “I come from a really macho house. He comes from a macho house,” she explains. When women protest in Mexico, Guadarrama says the typical response from many men exposes a lack of understanding of the issue. “They’re really like stupid women, aggressive women, they come and start breaking everything. And I don’t understand why, this is not the way they have to do it, and blah, blah, blah.”
As she worked on We Are Fire, she brought home multiple heartbreaking stories of women who had been assaulted, raped, or killed. “I was telling my dad all the stories, he realised how big the problem is. And he finally understands why we’ve been so angry,” Guadarra says “So I think that for me, that is the biggest win. That my own father changed.”
As the episode continues to travel throughout film festivals, Guadarrama is hopeful to see this reaction becoming the norm. “I hope that for people who watch the film, that you can really plant the seed and open the dialogue to change,” says the director.
Bringing women to centre stage
The IFA has a long history of bringing women in film to centre stage. As a filmmaker and occasional camerawoman, Guadarrama has seen first-hand the obstacles of being a woman in the film industry. “When you think that you are changing things and the sector is changing, then plack, you get a ‘clap’ that it is not really changing a lot,” she says, “I think it’s very important that these festivals exist and that women get a platform and that it focuses on women filmmakers,” the director concludes.
The IFA will return next year in March with a new programme but with the same goal: To shine a spotlight on gender-related issues and to amplify the voice of women in film.
