The border filmmaker participated for the fourth time in the San Diego Latino Film Festival, debuting with a feature film that explores the universal themes of love, violence, desire and its consequences.
By Andreína Longoria.
Renato, Abel and Gabriela are a family divided by emotional boundaries; for them the desire to be happy and get out of the situation in which they find themselves seems to be unattainable. The decisions they make independently will have an effect on each other’s lives, demonstrating how fragile and delicate the way they are united is.
“This is my fourth participation in the film festival, in 2015 with a short-documentary, 2017 I was in a Showcase with a short film and in 2020 I participated with another short film that we also won. Now I am very happy because I come to present my first feature film ‘Soy lo que nunca fui’,” Rodrigo Alvarez commented to Así es la Nota.
Tijuana, a city impregnated with great aspirations and melancholic outcomes, is home to individuals who, although ready to take flight, remain rooted in their environment. “Soy lo que nunca fui” explores the universal themes of love, violence, desire and their consequences, woven around the plot that arose from a personal obsession with stories that intertwine the destinies of diverse characters.
“I was interested in talking about the history of a family, and just the relationship I have with the border, and I did it from three perspectives, from how each person lives it on the border. Trying to find a different look, from someone who crosses the border. I was more interested in the people who stay, the effects of how this phenomenon separates families, dealing with the consequences, how to deal with loneliness, and how they try to get out of that situation and fill that void”.
Alvarez has always held a belief in inherent connections and how the decisions one makes reverberate in the lives of others. The narrative focuses on three members of a dysfunctional family, addressing three distinct facets of love and three episodes that illustrate individual conflicts, highlighting how their choices disrupt the balance of their lives.
“The reason it’s also called ‘Broken Borders,’ in English, is because we talk about that even though they are a family and live under the same roof, also the way they have separated, these emotional walls, which have divided them, creates a lack of communication between them. It’s about putting yourself in other people’s shoes and living this struggle against the emptiness that is loneliness,” added the filmmaker.
Ultimately, the decisions of the protagonists will give them the possibility of becoming what they could never be or perhaps avoided being: brave, happy and loved.
“The story is fiction, but it is also a compilation of very personal things that I have experienced, that are in the film, from friends and people with whom I worked and who have told me certain anecdotes. It is a compilation of things that have impacted me over time”.
Rodrigo dreamed of making a film with actors, and thanks to the professionalism of the cast formed by Ángeles Cruz, Andrés Delgado and Héctor Guerrero, ‘Soy lo que nunca fui’ has been awarded ‘Best Film‘ in different festivals.
Courtesy Photos.
