Rocío Mesa, the filmmaker who brings Granada's rural pride to the big screen

Rocío Mesa has lived in Los Angeles for 12 years. One day, she decided that her life was being directed by everyone but herself, and quietly, without punching the table, she changed course. "I was fascinated by creative documentary. After seeing El cielo gira, by Mercedes Álvarez, I had even thought: 'Can I do that?' But I had my life on track as a journalist, with a partner, with a marked path. Although I did not feel myself, and I stuck the shoe on the table to the cheetah silently. So I applied for a Talentia scholarship, they awarded it to me and I went to Los Angeles to study film. I created my path." What have you been doing since then? "Of everything, I have worked in every possible position in the world of cinema. Actually, I have done it and all my fellow filmmakers in Spain have done it," she says. "Because I am part of a generation that has lived through difficult economic times. They have forced us to look for a living, especially those of us who did not come from wealthy classes, from privileged environments. I'm from the village," he says, raising his tone.

More information

Carla Simón and Clara Roquet, two women who lead the revolution of Spanish cinema

Mesa (Granada, 40 years old) premieres in Spain Secaderos, his second feature film after the documentary Oresanz (2013), his reaffirmation on screen of his pride of lineage, and has managed to make a rural story, set in the last traces of tobacco cultivation in the fertile plain of Granada, find a worldwide echo: the film won the audience award in the Visions section of the last SXSW festival, in Austin (Texas), the contest that serves as a showcase in the US of modern auteur cinema.

Mesa thanks her "middle class" family for turning to her. "They gave me everything, except the possibility of living without working, an advantage that, curiously, many people did enjoy in Spanish cinema. My generation, especially women, moves away from the figure of the deified director. We have had to learn to assemble, edit sound... We are versatile, in tune with the XXI century, which asks to be multifaceted. And what might have seemed pernicious or a burden years ago, when I had to stop my artistic initiatives to earn a salary, I have transformed it into something positive." Therefore, she concludes, she does not define herself as a film director, but as a filmmaker, "someone who produces, programs, works in all fields, and who has knowledge of the universe in which he moves."

An image of 'Dryers'.

All this discourse ends with a reflection that is also disseminated by filmmakers such as Carla Simón, Elena López Riera —her El agua es claramente familia de Secaderos—, Clara Roquet, Mar Coll, Pilar Palomero, Arantxa Echevarría, Belén Funes, Meritxell Colell, Paula Ortiz and others: "The figure of the author is overrated, the collective is very beautiful and accumulating knowledge and sharing it is super pleasant. If I can collaborate, I feel happy, rich. Of course I enjoy writing and directing, but we can't close ourselves off from the rest."

Why this coincidence? Why do so many immersions appear in the rural with magical variants, works of these creators, to which they add films such as Destello bravío, by Ainhoa Rodríguez, or Espíritu sagrado, by Chema García Ibarra? "There is no explanation, unless you consider us witches. The first draft of Secaderos is from 2017. When they gave us the first help at the Ministry of Culture and Sport I coincided with Alcarràs, and I remember that I was struck by the curiosity of that name. In the end, we shot the same summer and they are two films that dialogue. I believe that, as women, this generation is interested in the same issues: care, especially care for the earth; the lineage, because we have to heal a historical wound, since we are the first generation of women who can finally do what they want, decide freely about their lives; the shift from the analogue to the digital world that makes many forget their roots; ecology, since we are passionate about making a cinema in which the process is as important as the result and that companionship prevails. We are living in a precious historical moment."

Rocío Mesa, on Wednesday afternoon in Madrid.Jaime Villanueva

Secaderos was always Mesa's project in Granada. "It is a trap that I have set for myself to return to my land. I needed to reconnect with my people from passion, even almost from obsession." Hence his drive for non-professional actors, to give a documentary patina: "It is even the Granada ceramics, the stamp of San Leopoldo, the dryers of the tobacco leaves, the song of the Niña de la Puebla about the Andalusian villages ... It's all intentional."

As a film, Secaderos plays with duality: the teenager who wants to flee the village against the girl who loves him because he only goes on summer vacations, modernity against tradition, reality against fiction with magical notes... "The film is not autobiographical in fact, but in its soul. I still fantasize about going back to the village, nonsense. I've been that kid who plays in the fields, that teenager who kicks to get out of there... and I will be the grandmother in love with her land," she illustrates.

Polyhedral, with many intersecting stories, Secaderos is added the color of magical realism through a prodigious creature, another example of exceptional work by DDT, the effects company that won the Oscar with Pan's Labyrinth, an apparition made up of tobacco leaves that emits unique sounds. There is a good story behind it: "The entry of DDT has been the best gift of my professional career. And its noises... We spent months thinking about nature sounds, manipulating them. It didn't work. Through a chain of friendships we arrive at a night security guard in ham dryers in the Sierra de Huelva who collects small strange musical instruments, with which she has developed a language to communicate in her long nights with owls and owls. I listened to his sounds, mixing his distorted voice with his hands and instruments, we tweaked it in the studio, and thus the creature's form of communication was born."

Rocío Mesa, on the set of 'Secaderos'.

Among Mesa's work initiatives in Los Angeles, his work in La Ola, an organization focused on promoting independent Spanish films in North America, stands out: "It began eight years ago as an annual film exhibition in the city. It emerged to echo that fascinating, groundbreaking and innovative cinema that started at that time, but with small budgets and, of course, almost with the impossibility of achieving distribution in the United States. Other colleagues and I decided to create a space where I would achieve visibility," she recalls. "We wanted those films, with which we feel identified, to find their echo. The Wave began to grow, we began to make the projections also in New York and Mexico City. And budgetarily and in activities it increased so much, that we have become an organism with Spanish passes and meetings in North America. In addition, we have begun to recover what we call modern classics, such as the 4K restoration of Rapture, and related activities."

With this, the filmmaker confesses that she feels linked to Spain, connected to what is done, and that she is "part of the community". "My world is American, usually with artists who move in the counterculture, and underground movements of experimental music and film. In return, I have that window to look at Spain."

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber