Awarded the Cinemambiente audience prize, Frágil equilibrio captures the contradictions of our society, accompanied by the words of José Mujica. An interview with director Guillermo García López.
The daily struggle of migrants in sub-Saharan Africa, stranded in the limbo of Mount Gurugù in Morocco and Melilla (the Spanish autonomous city on Morocco's eastern coast) — people in search of their own freedom, even at the cost of their lives. The precariousness and distress of men and women who have lost everything because of the Spanish recession. The loss of identity and the unhappiness of Tokyo's "salary men", who dedicate their lives to work that swallows them whole, paradoxically making them slaves. These are apparently distant stories that nonetheless manage to form a coherent journey and capture our current civilisation in all its contradictions, in the beautiful documentary Frágil equilibrio (fragile balance).
We had the opportunity to see it during the twentieth edition of Cinemambiente, held in Turin from 31 May to 5 June, and to interview its young and talented director: Guillermo García López, 31.
Narrated through the words of José (Pepe) Mujica, president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, and already the winner of the 2017 Goya Award (Spain's highest cinematic honour) for best documentary, Frágil equilibrio also received a warm reception at the Piedmontese festival, which awarded it the audience prize.
Among the other winners was Plastic China (Asja.energy award for best international documentary), in which director Jiu-liang Wang takes us inside one of the many Chinese companies engaged in processing plastic waste from around the world, where entire families work.
Plastic also takes centre stage in another jury-awarded documentary: Océans, le mystère plastique (Smat award for best One hour documentary). French director Vincent Perazio investigates a phenomenon that is still far too little known: the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of plastic swallowed by the oceans, which break down into toxic microparticles largely invisible to the naked eye but that are gradually forming a new ecosystem.
The Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest is instead the setting chosen by Nika Šaravanja and Alessandro d'Emilia for Dusk Chorus – Based on fragments of extinction (CiAl award for best Italian documentary). A sonic, scientific and poetic journey into an ancient and vanishing ecosystem, guided by researcher and eco-acoustic composer David Monacchi, creator of the multidisciplinary project Fragments of extinction.
Why did you choose these three settings — Morocco, Spain and Tokyo — for the documentary?
Because there is a relationship between them. Everything starts in Africa, where there is nothing material, only a search for freedom. Then there is Spain, a country I love very much but which today has been devastated by the recession and which you can't even quite place in the first or the third world. Finally, we arrive in Japan, a society that is the opposite of the African one — where there is everything, yet where the very freedom and happiness that the migrants were seeking at the outset are precisely what is missing. These three stories seemed right to us for tracing a journey.
What led you to include Mujica in Frágil equilibrio?
In 2013 I was in Uruguay because my sister was living there, and I was struck by the enthusiasm with which people spoke about a political figure like Pepe Mujica. When I listened to his speech at the UN, I understood why: here was a politician who, for once, spoke about human things — about love, life and freedom. His speech immediately struck me as very cinematic, and I felt the desire to tell it in a film.
How did you get in touch with Mujica, who was president of Uruguay at the time?
To begin with, we wrote him a letter explaining the project. When we received no reply, after a while my sister started going to Mujica's house every day and leaving the project under his door. Until one day the presidency of the Republic called her and she finally managed to get an appointment. I remember she called me straight after the meeting, in tears with emotion, because for us it was something very important. It was our first film and we knew it was going to be something big, because it came from the heart.
What was it like to meet him in person?
When we went to his house, Mujica had understood that we would be interviewing him for ten minutes; instead we arrived with cameras and all the equipment and stayed for an hour and a half. The communications director kept asking us to cut it short, but once the president started talking, he wouldn't stop!
What was the atmosphere like at his home?
Everything was very normal. His wife Lucia Topolansky was there too — she is, in my view, responsible for at least 50 per cent of the message he has built. While we were there she was cooking and at the same time preparing a speech for the Senate.
All the shots of him are close-ups of his face — why that choice?
Because we didn't want the setting to be visible in the background. His house is in very poor condition, but we preferred not to show the image that all the mass media project of Mujica. They call him "the world's poorest president", but for us he is much more than that. And, besides, I was interested in capturing a very intimate tone.
Once the film was finished, did you have the chance to show it to him?
Yes, we met at the home of one of the producers in Madrid and watched it together. Then when we won the Goya I called him and he was very happy. Some time later we organised a kind of tribute for him in Uruguay, but an hour before the screening he told us he wouldn't be coming because there were too many fans. I then managed to convince him to come.
What did he say about the film?
He is used to filling stadiums and speaking in front of large audiences. With this film he was very surprised, because he found a new way of communicating his message. For us, hearing him say that was very moving.
What was it like filming to tell the story of the migrants on Mount Gurugù?
We went to Melilla with just me and my partner Pedro, with no pre-production whatsoever. We didn't even know how we would get there, because the Moroccan army has orders to arrest anyone who tries to film with cameras. Then there are also paramilitaries who are not part of the army — violent, racist people who often kill migrants who try to cross the border. There is one of the commanders who actually runs young men over with cars, but the European Union doesn't tell us that. It doesn't tell us that the funds for migration policy go to Spain, which passes them on to Morocco to build the barrier and block migrants, including through violence.
Were you not afraid of the dangers you were facing?
Yes, when we arrived we were afraid because we are only filmmakers, we are not activists and we don't know the dynamics well. So in order to carry out our mission we pretended to be tourists. We had only a small camera with us and we managed to get right to the door of the military camp that keeps watch over the other hill, where the African camp is. Once we were past Monte Gurugù, though, all that sense of adventure — somewhat intrepid too — was over. We didn't quite know how to behave, but the incredible thing is that it was actually these young men who then asked us to film them. At certain moments they spoke looking directly into the camera, because they weren't just speaking to us, but to everyone who would later see those images. Their message was clearly a denunciation.
Where will we be able to see the film?
In Italy an agent has already acquired it and I hope a distributor will be found soon. That would be wonderful. In the meantime, all the news can be found on our social media.
Are you already working on new projects?
I have a project that stays within this vein of fiction–non-fiction and interconnected stories. I would like to shoot in Mexico and in Detroit, addressing the theme of industry, of what it promises when it arrives somewhere and what it leaves behind when it goes.