On Monday, June 5, as part of the 38th edition of the Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG38), Hall 2 of the Santander Complex was packed for the presentation of the book Arcelia Ramírez. Así es la vida, in which Mexican filmmaker Roberto Fiesco brings together a series of conversations with the actress who received this year's Silver Mayahuel Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mexican Cinema at the Festival, Arcelia Ramírez.
About the book, Roberto Fiesco said he was happy to pay tribute to a fundamental actress, since she is the face of the current called New Mexican Cinema and a "symbol of those new looks" in our cinema.
In her speech, Arcelia Ramírez emphasized the importance of festivals and called for the creation of a film law to protect Mexican cinema: "Unfortunately, the dissemination and distribution of films in this country is still our unpaid bill. Our cinema still does not reach the public it should reach. There are many films that are not seen, that have not been seen, that are canned. There is an audience that continues to give a lot to North American cinema, which is fine, from time to time, but we have to diversify. The Mexican box office should also offer that diversity, and not only Mexican cinema, but also European and Latin American cinema. [One of the fundamental missions of a government is to give the public the constitutional right it has to culture and diversity. In this sense, the festivals continue to be the wasteland, the place of the delicacy, the obligatory appointment where we go to feed ourselves with our cinematography and the cinematography of the world, with good auteur cinema".
In the conversation they had on the third day of FICG38, the honoree declared that, for her, the vocation to be an artist was born out of a desire, at the age of 10. But it was a desire that, for a brief moment, she let go, and that came back to stay when she attended an acting workshop. However, much of her training was given, on the one hand, by her teachers at the Centro Universitario de Teatro (CUT) and, on the other hand, by her classmates, from the so-called "Las sabias generation", to which actresses such as Lisa Owen, Carmen Beato and Víctor Hugo Martín also belong.
For this reason, the actress invited young actors and actresses to dialogue with their peers. She herself said she is always interested in working with young filmmakers to put herself at the service of "your look and your story", something that requires her to work with great humility, generosity and to get rid of things that get in the way, such as ego. Acting work involves, she added, dismantling defense mechanisms.
This emotional talk between the two was a journey through his career and he celebrated that in the room were "his two moms: the cinematographic one [referring to director Busi Cortés, who gave him his first role in his debut film El secreto de Romelia (1988)] and the real one [he said, referring to his mother]".
The star of iconic films such as La mujer de Benjamín (Carlos Carrera, 1991) explained that to act "you have to let go of your body" and that relaxation on the part of the actor is fundamental, as well as selecting roles "that speak to you, and that speak of the human condition as such".
However, they must also be challenging characters. And in this sense, she emphasized the importance of the work of all the people in a production. When asked by a young man who is training in production design, Arcelia Ramírez said that his work was fundamental, since everything on the set helps the character to take its place in the acting work.
She also highlighted the importance that Guadalajara and the Festival have had in the New Mexican Cinema, having encouraged, for almost forty years, a new way of seeing and listening to cinema. In addition, Arcelia has a direct relationship with the capital of Jalisco, since her father was from Guadalajara and graduated from the University of Guadalajara. "I am half tapatía and half purépecha," she said, referring to her mother, who is from Morelia, Michoacán. He also recalled that it was in the Pearl of the West where he filmed an episode of the iconic horror series Hora marcada, under the direction of Guillermo del Toro. His role, he said, was that of a kind of vampire with a prosthesis made by the director himself.
Speaking exclusively to the FICG38 press team, the actress stated that there have been drastic changes "in the way we live, in the way we conceive the world" with technology and social networks, which can encourage trivialization. "I think we read less and less and I think reading is one of the most important activities for an actor. Just as we actors must have the body trained and alert to work, so the mind and the gym of the mind are books. It is there where you are forced to articulate speeches, to understand ideas, to imagine universes and that is what we actors work with: with memory, with imagination". He warned about "the impoverishment of culture, the lack of strengthening of artistic education in schools, for example; we have to build a criterion for Mexicans through education and cultural experience".
About the process of putting the book together, she said it was a delightful experience. "An invitation to introspection, self-analysis, self-evaluation, to know what has happened, where I am now, what my concerns were as an actress at the beginning, where my career is going". In addition to an exercise in dialogue with Roberto Fiesco, her great friend and official dance partner.
Arcelia Ramírez. Así es la vida is a book co-published by FICG and the Centro Universitario de la Costa of the University of Guadalajara. The design is large format and hardcover. The paper is colored bond and the editorial design and typography of the cover and index were done by Mexican illustrator and designer Alejandro Magallanes. As part of the historiographic work of the author, the volume collects the official posters of Arcelia's films, as well as covers of Eres and TVyNovelas magazines, undoubtedly two representative publications of the popular culture of the 90's in Mexico, which allows us to see the scope that the presence of this actress had not only in theater and film but also on television, for which she is acclaimed throughout Mexico.
Another nice rescue from the book are some of the covers of the VHS versions of these tapes, where they even changed the title of the film to make it look like a kind of B series. Arcelia Ramírez herself was surprised to find herself on the cover of a film whose red typography read Herencia de sangre, with a drawing of a woman whose body "is not mine," she said, laughing in surprise. Underneath the striking title, a small subtitle reads El secreto de Romelia (Romelia's Secret).
Roberto Fiesco added a dedication to the book: "With deep affection and gratitude to Raúl Padilla and Víctor Jaramillo, whose absence we will never cease to feel. I am convinced that wherever they are they will enjoy this book".
The detail of the editing care and love for this book can even be seen in the colophon, which is dated "Thirty-five years after the shooting in Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos of El secreto de Romelia, the first feature film by Busi Cortés as director and Arcela as actress.