Film alumni Joel Vázquez Cárdenas '18 and Camila Zavala '19 recently participated in the Taller de Revisión de Guion, a two-week residential workshop hosted by Cine Qua Non in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico. The lab gives independent filmmakers from around the world the opportunity to work intensively on their feature-length narrative scripts in an environment structured to foster professional collaboration and high-quality script development.
During the course of the lab, Cárdenas worked on a film called Esperando a Ávila Camacho, a period piece set during World War II after the birth of a volcano in the rural Mexican community of San Ignacio de la Tunas. An indigenous teacher and a foreign geologist must confront an American mining company that wants the volcano’s sulfur to manufacture weapons for the Allies, but whose operation endangers the lives of the local population.
Zavala has been working on her first feature film as a screenwriter and director, Dime cuánto me quieres. Set in the stigmatizing city of Lima, the film follows Lucca, a 9-year-old boy searching for his place in the world while confronted with his mother’s manic-depressive episodes. Wanting to do everything in his power to help her, Lucca embarks on a journey that will only lead him to realize that the stability and happiness of the person he loves most in the world does not depend on him.
