'Frida' Director Shares Personal Experiences Reflected in Frida Kahlo's Art | Sundance 2024 - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Director Carla Gutierrez stops by The Hollywood Reporter's studio in Park City during the Sundance film festival to talk about her film 'Frida.' Gutierrez shares her personal connection with artist Frida Kahlo and her journey diving into the archival material of her art and writing as well as reaching out to Frida and husband Diego Rivera's families.

Transcript

00:00I know a lot of people, you know, have seen their own experiences and a lot of

00:05communities, their own experiences really reflected in her art and, you know, we claim her.

00:10I was one of the probably like millions of people in the world that like got pretty obsessed with

00:23her at some point in my life. It was in college many, many years ago that I discovered the first

00:28painting that I saw of hers, which is her standing in the middle of the United States and Mexico.

00:36And I just saw, I was a new immigrant in the States. So I saw kind of like my own experience

00:40at that time reflected in that painting. And I was just like, who is this woman? What

00:45are her paintings? I started reading, I bought her diary. I started reading a lot about her.

00:51But I also discovered that as I'm sure as a woman, a lot of my experiences were, you know,

00:58she continuously like capture a lot of the emotional experiences that I was going through.

01:04So I felt that I kept getting closer and closer to her art. So yeah, that's my personal relationship,

01:11but I know a lot of people, you know, have seen their own experiences and a lot of communities,

01:17their own experiences really reflected in her art. And, you know, we claim her.

01:22So what was the process of getting access to all of this? Once you decided that you wanted

01:26to do this, like how did you go about like going through all of the archives and the writings?

01:33It took a lot of research and it was a lot of, you know, very involved, like diving into

01:40the archival material. My production team incredibly, you know, led by the incredible

01:47Katia Maguire, like really just kind of jumped into it. The writings, Frida's writings are really

01:55kind of like all over the place. There's no one central book that has published all her

01:59writings together. But my team kind of like follow the academic work that had been done

02:07about Frida. You know, we had, we looked at every footnote and then we started collecting

02:11the original letters and the original essays and, you know, from the newspaper. So that was,

02:19you know, part of the work of like just getting, gathering all of her writings and having all of

02:25her writings to be able to read. And then in terms of, you know, access to the rights of Frida,

02:31Frida and Diego, you know, in our film, we talk about what, you know, they were very, you know,

02:38passionate communists and they both believe that art belonged to the people. So Diego Rivera left,

02:46you know, to the people of Mexico, he left all of the art and the writings of both his own art and

02:53Frida's art. So it really belongs to Mexico. So we, you know, we went to the government of Mexico

03:01to get the rights to be able to show her writing and her art. I'm curious if you did anything outside

03:09of the strict work that related directly to the making of the documentary. Did you do anything kind

03:14of like on a personal level to get to know her, to connect to the material that maybe we didn't see

03:19come out in the film, but that like informed it? Like, did you go, you know, down to Casas Azul

03:24and go around or any of that kind of thing? Yeah. I mean, we visited Mexico to be able to have,

03:29you know, kind of like direct contact to the art. For example, the two Fridas I hadn't seen in person,

03:35which is like her largest piece of, you know, piece of art. So it was really important for us to like

03:42have that experience. And we also reached out to two people in both Diego's and Frida's families

03:50to be able to kind of like talk to them. We got to sit down with Christina, Christina Kahlo,

03:58who is a great niece of Frida. They look very similar. So it was kind of like a really nice

04:04experience. And she had actually asked the hospital where Frida had a lot of surgeries for

04:12because she was a family member, she was able to ask the hospital for the records.

04:16So, you know, so we talked a lot with her about kind of like, you know, there is, there is the

04:22academic work, but there's also like the family stories and the family understanding of like

04:28somebody that is part of that, of that family. Same with the grandson of Diego Rivera. So we got to,

04:34we got to meet him too. And, and the grandson, Diego Lopez Rivera actually has like Diego's eyes,

04:41which are like really big. So it was, it was an experience to be able to sit with them and like

04:45see, you know, descendants and, um, you know, talk to us about, about this, these figures in their

04:52families. And before we, before we run out of time, I'm curious, what surprised you the most,

04:59either that in learning about her or about the way her work connects with people or anything like

05:04that? What was, what was surprising to you? Um, about her, it actually surprised us that she could

05:10carry so much of this story. We thought at the beginning that maybe we were going to need to

05:15lean into other voices of people that knew her and that were there during her life. But, um, but it was

05:22just like a wonderful discovery where like she, she herself kind of guided, guided us through,

05:27through her life in a very emotional way. So, so to, to know that she was going to be able to be so

05:34present in our film was like a great surprise and also her sense of humor. She was, I knew she,

05:41you know, she had like, obviously I knew she had a strong personality and she had a lot of humor,

05:46but I love like just reading the letters and hear her sarcasm and like her sharpness. She had a sharp

05:53tongue and that was just fabulous to, to learn.

'Frida' Director Shares Personal Experiences Reflected in Frida Kahlo's Art | Sundance 2024

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