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.
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