00:00Hi, Colette. How are you doing?
00:02Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
00:05I want to start talking about how Traces of Home is a very emotional and personal documentary.
00:12But I was wondering, at what point do you decide to turn this personal search into a film?
00:18And how do you convince your family to open up about such difficult wounds in front of the camera?
00:25So, yes, this film took nine years to make.
00:29And in the beginning, I was very much focused on just the political aspect of it.
00:34I was very much feeling like, okay, I have to share my parents' stories of being from Mexico and Palestine.
00:41And then realizing that, wait a second, their stories are so similar in this search for figuring out what is
00:49it of this pain that was living inside of our family,
00:52that it was all rooted in the same kind of colonization and the violence just at a domestic level and
00:59like a national level with the occupation in Palestine.
01:03And as I started going down the journey of making the film, I started going to therapy for the first
01:10time.
01:10And that's where I learned about intergenerational trauma for the first time.
01:15And I realized that, oh, wait, this disconnect to home that I'm trying to figure out why I can't find
01:23home, it's actually something much deeper.
01:25And that it's about me trying to figure out why I can't find home with my parents because of the
01:33emotional walls that were in my house.
01:36And so the film actually became the tool to get to unpack all of it.
01:42And I know that there was no way I would have been able to do that without using art and
01:47using this documentary as the way for me to do that healing inside of myself with my family.
01:53In terms of like having them be more open to sharing such deeply vulnerable conversations, again, in the beginning, it
02:01was very much just focused on the very surface level, going back to Mexico and Palestine.
02:06So I think over the years, they became more and more comfortable with the camera and becoming more open about
02:13sharing our own personal stories.
02:15And also, I had a very important conversation with both of them to say, mom and dad, this is what
02:22the film is becoming.
02:23It's not just about Mexico or Palestine anymore.
02:26It's about us and our dynamics at home.
02:29So they were a little bit nervous, but I showed it to them before it was released and they felt
02:35it was good and very strong and they gave their blessing.
02:37So I'm very grateful for that.
02:40I think you portray it really beautiful and something that you are talking about, Mexico and Palestine, it's that these
02:48places are often portrayed through conflict, stereotypes or cliches.
02:53What would it like for you to portray these places beyond what we usually see in the news and instead
03:00as an intimate, emotional place through your family and your eyes?
03:05To be honest, I never thought about the film trying to break stereotypes of who Mexicans are or who Palestinians
03:15are or who immigrants are.
03:17I just wanted to share my own parents' stories and I just wanted to share our family.
03:23And I think that because I had that intention of just it being a human story about a family, not
03:29about Mexicans or Palestinians, just like my own experience, that I think that's what allows people to see it as
03:38something beyond just the walls and the borders and the identities.
03:42That there are people who are like, wait, that's exactly the relationship with my mom and my dad.
03:52And so it goes beyond the cultures.
03:54So I feel like having these kinds of human stories allow them to see us as who we actually are
04:00and not just like these other people living in other places that I, yeah, that we're human too.
04:08Yeah, actually talking about the thing is this documentary is your personal story, but also it's a very universal thing
04:19that you already talked to me that it's the generational trauma for people who going through for the same thing
04:26and they can talk with their parents about it.
04:29What advice or lesson do you take away from this process?
04:33To be honest, I think it's very good to have some sort of project or tool or art piece to
04:44be able to have those difficult conversations.
04:47That like, if you say, okay, I'm doing this for a book or for a movie or for our history,
04:55just to have the recording, that I think sometimes that can be really helpful to be able to talk about
05:01the harder things that maybe we wouldn't do at the dinner table normally.
05:06That's one piece and then I would also say the other very, very important piece is if people can have
05:12access to therapy, it is very, very important to have that mentorship and that guidance of how to talk to
05:21our families or our loved ones about difficult things that it can be very helpful to have some outside support
05:29as well.
05:31That's a great advice and also we need to talk about it and I know that this documentary talks about
05:39how your parents' story is rooted for the trauma of leaving their own home and starting everything new in places
05:47that they don't know.
05:48And at the same time, this film, it's been released in a moment with immigration policies in the USA and
05:55the war in Gaza had made questions of displacement and belonging even more urgent.
06:02How have these current events influenced the way you see now the movie and what do you expect these documentary
06:10sparks in the conversation?
06:12I feel that this film could not be coming out at a more important time when people are demonizing immigrants
06:22and Palestinians in ways that we have never seen before in our generation.
06:27And it feels so clear that this thing of not feeling belonging and feeling this level of displacement that if
06:37we don't know who we actually are and if we don't know our roots and our heritage that we will
06:44be just another hog in the machine.
06:49Like we'll just be able to be shrunken down and to not be in our own power.
06:55And so this film about finding home in ourselves, if we find home within ourselves as Mexicans, as Latinos, as
07:04Arabs, as Palestinians, that is how we are able to actually stay tied into our own power through our ancestors
07:13and through our own understanding of where we come from.
07:19That it is so important, especially for those in the United States, especially for those in the United States, I
07:23feel like we need we need it so badly to remember our indigenous roots.
07:30That's nice, Colette. And also, I want to talk about how Melissa Barrera and John Legisamo asked about aborting this
07:38documentary as executive producers.
07:42How did they come aboard to be in this project and how was it for you to take to take
07:48those people in this project that is so personal for you?
07:52Yeah, we were so grateful and amazed that they wanted to support the film.
07:58Melissa has already been such a huge supporter of Palestine and has been so outspoken against the genocide in Gaza
08:06that when she saw the film that it was about a Mexican-Palestinian family, immigration, that she just felt like,
08:14oh, this is like exactly my kind of film.
08:17And also because it talks about mental health and trauma, she's also very passionate about about that healing to that
08:25inner healing.
08:25And so she felt like, yes, I have to come on board for this.
08:30And then for John, he has also been very, very supportive towards immigrants and Latinos in the U.S.
08:38And so our producer was very connected to him and he invited him to come on board and to put
08:45his name on the film.
08:46And so we're also so grateful that he decided to support us, too.
08:51And it feels kind of crazy because, yeah, it was such a small, personal family story, but I think it
08:57touched their hearts.
08:58And so that's why they decided to come on board.
09:02And I'm so happy they are on board because now we have the chance to see you do commentary, you
09:08know.
09:08I was so emotional when I finished it.
09:12It was awesome.
09:13And for my last question, and it's a little bit connected with the comment I said earlier, beyond the festival
09:22reactions and the reviews, when the end credit rolls, what do you hope people take away with them after watching
09:30your documentary?
09:31I would say that the most important message of the film is learning how to actually face the pain that
09:39is in us.
09:40That all of us are carrying some sort of trauma, whether it be from colonization, from our parents, from abuse.
09:49There's all kinds of different things that we carry in us.
09:53And if we don't know how to face the pain that is living within us, then we're going to keep
09:58repeating the cycles of violence and harm.
10:01And so specifically on the Mexican side with my mom and my grandfather, that alcoholism and machismo, that it's such
10:11a big issue in Mexico.
10:13And we see it again and again that it was because my own grandfather wasn't able to face his own
10:22pain that he was taking it out on my grandmother.
10:25And so it's like the same cycles of trauma. If we don't know how to end them, then we just
10:31keep repeating it.
10:32So I think that's the biggest thing is like learning how to deal with our difficult feelings, have the hard
10:38conversations with our families to heal.
10:41Thank you so much for your time, Colette. I can't wait. This documentary being seen here in Mexico.
10:46Really, it's amazing. And see you soon, I guess.
10:51Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you for this question.
10:54Thank you so much.
10:55Really great. Bye.
11:22Thank you.
