Tag: mother

Meeting Sandrine Bonnaire and French Cinema month comes round again

Last week was a very exciting week for me.  Before heading off to New York, the French Film month had begun in Cuba, and the Friday before we had gone to the opening night to see Les Intouchables, the second biggest box office success in French history.  For me the film managed to stay just the right side of sentimentality due to a storming performance by Cesar winning Omar Sy.  I had tears in my eyes by the end, and it was clear that the packed Chaplin cinema crowd had enjoyed it immensely.  A feel good film based on a true story.  A wonderful evening finished off with a few friends joining us in front of the sea in our house.

We have always enjoyed a good relationship with the French in Cuba and there is a mutual appreciation for French independent Cinema and what the Film school represents.  Last year we met Isabelle Huppert, a French icon but this year I got to meet Sandrine Bonnaire, the new French star, who is much more than just a pretty face.  I had managed to watch a couple of her recent films before meeting her and was already intrigued before her visit to the school.  Her documentary about her autistic sister is really powerful and well worth watching.  Monday came and although I was really crazy preparing to leave the children for 4 nights and go to New York I had to get myself to the school.

Meeting Sandrine with Rafa and Llou

Immediately, I felt a connection with Sandrine as a person and a woman even amongst all the inevitable protocol of a formal visit.  She was so unaffected, so warm.  You could see her desire to answer the questions from the students, as honestly and openly as she could.  She seemed genuinely interested in the school and Cuba, kept sneaking cigarettes between every formality and had a charming nervous humility that surprised me for such a seasoned star.

I spoke English with her as she said her English was better than her Spanish, but I felt bad about losing my French because I wanted to speak French to Sandrine.  Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter that she was this hugely successful star and I am just another mother living on the edge of this world of cinema, observing it from outside.  If I ever get that script written I will send it to Sandrine, I dreamed to myself as I drove home, rushing to see the children and pack for New York.  She wants to make a film for children next, so I’ll be waiting with my little francophones!

We invited her to come back to the school to teach a masterclass.  I really hope she comes back as I would be first on the list to join that class.  I can still understand French quite well, its just when I try to speak that Spanish starts to mix up with the French still in my hard drive.  Hopefully our trip to Paris in the summer will revive it.  Doing French grammar homework with the boys is drumming some of it back into my head too!

Scripts, Saskia and Selfishness

Lots of important decisions to make this weekend and I am feeling as though I have two voices in my head …….. One says you deserve time to yourself to do your own thing, and the world is full of working Mums who happily leave their children in other’s care.  And the other one which is saying, oh my little baby girl is only 2 and needs her mummy.  Also she is the only one of my children who tries to speak Spanish to me.  The only way is to spend more time with her reading books and chatting, and also get her brothers to speak more English to her as her day to day world is completely Cuban.  On top of everything she is rather a joy to be with right now, talking talking talking and very affectionate.  Lots of cuddles and kisses and I love you Mummy.

I have been trying to do script workshops at the film school and it is not always easy to find ones that fit into my schedule and that I feel able to do.  Right now I am getting ready to start a course on “Short film theory and practice: creating characters, scenes and sequences” with Paul Duran from LA.  But I am in a bit of turmoil.  I am very lucky to have a nanny, who is both honest and a very nice person, but she is still not taking charge of my 3 children with enough energy or commitment.  She doesn’t work too many hours as most of the time I am here except the 2 days a week when I go to the film school.  Anyway, the idea being that she will learn from me and I will be more free to work in the future when she can step up. I know I am probably just being neurotic about leaving them.

So our yearly trip to Guadalajara is looming and I am thinking how can I do a 2 week workshop and then hop on a plane to Guadalajara for 4 nights, am I crazy?  I know that the guilt is not helped by the fact that I do not feel convinced by the nanny.  I must have faith.  When I am not around I think she will step up!

Teachers´party in the house tonight for 80.  Leaving party for our good friend Miguel who is sadly off to New York and a possy from the US (Morgan’s Creek etc.) arriving for drinks on Sunday night and I should be calmly preparing everything for my 2 weeks of going back to school.  Like what the hell am I going to write a script about????

 

Don’t cry for me Guatemala …….

Don’t cry for me Guatemala, the truth is I never left you……..

Well I did.  We did.  And a couple of weeks ago I went back with my family, with my 3 Guatemalan hybrids and without my Guatemalan and it was damn weird going back in time, solo parent, Saskia on my lap, and my boys either side on the two planes via Panama.

When I discovered I was pregnant in Buenos Aires in 2004, I walked the streets of Palermo slowly processing the consequences of my rapidly changing life.  There is a part of Palermo where all the streets are named after Central American Countries and I stopped at Guatemala and took a long look.  I even took a photo of that street name.  I realised that if I decided to have our baby, which I already had, I could never forget about that troubled little country that the world had managed to forget about ……….  A genocide that some people want to sweep under the carpet.  Maybe we all do in a way, because the reality of what happened in Guatemala is too much for a lot of us.  But thankfully there are some people like my husband’s family who could never turn their backs on the truth.

There is nobody who could look me in the face and tell me that the name Rosal Paz y Paz is not a noble one, no matter what side of the fence your politics falls.  Principles, humanity and honor are things that we can all recognise in people.

I spent 8 years in Guatemala.  All my children were born there.  I met some great people and learnt a lot about love and life.  I can’t say I was happy living there, but my husband and my children brought me a quota of happiness that was just sufficient to get me through and good friends contributed in keeping me topped up.

I made Guatemala a paradise for my boys, but at times I could not hide my unhappiness from them and I regret that.  It became my prison.  My beautiful prison, with Volcanoes and Jacarandas and Bourganvilias.  I thought I would never be able to leave.  The feeling made me anxious but my boys always brought me back to life.  I was a mother and a wife and that was what I had to try my best to be and do, regardless of the madness of the country, the history, the hypocrisy, my frustration, my boredom.

But an opportunity in Cuba came along and rescued us, just in time.  We escaped as history began to repeat itself.  A military government back in power, noble people persecuted and accused.  Short memories, and a fresh batch of hypocrisy and lies for a new generation.

So I went back for a week, travelling on British passports without my Rafa and I spent that week recreating the paradise for my children.  Their town, their friends, their nanny, their old daycare, their volcanoes.  Good friends who love us and we love them.  I have always been fortunate to find the good people wherever I am……….. and I thank those people for saving me when the serendipity and madness balance was tipping dangerously over to the wrong side.

My Rafa says he wants to die with his volcanoes, but right now we are relieved to be away from it all .  My beautiful dark-eyed Saskia, who is a happy soul, will grow up with her first memories in Cuba with the added bonus of a much more relaxed mother.  We already have good friends here and I don’t have to keep my mouth shut or keep looking over my shoulder.

To all the sweet kind people of Guatemala.  We will be back one day and I wish you all a lot of luck in the meantime.

Phew ……… it took a long time coming that one.  Next stop back to crazy happy days in Cuba 😉

Film check:  The best documentary I have even seen about Guatemala …….. Lecciones para una Guerra by Juan Manuel Sepulveda.  Synopsis taken from Festivalscope:

Between 1982 and 1996, the Ixil and Quiché people took refuge in the mountains as a last resort to save themselves from the massacres carried out by the Guatemalan Army, which took the lives of more than 200,000 indigenous people. After those fourteen years, the communities ended up settling in the northeastern part of the range, an area currently under siege due to the wealth of natural resources to be found there. LESSONS FOR A WAR is a celebration of the resistance of people preparing to defend themselves against another coming war. A chant of hope of a community that will not give up.