Director Notes. The starting Point

Oliva came back from a trip to Cuba with the book, “Reyita, sencillamente” (“Simply Reyita”). It was the starting point for making a documentary which she proposed that I co-direct. I opened its pages and discovered the life of “an ordinary, normal woman”, perhaps too much so for it to interest me on a first reading. There was a gap of two generations between Reyita and me. How could I identify with a woman who represented the model from which we all want to flee, that of a mother with her silences and her sacrifices? After reading it several times, I could see the other side of the character: that of a woman who rebelled at a time when she was expected to submit to the wishes of others. She didn’t always win, but that too made the character more attractive.



With the book, we wrote a script which we then had to tear to bits after our first trip to look for locations. We were surprised to learn that Reyita’s children, now adults, knew barely anything about their mother’s life until the book was published, and that this had given rise to small discrepancies in which they didn’t agree with Reyita’s portrayal of her husband. We came back with a host of things that had been forgotten, contradictions, some memories that had been experienced and others that had been read. As a result, we ecided to build the documentary as a group story, and gather together a family’s oral memory in order to build a biography with those little cracks. In a family that had kept hardly any photos, the spoken word was the way of perpetuating their memories and anecdotes. Later on, we were able to rescue some filmed material in which Reyita appears and it is perhaps she, at the age of 95, who shines most brightly in the group, who sums up the essence of what we wanted to tell. Reyita made us look at our mothers and grandmothers with new eyes and we wanted, in some way, for her to help us know better those we have closest to us. Elena ortega. Co-director

Director Notes. Recovering Women's Legacy

She died with a story on her lips. This phrase pursued me endlessly since I first became interested in invisible lives, those lived by women, the heroines of our everyday history. From I was very little, almost as if I were a deaf mute, I was obsessed with listening constantly to those stories I could read on the lips of my aunts and grandmothers. My life, as a child, was spent in the space occupied daily by those women, from the dining room to the bedroom, from the bowl to the kitchen. There, by the warmth of the cooker, we’d do our homework, play and live our lives. This scene was reproduced in each of the houses in the geography of my childhood, but especially in my grandmother’s house. There, next to that bubbling pot that smelled of mint, stories were cooked up.

So, two years ago now, in Havana, when I sat down for the first time with Sonnia Moro and Daisy Rubiera, or when we sat together with their friend the poetess Georgina Herrera, I felt at home again. I had been looking endlessly or a story in order to begin my adventure as a director and there I came up against the only possible one. A story that rarely goes beyond the privacy of the walls of houses, a story of women.

Reyita waited until the end of her days to tell about her life, and she chose her youngest daughter, Daisy, to finish it by telling a story. Georgina says that we have to talk less and always listen to those old women from long ago who watched over their dead at wakes and there, sitting beside death, talked about life.

Reyita is my heartfelt tribute to our grandmothers, aunts and mothers, to those wise women, so often invisible, who are the ones who really know and transmit just the right touch that History needs.

Reyita, el documental. Trailer.

Murió con una historia en los labios

“Murió con una historia en los labios”. Esta frase me perseguía sin darme tregua desde que empecé a interesarme por las vidas invisibles, aquellas que han vivido las mujeres, las protagonistas de la historia cotidiana. Desde muy pequeña, casi como si fuera sordomuda, me obsesionaba seguir y seguir escuhando aquellas historias que podía leer en los labios de mis tías y de mis abuelas. Mi vida, de niña, transcurría en el espacio cotidiano de aquellas mujeres, del comedor, al dormitorio, del lebrillo a la cocina. Allí, al calor de los fogones, hacíamos la tarea, jugábamos y hacíamos la vida. Esta escena se reproducía en cada una de las casas de mi geografía infantil, pero más especialmente en casa de mi abuela. Allí, junto a aquel puchero burbujeante con olor a hierbabuena, se cocían las historias.

Así que, hace ahora dos años, en La Habana, cuando me senté por primera vez frente a Sonnia Moro y Daisy Rubiera, o cuando nos sentamos juntas con su amiga la poetisa Georgina Herrera, me sentí de nuevo en casa. Buscaba incesantemente una historia para iniciar mi aventura como directora y allí me topé con la única posible. Una historia que muy pocas veces transciende la intimidad de las paredes de las casas, una historia de mujeres.

Reyita esperó al final de sus días para contar su vida, y eligió a su hija menor, Daisy, para acabarla relatando una historia. Georgina dice que hay que hablar menos y escuchar siempre a esas viejas de antes que velaban a los muertos en los velatorios, y allí, a pie de muerte, hablaban de la vida.

“Reyita” es mi profundo homenaje a nuestras abuelas, tías y madres, a esas mujeres sabias, tantas veces invisibles, que son las que en realidad conocen y transmiten el justo punto de cocción que necesita la Historia.

Oliva Acosta
Barcelona, 2006

Nos esperan ya en Santiago y en La Habana

29 de Diciembre, 2005

Es la nuestra sin embargo una obstinación ilimitada, casi impertinente. Como dice Georgina, tened “fuerza y memoria –esa devoción por el recuerdo--” …

Los documentos nos dan datos contradictorios, muchas imágenes se han perdido, los sonidos se han deteriorado, los testigos no recuerdan o les duele demasiado intentarlo, y nosotras nos sentimos como si hubiéramos llegado tarde a una cita…

Aún así nos vamos. Partimos el 29 de Diciembre. Se acaba este 2005 y el inicio del próximo ciclo nos encontrará ya en Cuba, en nuestro descenso al corazón menos explorado de esta historia. El corazón inédito.

Hacia el corazón inédito

Las fotos se han desvaído con el paso del tiempo, las imágenes se han deteriorado o se han perdido. Todo sucede en un país que vive en permanente periodo especial, y las dificultades marcan el tempo de lo cotidiano.

Pero nada resiste como resiste la palabra. Sin embargo, los testimonios también se deterioran, el olvido los carcome y la memoria envejece y se desvanece. Y los testigos más importantes, mueren. Poco soporta el tiempo.

Tras sus huellas

Pero como en todo viaje, lo que se busca no siempre coincide con lo que se encuentra. ¿Qué podía quedar hoy de la memoria de aquella mujer a la que le gustaba que le llamaran Reyita, sencillamente?

Así comienza todo. Hay historias que se buscan y otras que se encuentran. La nuestra comenzó inesperadamente, abriendo las páginas de un libro...

El Viaje de Reyita

"Qué fecha tan bonita", como dijo Reyita misma, acerca del 6 de Enero de 1902, el día en que nació.

Hoy 10 de Diciembre, comienza por fin nuestro viaje.