“Nonfiction is the most successfully researched genre in the Dominican Republic”: Victoria Linares on Lo que se hereda (She Runs in the Family)

“Nonfiction is the most successfully researched genre in the Dominican Republic”: Victoria Linares on Lo que se hereda (She Runs in the Family)
“Nonfiction is the most successfully researched genre in the Dominican Republic”: Victoria Linares on Lo que se hereda (She Runs in the Family)

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Victoria Linares c what is inherited (She works in the family).

Working with family memory is often as complex as it is difficult. Dominican director Victoria Linares embarks on exactly this process in her feature debut what is inherited (It runs in the family), for almost erasing the existence of her cousin Oscar Torres in their native Dominican Republic. As the film progresses, Linares learns how much he resembles Torres, even though the two are a generation apart.

what is inherited is related to Linares’ personal discovery of her cousin’s unproduced screenplays and film reviews that he wrote in the 1950s during the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship. From 1930 until his assassination in 1961, the Trujillo regime carried out waves of ethnic cleansing, restricted human rights and suppressed all political dissent in the Dominican Republic. This oppression led Torres to leave his homeland to live out his days in Cuba and Puerto Rico. The director discovers the last remnants of his cinematic pursuits and decides to use them in her own film.

In 2010, the Dominican Republic passed Bill 108-10, which dramatically increased investment in the film industry and has since generated hundreds of films. Seeing what is inherited at DOC NYC amid a wave of notable films coming out of DR (work by 25 New Faces alumni Gabriela Ortega and Diana Peralta among them) creates anticipation for the future, but makes me wonder what other lost stories might be explored in the emerging Dominican documentary space.

After the debut of the film DOC NYC, Film director spoke with Linares via email discussing texting aunts, existing studies of Oscar Torres and the director’s own “fuzzy” memory. Lowe what is inherited (She works in the family) screens as part of DOC NYC’s virtual lineup through November 27.

Film director: Memory is one of the main aspects of the film, especially how a family would preserve those memories. There are the differences between your mother’s and father’s descriptions of you if you hypothetically died tomorrow, or how Oscar’s mother started burning his photo albums. Was that the idea you were drawing with these sequences?

Linares: I am someone who has always been obsessed with memories and keeping memorabilia. I’ve always been a hoarder when it comes to this. My memory is pretty fuzzy due to my acute anxiety, so I’m always trying to lean on objects, pictures – whatever I can get that will somehow bring me back to that place. I also implied that no matter what you have lived or experienced with the person in question, [that] will never lead to a complete detailed picture of who this person really was.

director: The film is a deep dive into your family history as well as broader Dominican film history, including reviews written by Oscar during the Trujillo dictatorship. Did you learn anything unique about film habits during this period?

Linares: The very practice of film criticism is lost in the Dominican Republic. Reading his reviews is almost like accessing his own movie theater experiences. They are so alive and sharp and funny. Someone told me he would walk into a movie with a folded newspaper under his arm and a little black book. He reminds me of my best friend who does the exact same thing when we watch movies together. My friend is also a wonderful writer.

director: You have found archival material on Oscar’s work in Cuba, Puerto Rico and DR. How did it feel to find the Oscar films and what is the state of their storage?

Linares: We worked very closely with the Puerto Rican [General] Archives office during my research. They provided us with a digitized copy of one of Oscar’s films and his unproduced screenplays. Thanks to the extensive and heroic research done by Luis Beiro, the author of the book [Oscar Torres: el cine con mirada universal], I pretty quickly noticed the important things I needed for the film. The most valuable item is the photo album that the family keeps. I still carry it with me. It’s pretty hard to let go of such a gem. The condition of the films he made while living in Puerto Rico is in good condition. I don’t know the actual status of [Torres’s 1962 film] Realengo 18.

director: I’m curious about the origins of the moment you knew this trip was going to become a full movie. When your aunt you sent that first Oscar text, did she imagine you’d make this movie?

Linares: Not in a million years. I think it was totally heaven sent, if that makes sense. I usually don’t pay attention to what aunties send me via text message, but this one really got my attention. I guess there was no going back.

director: Could you describe the process of producing a film like this in the Dominican Republic? Could a film like this have been made before the Cinema Bill 2010?

Linares: The bill is a little hard to explain and I can’t necessarily describe it as the savior of Dominican cinema. It maintains a homogenous production system that favors feature films. I had to make this film in six weeks – three weeks of pre-production and three weeks of photography – and then a full year of post-production.

director: Through the three reenactments of Oscar’s scripts, you seem to mirror each other in the most subtle of ways. For example, the silent sequence shot on 16mm film looks as if Oscar did it himself. Do you think these traits and qualities can be passed down from generation to generation?

Linares: The movie originally had a whole reincarnation sub-story, but then it became something else. His spirit was very much alive and with us throughout the entire process of making this film. His scripts were very technical, with descriptions of movements and sounds. I kept asking myself, “How would Oscar do this and that?”

director: If you had to describe the documentary scene in DR in two words, what would you say?

Linares: A place where honesty and identity are truly explored. From my viewing experience, nonfiction is the most successfully researched genre in the Dominican Republic, from film essays to portraits to nonfiction. We are a young art form, just beginning to look into ourselves.



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