“Los Hijos de la Costa”, documentary about Afro-Mexican music

MEXICO CITY (Process).– Bruno Bancalari, with an extensive career in making music music videos and medium-length documentaries, entered the Mexican Costa Chica (Guerrero and Oaxaca) and filmed different Afro-Mexican artists who reveal the history of a community, its customs, problems, dreams and its love of the sea and the countryside.

The title of the feature film is Los Hijos de la Costa, to be premiered at the 39th edition of the Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG), where it is competing for the Mezcal Award.

The meeting is from June 7 to 15.

The director, in an interview, motivated by the interest of knowing more about the country and “knowing more about my culture,” sought to portray Mexico:

“On the other hand, I had the fortune of meeting the Mexican musician, producer and composer Ángel Céspedes, who is the researcher in this project, and he shared music with me from the Oaxaca Coast and the Costa Chica of Guerrero, and his passion for this place and this musical tradition, so I began to soak up that.

“And I thought that perhaps it would be a good place to start with a documentary, that exalts these musicians and this community, because I had been fighting with the idea of ​​making a film with another theme, that would talk about my fears and the deep terror that I have the violent part of this country, and in the end I tried to turn that into something else. I said: I’d better talk about what I consider beautiful about Mexico, about something that fills me with excitement and gives me a lot of joy.”

In Los Hijos de la Costa, the musicians and singers Alejandra Robles, Chogo and Raí Pruedente, Cristino Curi García, Domingo Ayona, El Internacional Mar Azul-El Rey de los 7 mares, Esteban Bernal, Esteban Martínez and Pepe Ramos appear in the frame.

–How did you find these characters to talk to you about their music and life?

–Esteban Bernal even died during the pandemic. He was an extraordinary accordionist. Ángel Céspedes did the research and he began to introduce me to characters. He showed me characteristics of each of them. From there he was already selecting the people. It was in 2019 that we made a research trip to the Oaxacan coast and the Costa Chica of Guerrero. It is very extensive, it is about 800 kilometers away, so you had to stop from south to north to understand what musical and human material it had, and the settings were important because they also talk about the characters and the music they sing.

He visited Puerto Ángel, Puerto Escondido, San Nicolás, Cerro del Indio, Acapulco…:

“We were defining and understanding who the characters were and what rhythm they played because they all play different genres, and I wanted a documentary that would talk about all that. I wanted to integrate different languages ​​because in the end it is a diverse community. This is how I found Cuiri in Puerto Ángel, a fisherman and drummer; Domingo Ayona, harmonist from Cerro del Indio, which is a farming town; Chogo Prudente and his son Raí in Santiago Llano Grande, are ranchers and musicians, and Alejandra Robles, who already has a better-known musical career. She lives most of the time in the city of Oaxaca, but grew up on the Coast. All of her musical DNA comes from there.

“We approach all of them with all the love and all the respect. I think that in the end what musicians and any artist are looking for is to be seen, to be valued and to be heard. When we told them that we had the idea of ​​showing their work and being part of an ensemble of musicians from the Coast, everyone agreed, everyone was happy. It was a very nice process. We portray them in the most respectful way.”

Nature, another character

He is told that the natural locations in the documentary reflect the nature of the area and there are even still photographs in black and white, and he expresses:

“In the research part I realized the value of the area because just as there were different genres in music, I understood that on the Coast of Oaxaca and the Costa Chica the settings are diverse, there is sea, port, but in the Costa Chica exists countryside, mountains, plain, in short, it is very complex to talk about a single Costa Chica, there are different faces and the settings are very beautiful, and they had to be presented because that is where the music is also born, that is where the culture is born.

“The music of the port is not the same: that joy, that heat and that flavor as the music that is further back in the countryside, where there is absolute silence and the instruments are different, they sing differently and all that had to be portrayed, and Of course nature had to be included, because part of that is where the inspiration comes from. Elements such as water, trees are shown, there is a giant tree that is a guanacaste, which is very common. It feels wonderful to be among those trees because they have been there for many years. “We believe the history of this community should be preserved.”

The photographs take 95 minutes. Explain:

“It is a narrative element that supports this idea of ​​maintaining the present. Capture those moments and immortalize them. Not only is it an aesthetic idea but it is also in some way like breaking the language of the video, like someone trying to freeze a moment in history. It’s like saying don’t forget these characters. It’s about always keeping them there, in that frozen image.”

–The Afro-descendant theme is found in music. And they are not seen as victims…

–I didn’t want to get into that speech. I feel that it is a beautiful community with all the elements. Victimization is not the way, you must always portray the beautiful and always praise the beautiful part of a culture. It was difficult to talk about Afro heritage because the lines are very blurred in Mexico. In the end I didn’t want to make a speech in favor of an Afro heritage or in favor of recognition for simply being Afro. It is a Mexican community like those in the north or east. They just have their own characteristics and their language, and they have their way of living and they sing to certain things in particular, and that’s what I wanted to portray.

He talks about the musical sensitivity that exists, even with boys and girls:

“It is something that I loved when visiting these places, seeing that in the little schools there is a presence of infants who are learning music. For example, Chogo Prudente receives the children of the community in her house to teach them about the musical tradition of Santiago Llano Grande. That seems beautiful to me, that there are people with few resources who still give their time to teach. It is one of the most noble tasks for me, and I wanted that to be there.”

However, he emphasizes, it is still a musical world made up of men:

“We included a female character at the end of the film that symbolizes in some way this generational change, because in the musical tradition of the Costa and the Costa Chica the male figure predominates, and the difference is abysmal, there is not even a balanced percentage there. However, with children we already see that they are half and half. Alejandra Robles represents that change and in the end she sows seeds everywhere. There is also the presence of a female band.”

He also talks about the rhythms that are spread in Los Hijos de la Costa:

“Musical genres that have to do with wealth within communities. It is a place where there was a lot of cultural convergence, there was a lot of exchange and it is represented in everything, on the stages, the physical features. All our history is mixed there.

“There is tropical music, like cumbia, merequetengue, Chilean, coastal boleros, in short. It is music that came from outside and the people of the community transformed it, they put their own stamp on it.”

Ends:

“Music continues to transform, it continues to evolve even if it comes from somewhere else, with its own DNA.”