Absences (Ausencias)

A film by Tatiana Huezo

Mexico/El Salvador | 2015 | 26 minutes | Color | DVD | Spanish | Subtitled | Order No. 161178

SYNOPSIS

ABSENCES, by award winning filmmaker Tatiana Huezo (The Tiniest Place), exposes the ever-intensifying phenomenon of enforced disappearance in Mexico. A boy and his father disappear one morning, snatched off the road by armed men. Left behind, alone with her daughter, Lulu, a victim who refuses to give in, decides to tell the unacceptable story: the unfillable void, the absence of loved ones, the unanswered questions and the suffocating silence. After 5 years, absence has her living in a limbo that gives way to desire, hope and the struggle to find her 9-year old son Brandon and her husband, alive. This hauntingly beautiful short film illuminates the way disappearance affects women, and broadens our awareness on disappearance and its social consequences in Mexico and Central America.

PRESS

"A poignant film on a part of current Mexican history that must be told at all costs."

Visions du Reel Film Festival

"Tatiana Huezo visually translates Lulu’s story into a reality that shows the invisible: the feeling of absence – but also a path back to life."

Lars Meyer DOK Leipzig

"The attractiveness of this work resides in its subtlety, intensity, pulse, honesty, strength…AUSENCIAS and its purely personal edge, stands as an original proposal to reflect the uneasiness that harass us."

Alberto Acuña Navarijo Traditional Cinema

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

  • Guanajuato International Film Festival, Best Mexican Short Film Award
  • DocsDF/International Documentary Festival Mexico City, Winner, Best Short
  • Ariel Award, Best Documentary Short
  • DOK Leipzig
  • Morelia International Film Festival
  • Ambulante Film Festival
  • Montreal International Documentary Festival
  • Visions du Reel International Documentary Film Festival
  • Mexico City International Documentary Film Festival
  • Le Habana Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Tatiana Huezo

Tatiana Huezo (El Salvador, 1970) studied film at Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (ccc) and at University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Tatiana teaches Documentary Filming at CCC, University of Centro and the Madrid’s Community Film School. Her filmography as director, photographer, and editor includes documentary films and fictional short films. She has been jury in festivals such as FICUNAM, Documenta Madrid and the Lima Film Festival. Her first film, The Tiniest Place (Mexico, 2011) participated in over 50 films festivals around the world, receiving over 40 awards. She is currently working on her second feature documentary, La Tempestad. (10/15)

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