Rebeca
How do we approach events that are beyond our comprehension? In his new short film Rebeca, Gonzalo Rodriguez addresses this question by trying to understand his grandmother’s death. She died in 1993, whilst crossing an expressway. His search leads him back to Lima, Peru, the place it happened. Talking with Rebeca’s children and husband, he tries to draw a mental picture of his grandmother and her motives. This line of questioning remains unsatisfying, fragmentary and subjective, just like every other form of memory.
In loose associations, pictures follow narratives without being able to give a clear or true impression, a failing that Rodriguez doesn’t try to make up for, but rather intensifies by using techniques of photomontage and picture collage. The question of the power and the helplessness of pictures and words combined in a cinematic narrative opens up a second layer. It is the backdrop upon which Rodriguez develops his autobiographical documentary, which he finally finishes knowing that every story cannot give more than one of the many perspectives on what has happened. (Tasja Langenbach)
About the video
About the artist
- 1981 in Lima, PER.
Studied at the Universidad Católica de Quito, ECU, at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, ECU, and at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, GER
