“How can I connect the screen to the human and the human to the human through a machine, right?

That’s the dilemma. It’s not a dilemma—it’s a game, you know. And it’s a goal.” (Lourdes Portillo,1990)

Lourdes Portillo is a filmmaker of undoubted importance for Latin American nonfiction cinema. Her lucid filmography oscillates between documentary, experimental film and video art. Astutely inscribing herself to the genealogy of Third Cinema, she became a pioneer in the exploration of Latin American identity within and outside of the United States. Dealing with themes of extreme sociopolitical complexity and exploring them through a meticulous investigation guided by intuition and feeling, Lourdes’ work–which has documented situations from Argentina to California–carefully highlights the postcolonial relationalities that have emerged in the various societies that reside in the continent commonly referred to as the “Americas”.

The decision to share Mirrors of the Heart (1993), one of Lourdes’ lesser known works and one that at first glance seems to have a more traditional form, comes from the wish to revitalize the meaning of cinematographic experimentation in a moment that is socially and politically critical for Abya Yala and the rest of the world. This is a film in which Lourdes rerouted her experimentation towards the task of informing audiences in the United States about Bolivian, Dominican and Haitian societies and cultures. Portillo weaves together a documentary that is at once formally conventional while also defiant of the model in which it was produced due to its insightful social, political and aesthetic study.

In spite of Mirrors of the Heart being produced by the PBS as part of their documentary series Americas (1993), Lourdes approached it with the same sensibility as her other projects. This documentary directly speaks of the consequences and changing contradictions that have occurred in these territories due to European colonization and the neo-colonial process coming from the United States. Making use of a procedural approximation, she shows us the crystallized elements but also makes a point of demonstrating that we are witnessing cultures in the process of transformation and hybridization: presenting traits and fragments of who they were and who they will become.

In order to contextualize this piece for a new audience, the film is presented with a conversation between Lourdes Portillo and Eduardo Makoszay; which reveals more about what occurs in the film's images, sounds and cuts, and what is reflected within them.

MIRRORS OF THE HEART by LOURDES PORTILLO / 1993 / 58 min / video / USA, Bolivia, Haiti, Dominican Republic

Lourdes Portillo interviewed by Eduardo Makoszay

Eduardo Makoszay: It is often said that the heart is a constitutive element in your filmography. To start off this conversation, I would like to ask: what is the role of the heart in your cinema?

Lourdes Portillo: For me, more than anything I’ve always considered that cinema has been a weapon and that through the heart, or shall I say, through feelings, and an approach to the truth as we live it at the time of filming, one can move the audience in a positive direction, towards the good.

I also believe that for me cinema is, above all else, an art form that has many challenges and inspirations. Of course there are genres and there are approaches, there are styles and there are imitations, but what inspires me the most is the truth, feelings and experimentation in cinema.

EM: Can you speak more to the idea of “cinema as a weapon”?

LP: I feel that the power of cinema is overwhelming - Of course it is very convincing because it has many seductive weapons. We realized that quite early after its invention. The Russians at first used this invention as a great weapon to convince, right? And today Hollywood convinces us of its priorities and interests.

EM: I consider that Mirrors of the Heart is one of your films whose theme is more external to your own context. What was it like working with people and themes located in the territories of Bolivia, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which to a certain extent were distant from you?

LP: Living in the United States, the life that I lived, really binds me deeply to all Latin Americans of different races. In this country, one gets closer to one's own and there we learn about everyone's lives; we share similarities and differences, our stories come together and we feel like part of a big family. The filming was very nice and exciting. I felt a great attachment to our protagonists.

EM: How did Mirrors of the Heart materialize? 

LP: Mirrors of the Heart was a film that had its conception in the offices of PBS. A first version was written by academics from from various North American universities and producers chosen beforehand, so that I would arrive to produce my version of what they had originally come up with. After that, I conceived the story that was filmed, including my own experience within that frame of racism that I always felt. At the time it was a theme that hadn’t been covered all that much, but I found it to be incredibly important. 

Even before, I was deeply interested in the topic… the idea of Latin American identity and the problems that have plagued us since the conquest. It was a great challenge for me. It meant deciphering what I had suffered to some extent while growing up. I made the film with much enthusiasm and seriousness. The investigation was very thorough, more so than what had been done by the producers. This was long and far-reaching, which led to the filming being much faster since we already knew what we were going to do.

In the beginning of the project, we worked with academic theories and it was our job to give them life and find our protagonists. It was the most exciting thing to live and film in the fields, creating a movie, getting the ideas right or not… but also seeing how these developed and become our characters. 

EM: What was your approach with the protagonists?

LP: That depended a lot on their personalities and how they matched our theories. Also their racial experience within society. But before filming, we noticed that many of the theories we worked with in pre-production had to be revised.

When everything matched, when the subjects said things that we had already imagined, when everything fell into pace, that was when we asked them to participate and cooperate. It was all a great adventure, discovering many things - some of which were talked about and others which were not. 

EM: The Aymara, the Dominicans and the Haitians all have a great musical culture. Can you tell us about the use and musical choices in Mirrors of the Heart?

LP: All of Latin America has a musical heritage that has been in process for hundreds and hundreds of years, way before colonization. As inhabitants of this continent, we have great bond with our music. It has evolved from the mixture of native music, music from the Iberian peninsula, as well as African music. I was always very inspired by our music and I wanted to show that in this movie.

It was just a matter of making a foray into the musical history of each country, and falling in love with the music for each part of the film, listening to it in clubs or on the radio. It was a nice research experience.

EM: In a 1990 interview with K. Newman and R. Rich, you mentioned that you relate to the world as a mother. Do you consider this the case while you were making Mirrors of the Heart?

LP: Yes, I believe so. It’s a way of being united within our Latin American culture, and also a way of protecting each other... We know very well who is on our side, and we have to protect ourselves. That's my feeling, I imagine it's like a motherly feeling.

EM: In your 1998 interview with Rosa Linda Fregoso, you mentioned that you feel like a channel for collectivity. Can you tell me about how you came to this idea and how it is reflected in your work and its production?

LP: I have a great appreciation for our people and, at the same time, I recognize the lack of consideration for our cultures. So, what a beautiful thing it is to be able to talk about our cultures and our histories. Sadly, I believe that in this country, the United States, there is a lack of respect for us that is quite evident in every sector. When I was offered to make this film I took it very seriously. This was around 1986.

EM: Mirrors of the Heart was released a year before The Devil Never Sleeps. In my opinion, these films represent two polar opposites within your filmography. Did the processes of the two films overlap?

LP: Every film has its own reason to exist. I believe I felt somehow restricted by the work on Mirrors of the Heart and I wanted to get deeper into the peculiarities of my own family and culture, I wanted to feel free from the formula documentary and I tried to experiment much more with The Devil, in all its formal approaches. I felt that I could finally make a work of art and experiment with form, and that’s how it was.

EM: How do you interpret the roll of the documentary filmmaker within the field of humanities and within society in general?

LP: I believe that the humanities are united in their purpose to filmmaking, particularly documentary. I like that as filmmakers we have a great attachment to reality and truth and those are limits that guide us on a very serious, and simultaneously very artistic and humane path.

EM: Do you have any relationship, or do you feel influenced by the filmmakers of the Third Cinema?

LP: I had the great opportunity to meet many of the directors of the Third Cinema, that is, the New Latin American Cinema, at the end of the 70s and up to the present in Poland, coincidentally at the Krakow Film Festival. For me it was a surprise from heaven - I began to see films made by filmmakers with a different goal, with radical ideas, with extraordinary abilities to make films, and with a sense of mission to do good in our peoples. I think that was the breath of inspiration that went through my career ... to think about what was needed to produce! And I set myself a great goal. Many of them were my friends and my inspiration to this day. I believe that this movement left a great legacy among us filmmakers who later came to Latin America.