Voices that Make Noise: how we supported each other in San Luis Potosí, México

We shouldn’t have to be here , claims one of our characters in a scene that attempts to recreate one –or several– of the many feminist meetings crowding the streets of different cities for a few years now.

But if you are reading this, it means that –like me, and like all those people who participated in the creation of this NOISE – there is something in our topic that you’ll find interesting. Perhaps, like me, you’re not so sure what it is about someone else's pain that resounds in the deepest parts of you, that seems so personal. It doesn’t matter if you have been fortunate enough not to have been touched by the many forms of violence crisscrossing Mexican territory; the pain of others is also your pain. And it’s there, no matter if you and I have never met, where we find each other. And as contradictory as it may seem, it is not the pain that brings us together, but the love and the empathy; through these concepts –and ways to face the world– we glimpse a hopeful change in the narrative as a nation.

NOISE is my third feature film and the toughest project I have come across to date. Starring Julieta Egurrola –who happens to be my mother– NOISE is the story of a mother searching for her daughter in the context of contemporary Mexico. And while this may appear to be a story closer to the horror film genre, to me, the drive to make this movie comes from its opposite.

As a Mexican woman, the mother of a young girl, and a filmmaker, I find it inevitable to commit both heart and mind to reflect on the possibilities to turn back this extremely violent tide that has thrashed against us as a society for such a long time now. I need to ask myself questions from my own duty to search for a glimmer of light, and it was precisely during that practice of research and awareness (a never-ending learning curve) for and with this film, that I became able to find respite amidst so much horror filling up my digital feeds, no matter the social network, on a daily basis. And I found that warmth, that light, hand in hand with the search organization Voz y Dignidad por los Nuestros S.L.P. (Voice and Dignity for Our Loved Ones, San Luis Potosí).

Voz y Dignidad is one of the two organizations searching for disappeared individuals who come on the screen to tell their stories in their own voices (the other group is Buscándote con Amor Edo. Mex). “Docu-fiction”, the purists may call it in their attempt to pigeonhole everything to give it sense. But to me, it is rather a free exercise of boundaries touching or becoming erased to shape the very calligraphy of the NOISE I was interested in stitching together. I also learned about that exercise in freedom from Lupita, Edith and Diana (founders of these two organizations). Thanks to them and to their tireless perseverance in searching for their loved ones, and the memory, justice and truth in their stories, I understood that the possibility to experience joy, to feel identified with another, to laugh, and to walk together, are also acts of rebellion. The power of the collective as an engine for possible change.

Having the chance to return to the state where we filmed a large part of the film, and introduce the completed work not only to all those people who worked in its production but especially to the families that make up the Voz y Dignidad organization (as well as the representatives of an additional five search collectives from around the country) has been one of the most powerful experiences of my professional life.

The screening that took place a few days ago was an extremely powerful reminder of why we made this film. During our dialogue with the audience, a girl shared with us that she had been an extra during the shooting, and that thanks to this film she found out that San Luis Potosí has a social organization dedicated to the search for their disappeared loved ones. This girl has been searching for her father since 2019, and it was during that screening that she made contact with Voz y Dignidad.

We shouldn’t have to be looking for our loved ones or wondering where they are, who took them… We shouldn’t have to be here, but we are.