By Sandro Mairata
“I had a good idea,” says Peruvian director Carla Gutiérrez (Lima, 1975) from New York. The question sought to know how he got the support of none other than Hollywood heavyweights Ron Howard and Brian Grazer – listed as executive producers – and other big names such as Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Time Studios for his award-winning documentary 'Frida'. the 2024 Sundance Festival for best edition, in a new victory for Peruvians in the audiovisual world. Gutiérrez has an extensive career in the United States as an editor and nominations for the Emmy and the Eddie—the American Cinema Editors award.
—The story of Frida Kahlo has been told so many times and in so many ways. What was the differential of your project?
—Frida's life fascinates millions, but I had never seen a record of her life in her own voice, through her words. We were putting together the project with two producers and we saw that we had a proposal that interested the people at Amazon. They practically bought the documentary before it was finished.
—You found in the actress Fernanda Echevarría an ideal interpreter for Frida's voice.
—Several things happened at the same time. First, there is no proven recording of Frida's voice. That gave us the freedom to focus on the performance, not necessarily the texture of an actress's voice. We were looking for a performance that was not exaggerated, but that could carry everything that Frida experienced, that she had that maturity of someone who had spent a lot of time suffering physically, but also from the heart; that he had gone through many pains, many losses in his life, but he had never lost that curiosity that he had since childhood, with a passion to have that connection with the external world that was very intense, which he had until the last day of his life; also this sense of desire, of pleasure.
—Frida is a Mexican symbol. Are you ready for them to question right there why a Peruvian woman had to come to make this documentary?
—The truth is that I love receiving this question because I am very aware of that. Being Latina, there are many stories about us that have been told by American gringos. I come to this topic of Frida's life with great respect, knowing that I am not Mexican, knowing that I do have an approach to Latin American culture itself. We want to tell the story in an artistic way, but based on knowledge.
—Why choose the name Frida for the documentary knowing that it could be confused with the film of the same name by Salma Hayek?
—I have a lot of respect for the great work that Salma (Hayek) did; We tried various titles, but nothing felt as good as just the name Frida. Salma's film came out quite a few years ago (2002), but that's how we know her and I feel that our intention was to get to the depths of her voice; it felt very honest to just give her the name Frida.
“The film was directed with a strong and clear vision,” they said at Sundance, where it won best editing. Photo: Prime Video
—The film will only be seen in Mexico on May 9. What are they planning?
– That's how it is. Of all the countries where Amazon Prime is, the only one where it cannot be seen is in Mexico. There it will be presented in theaters and we will have a special premiere.
—Is your move to fiction cinema coming?
—I didn't think about directing 'Frida' because I was happy as an editor; I am a born documentary filmmaker, there are things that documentary can offer you that fiction cannot and vice versa. But I'm not going to say “never”.
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