Tayta Shanti It becomes the third film by young Huancaíno director Hans Matos Cámac. He introduces us to the Valdez family, who meets in Huancayo for the traditional Tayta Shanti celebration.. In the midst of the hubbub at the party, Angie (Maria Tesoro Tapia) and her cousin Marcelo (Gianco Ponce) will have to confront her identity, since she does not consider herself a Huancaína and he hides her sexual orientation. A family drama where Angie has a bad relationship with Angela (Julia Thays), her mother. A film with touches of humor that also records the color of the traditional festival, which It will hit movie theaters this February 29, 2024.
For Maria Tesoro Tapia, a young actress and communicator from Huanca, Angie becomes her first leading role on the big screen. “The challenge has been to interpret her without exaggerating her evil, to show that she is not totally a villain.. She has a human side that she lets see… her motivation is not to do harm, but she, really and genuinely, does things out of a kind of sick love that she feels towards her mother, with whom she has a relationship. very close relationship. A bond that for some, perhaps, at her age, should no longer be that way; but her mother has also been a participant. This type of relationship occurs a lot in the Andean area, where, sometimes, the family unit is very attached. That aspect has been quite challenging; In fact, I feel like I have points in common with Angie, but there are differences. I have also had to put aside certain principles that I have now. I am not racist and I had to become a person like Angie, who can calmly command and chole.”
The 27-year-old actress who lives in Lima, where she came to study at university, identifies with Angie because she is a migrant. “I have experienced firsthand the process that Angie experienced in the film. To feel discrimination, which is no longer, perhaps, very visible, but it occurs, and what is now called micro-racism… And that is precisely why I liked the character. I feel like he helps us examine that side of an entire generation of migrants out there.”
The interpreter highlights, on the other hand, the support she received from Julia Thays, who played his mother. “I am very grateful with you. Julia is an experienced actress. She has been a great guide throughout this process. I did a lot of theater since I was a child in Huancayo, but as an amateur. In Tayta Shanti I had to cry for the first time in front of a camera. I didn't know how to do it and she helped me a lot. “With her I learned to cry.”
The director speaks
For Hans Matos Cámac, who directed Pueblo Viejo (2015, winner of the Almería Western Film Festival award) and Peso Gallo (2022), the main theme of his third feature film is identity. “And at the same time we explore how a person can take wrong actions, such as being racist and discriminating against people, even from his own family. These themes that run through the film are treated in a very subtle and also intimate way, because they occur within this family where discrimination, homophobia and racism are experienced.”
About the relationship between mother and daughter in Tayta Shanti, unlike what she thinks Maria Tesoro, points out that it is not sickly. “Her mother has poured her entire life into her daughter, which is the only thing she has left from a relationship where she suffered a lot. She realizes that her daughter has already grown up and that she has to leave the role of protector of her and start living as a woman and move on to another stage, give herself a chance to fall in love, maybe.”
Finally, he welcomed the exposure that the productions made in the regions are having. “It makes me happy that regional cinema films continue to arrive because, suddenly, we can see stories where we can see ourselves identified. I think that Peruvian cinema is a sum of regional cinema and what is done in Lima,” she pointed out.
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