Cinema is memory, and it is so in many ways. For the Mexican director Pierre Saint-Martin Castellanos, making his first fiction film, They will not move us, It was a mix of memories, from a tribute to his mother and the loss of a family member to hearing the testimonies of people close to him who experienced firsthand and lost a loved one on October 2, 1968, when more than 300 students protesting in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, located in the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Housing Unit in Mexico City, were gunned down by the army.
The genesis of the film was twofold for Saint-Martin. One part that had an impact on him was the death of his uncle in 1968, an unusual coincidence with what happened in October, since the death of this relative was not related to the student movement. However, like any loss, as he explains, it had many reminiscences for his mother’s family, of pain, guilt, especially for her, because he was her closest brother.
“That wound and that pain were inherited from me. As I grew up and learned about the student movement, about what happened on October 2, 1968, it seemed natural to me to equate the two stories in a fiction, a sort of fable of revenge, with the premise of what would have happened if my mother had had the opportunity to avenge her brother’s death, in her way of seeing it as justice. All of this was what generated the idea of making the film. They will not move us”, says Saint-Martin via video call.
The director dug up the memory of the 1968 student massacre through documents such as The night of Tlatelolcoby Elena Poniatowska, and the story of the sculptor Ofelia Murrieta, mother of Luis Donaldo Colosio —former PRI candidate for president assassinated in 1994—, who saw the massacre up close and “somatized that horror with a bodily paralysis that led her to fail her History exams,” according to a brief biography of the artist. in a postShe told Saint-Martin that many years later she had had an encounter with one of the soldiers in the plaza of Oaxaca. She says that she recognized him and that it was “a strong impact.”
This is how the story of Socorro, played by Luisa Huertas, came about. She is a stubborn lawyer who is obsessed with finding the soldier who killed her brother during the student massacre of 1968. This need for justice masks an old guilt that has made her enemies with her sister Esperanza and her son Jorge. After decades of waiting, the protagonist receives the missing clue to find the soldier, which leads her to conjure up an absurd plan of revenge, putting her assets, her family and even her own life at risk.
The film, winner of the Audience Award and Best Mexican Film at the Guadalajara Film Festival, and which was also recognized at the Cinélatino Festival in Toulouse, France, with the Student Fiction Award, the Critics’ Award, and the Best Fiction Award, has begun its tour of various national and international film events, with the prospect of being released commercially in the Mexican Republic at the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025. Its next stop will be at the Guanajuato Film Festival, to be held from July 19 to 28 in the cities of León, San Miguel de Allende, and Irapuato.
“They will not move us “It is a story of revenge and forgiveness in a country historically thirsty for justice. It is also a tribute to my mother and other families who have lost someone to violence and who have lost the path to peace. While justice and pain are the triggers of the drama, it was the humour, intrinsic to the main character, that shaped this farcical story that yearns for both peace and forgiveness,” says the director.
The Mexican-Salvadoran actress Luisa Huertas, who was involved in the student movement of 1968, says that Socorro is full of nuances, “a sensitive, determined, bold, angry woman at times,” a character in which she can “reform.” “I love how she approaches the subject.” [la película]without pamphlets and from a human point of view,” says the interpreter with more than 50 years of experience.
Forged in the theatre, but with a prolific career in television and film, Huertas built her protagonist inspired by Saint Martin’s mother, her environment; in what the other characters in Socorro say and think, based on her profession as a lawyer, which implies her ethics, her sensitivity and spirituality; her role as a mother and sister in the face of what she wants to commit to achieve redemption, elements that allow the spectator to immerse themselves in the soul of this woman, according to the actress.
![Socorro smokes on a rooftop, in a frame from 'They won't move us'.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/PWDRZPAGEZHE3N3BE5SZGDDDSA.jpg?auth=bb12406b655f35823ba6209342746bf27bead29f7c5d7993d5764dabbb7917af&width=414)
“I think what Pier wanted, and that’s why I loved the script, was to touch people’s souls. To tell a story that, although it is based on a fundamental historical event for our country and that continues to hurt us, but through a very rich character like Socorro and all her surroundings. It’s a film that goes after what all human beings want at a given moment, and I think that when we are at a certain age we want it more, which is inner peace, reconciliation with ourselves to be able to give this to the world around us and to the world in general,” says Huertas.
They will not move us It was visually conceived as a film with many symbols and audiovisual elements that have both emotional connotations and subtexts. Similarly, says Saint Martin, it was conceived in black and white with the intention of portraying the feeling of a person who refuses to let go of the past, like an old photograph to which he stubbornly clings.
Sain Martin says that it is a story that moves from the heart of the main character, something he learned from his teachers: the character is the one who commands. “The character tells you what you should put in and what things you have to build and design. Learning that changed my way of seeing cinema a lot. The use of symbols and audiovisual metaphors have to be at the service of the character,” concludes the director.
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