This Wednesday, November 2nd, it will premiere at the Gaumont cinema Pa’trás or pa’get momentuma film that tells different circumstances experienced over time by a very unique being: the talented dancer of flamenco Carmen Mesa, born in the Andalusian province of Córdoba, awarded several times in her country and who lived between Argentina and Spain from 2007 to 2019.
In the last few years of this period she settled mainly in Buenos Aires, although she toured much of the country dancing and teaching flamenco.
His interest in the world and his commitment to different causes add other condiments to the film, without ceasing to be present in his status as an excellent artist that he is. Carmen Mesa breathes flamenco and that is what this exceptional film reveals: beautiful, moving and with an impeccable narrative rhythm.
Documentary or fiction?
How to catalog Pa’trás or pa’get momentum? It’s not exactly a documentary, because part of what happened to Carmen over the years has been recreated for the film and at least two real people aren’t played alone.
But it’s not even a fiction, because everything said is based on real content: his stage experiences (including part of that delightful solo I cook it, I eat itseen years ago in Buenos Aires), the relationship he establishes with the young daughters of a family from Tafí del Valle in Tucumán, the loss of a sister, his way of transmitting flamenco.
Anyway, they are pieces of his authentic life those that are there.
solidarity projects
Carmen Mesa herself – recently arrived from Jaén, where she lives with her partner, the famous Spanish jazz musician Pedro Peinada – has a hard time defining the genre of the film.
He tells of its origin, up to a certain remote point: “Ten years before shooting began, I was looking for a way to unite three continents in a song of solidarity. I had received a book by the historian Teresa Piossek Prebisch whose title is the conquerors and that I was very interested.
What are these three continents?
-Africa, Spain, Europe. Three continents where I hold flamenco lessons. I was finding out I want to do a flamenco with more content and with a commitment; It’s not that easy, and dancing is very difficult. But that’s what interests me and so I became a kind of NGO with legs. It is for this reason that when I came to Argentina I approached the Flamenquon project.
-What is this project?
-My friend Pepe Cielo, manager of the Spanish group Chambao, met Patricia Sosa and her foundation “Small gestures”. We connected and started traveling in the Chaco, in the area of Villa Castelli and Río Bermejito, where there are communities of quom. We brought in a luthier and they started making flamenco percussion cajons with their own materials.
a film is born
-And from there did they get to the film project?
-Completely by chance, I later met Marta Esteban in Buenos Aires, a very important film producer in Spain who has worked with Argentine actors such as Ricardo Darín and Leonardo Sbaraglia.
I had written many things about what I was experiencing – my knowledge of the reality of this country and what I had learned from Teresa Piossek Prebisch’s book – and a mutual friend asked me to show them to Marta. But far from me the idea of a film and much less in me as a protagonist.
-And so?
-Marta told me: “We will do something with this, but on a current woman it will be you”. They had just seen me in my monologue I cook it, I eat it, which he was doing in Buenos Aires. The director is Lupe Pérez García, an Argentine living in Spain. She was creating the situations that had been real and putting them together as an actress with little guidance. Some I didn’t even know about.
-For instance?
-The scene where I am following a singing course, upset because the man I loved has left me. Lupe had previously said to the singing teacher: “You annoy her.” And that’s where I started talking about him. There was no previous test.
New friends
-How did you come to the Tafí del Valle family, of which there are such beautiful scenes in the film?
-I was in the city of Tucumán giving flamenco lessons and I asked a friend to take me to the mountains. He tells me: “Let’s go to Tafí del Valle”. We take an almost deserted path; there was a great fog and suddenly we see a roadside desk, one of those old school desks, and a little girl sitting there, alone in the middle of nowhere. The table was covered with weeds.
Carmen continues: “I say to my friend:“ Carlos, what is this girl doing there? Let’s talk to her. “We ask her what her name is:” Brenda. “” And what are you doing here? “.” I sell weeds. “” But how? Nobody goes through here! Come on, I’ll buy you all. “
-And is this how you met Brenda, the youngest of the three little sisters?
-Yes, and then we took her to her house, which was close by. We bought them all the fried pies and all the empanadas they could make; but without offending them, however needy they were. Then we all ended up singing and became friends; Every time I go back to Tucumán, I buy a ticket to Tafí del Valle and go to visit them.
-And did you teach the three girls to dance?
– Whenever I go, I always say that I dance flamenco. I started teaching them some little things about dance and above all to know each other better, to have more faith in each other.
Between truth and representation
-Is the Argentine guy you fell in love with and came to live in Argentina for him the same one who appears in the discussion about the breakup at the bar?
No, it is not the same. That scene, one of the most difficult in the film, was one of the first to be shot. But it’s not played by the real person, but (laughs) by the executive producer, who is from Argentina.
– That moment has a lot of truth!
The director had given him a guide. Nothing for me: I just had to react. And the guy I have a little sentimental approach to after playing pool isn’t even an actor; he is a film technician.
– You play pool very well.
-I grew up in a small Andalusian town, Encinas Reales, and there weren’t many other things to do.
– Did you want something as personal to appear in the film as that separation that hurt you a lot at that moment?
-I didn’t say anything; what I did was revive things, I also proposed ideas, I talked about the characters who are my friends, my family and my fellow dancers from Seville; finally, my universe. By the time the production company took all of this, the film has already become theirs.
-Why the title “Pa’trás ni pa’take momentum”?
Because it speaks of the struggle of this person who is me. And because I believe you should never go back. Go on with all that life gives you: the good and the bad. To live is to accept.
Pa’trás or pa’get momentum opens this Wednesday November 2nd at 8pm Espacio Gaumont, Rivadavia 1635.
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Source: Clarin
