INTERVIEW: ‘Song Without a Name’ tells the story of Georgina and the search for her baby
Photo: Song Without a Name stars Pamela Mendoza as Georgina, a woman searching for her kidnapped baby. Photo courtesy of Film Movement / Provided by Foundry Communication with permission.
Melina León’s Song Without a Name, now available from Film Movement’s virtual cinema, tells the story of Georgina (Pamela Mendoza) who is searching for her baby, who was whisked away from her moments after being born in a clinic in Lima, Peru. The mother faces an uphill battle to figure out what happened and how she might find her child. The 1988-set movie finds Georgina eventually teaming up with a journalist to uncover corruption and a sordid web of people preying on new mothers.
Song Without a Name was nominated for the Camera d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, and it has played to acclaim at the Lima Latin American Film Festival and Munich Film Festival. Now audiences around the world have a chance to catch the harrowing drama.
León, who directed the feature and co-wrote the script with Michael J. White, has filmed three previous short films: El Paraíso de Lili, Girl With a Walkman and Una 45 Para los Gastos del Mes. Recently she exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about her new movie. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What inspired you to write this script with Michael J. White and tell this powerful story?
I was about to finish film school in New York and was looking for a story for my first feature when my dad told me [he] had received a phone call from a French woman who wanted to meet him for articles he’d written three decades before. She was one of the babies that was kidnapped back in 1981.
I thought it was miraculous; it resonated a lot because in a way I felt the same thing that this French woman was feeling, a need to reconstruct your past in order to understand and love myself and our country better, in a more profound way.
How would you describe the character of Georgina?
Volcano.
How common were these types of abductions in Peru in the 1980s?
It was pretty common then, and it is pretty common nowadays everywhere in the world. The trafficking of humans is one of the most lucrative of businesses.
The visual style of the film is so interesting and unique. How did you settle on the look and artistic lensing of the feature?
The look is the result of a long conversation with Inti Briones, the DP. It took place over many years as I was looking for funding. First we remembered that the photos in those days were still printed in black and white, so in a way we realized that our memory of the ’80s is in black and white. Also, it felt emotionally accurate to use it for such colorless times. The format 4×3 emulates the TVs of those days but also speaks about our lack of horizons. I personally also feel that is a very humble format, just like our protagonist.
How difficult was the production? Was it shot in the Andes and Lima?
It was hard. We only had five weeks of shooting and a small budget. We shot in Lima and Iquitos (a city in the Amazonia). The scene in the Andes we shot a few hours away from Lima (where it starts to feel and look like the Andes).
What do you hope the audience takes away from Georgina’s story? What do you feel the story can say about 2020?
I guess a sense of awakening towards the immense suffering we inflict to each other. No theme in the film is irrelevant now. There is misogyny, colonialism, segregation, racism, homophobia, the violence we experience everywhere, in every building, in every gaze.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Song Without a Name, directed and co-written by Melina León, is now available virtually from Film Movement. Click here for more information.
