A Love Song in Spanish

She goes about her monotonous, lonely routine: shelling beans, cooking dinner, cleaning the bathroom and waiting for him. He is nothing more than a ghost in a uniform. Panama’s military dictatorship has left its mark on the family. Wounds and guilt are buried in silence, healing is impossible: the experiences have inscribed themselves too deeply. But the body does not forget – neither the torture nor the dancing. A filmmaker’s tender portrait of her grandparents.
by Ana Elena Tejera
with Yolanda Mathieu, Candido Ríos, Servicio de Fronteras de Panamá
France / Panama 2020 Spanish 24’ Colour Documentary form

Part of the Berlinale Summer Special

With

  • Yolanda Mathieu
  • Candido Ríos
  • Servicio de Fronteras de Panamá (National Border Service of Panama)

Crew

Written and Directed by Ana Elena Tejera
Cinematography Mateo Guzmán
Editing Ana Elena Tejera
Sound Design Ana Elena Tejera
Sound Juan Camilo Martínez Idárraga
Sound Mixing Geoffrey Durcak
Sound Editing Geoffrey Durcak, Martin Delzescaux
Colourist Baptiste Evrard
Graphic Design Anhar Salem
Artistic Adviser Béla Tarr
Production Manager François Willig, Luc-Jérôme Bailleul
Producer François Bonenfant

Produced by

Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains

https://www.lefresnoy.net/fr https://www.lefresnoy.net/fr

Mestizo Cinema

Ana Elena Tejera

The director, artist and actor was born in Panama in 1990. Frequently combining diverse audiovisual formats with live performances, her work includes “Festival de la Memoria” which recontextualised urban spaces with performance and installations of images from political archives. She also worked on the restoration of part of Panama’s film archive at the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Her debut film Panquiaco premiered at the 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam. She is an artist in residence at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in France.

Filmography

2020 Panquiaco · A Love Song in Spanish (Kurzfilm)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2021