What We Leave Behind - 2022

A la edad de 89 años, Julián toma un último viaje en autobús a El Paso, Texas, para visitar a sus hijas y sus nietos. Tras su regreso a una zona rural de México, él empieza a construir sigilosamente una casa en el lote baldío al lado de su casa. A lo largo de varios años, la directora Iliana Sosa filma el trabajo de su abuelo, tamizando apaciblemente los recuerdos tácitos de Julián que han sido invocados por el proyecto de construcción y que revelan tanto el pragmatismo cotidiano como la poesía de su vida.

– editada, escrita y co-producida por Isidore Bethel / dirigida, escrita, fotografiada y producida por Iliana Sosa / producida por Emma D. Miller

– Borderchild Productions, Marcona Media, ARRAY Releasing (US distribution), Netflix (US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand)

– SXSW, First Look (Museum of the Moving Image), Full Frame, Camden IFF, Morelia IFF, Guanajuato IFF, AFI Latin American FF, Thessaloniki DF, Tacoma FF, Thin Line Fest, Phoenix FF, RiverRun IFF, North by North IFF, Milwaukee FF, the DocYard, Los Angeles Latino IFF, Philadelphia Latino FF, Tallgrass FF, Cine Las Americas IFF (Hecho en Tejas centerpiece film), California Capital IDFF, CineFestival San Antonio, El Paso Plaza Classic FF, Viva Texas FF, Flatland FF, Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase, Loft Film Fest (Tucson, Arizona), PampaDocFest (Argentina)

– The New York Times Critic’s Pick, The Gotham Awards Best Documentary Nominee, SXSW Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, SXSW Fandor New Voices Award, Cinema Tropical Awards Best US Latinx Film Nomination, Thin Line Fest Emerging Filmmaker Award, Tacoma FF Best Documentary Feature Special Mention, North by North Best Feature Award, Viva Texas Best Documentary Feature Award, Flatland FF Best Director and Best Feature Awards, The Gotham Film Week FilmFlow Award

– 71 minutes

– with support from the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, the Sundance Institute Documentary Program, Field of Vision, the IDA Sarowitz Project Completion Fund and ACAI Award, City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department, the Austin Film Society, Catapult Film Fund, the True/False & Catapult Rough Cut Retreat, the Jacob Burns Film Center Creative Culture Residency, the Gotham Documentary Lab, the Logan Nonfiction Program, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum

PRENSA:
– Letras Libres: “Una emotiva crónica familiar que, inevitablemente, se transforma en un relato universal.”
– Palomita de Maíz: “La mirada de Sosa es naturalista y contemplativa, hilando una narrativa de lo que podemos suponer que fueron horas y horas de pietaje protagonizado por su abuelo. Ella captura la intimidad familiar, los pensamientos de un hombre que ha vivido más de lo que jamás hubiera imaginado, la cercanía entre las personas que se han negado a dejar que la lejanía geográfica los mantenga alejados con gran tino, dejando hablar a sus personajes y apenas comunicando el contexto necesario.”
– The New York Times: “What We Leave Behind insists upon power in stillness, and the poignancy in staying — and leaving.”
– Filmmaker: “What We Leave Behind is an astonishingly intimate labor of love.”
– Boston Globe: A “limpid, emotionally deep, and poetically resonant documentary.”
– on the Los Angeles Times’ five-film highlights list for LALIFF: “From intimate conversations and quiet moments of contemplation, Mexican American filmmaker Iliana Sosa renders a loving portrait of her elderly grandfather Julián.”
– Texas Monthly: “What We Leave Behind was the surprise masterpiece of SXSW.”
– The Hollywood Reporter: “First-person filmmaking at its eloquent best.”
– The Austin Chronicle: “Iliana Sosa offers an intimate portrait of a family separated by distance but united in love, and a moving exploration of the many metaphorical meanings of ‘crossing over.’ Simple scenes filmed with reverence and Sosa’s brilliant eye for light and angles elevate daily routines to visual poetry.”
– Texas Observer: The film “is arresting from the start…Moreno, the abuelo, is so compellingly self-contained and the domestic imagery of his life so striking that the film thrives on silence and simple themes…The colors in What We Leave Behind are a feast…The concluding scenes, almost shocking in their intimacy, are an emotional roar, played out nonetheless with the film’s relentless subtlety.”
– The Daily Texan: “Spinning ordinarily mundane moments into candid memories of Julián’s last few years, Sosa’s documentation of her grandfather leaves the audience emotional and in awe of the loving 89-year-old…With both funny and sincere moments, What We Leave Behind serves as a stunningly intimate remembrance of Julián. Impossible not to love, Julián’s on-screen presence at the SXSW premiere was a heart-warming yet emotional experience for the audience.”
– Hammer to Nail recommendation and review: “A beautifully photographed tribute to the director’s nonagenarian grandfather, Iliana Sosa’s What We Leave Behind showcases a life well lived, or at least fully so…Though this documentary may be but 70 minutes long, it manages to feel comprehensive in its portrait of a man determined to leave this world on his own terms…It’s a lovely paean to a human force of nature.”
– KENS5 recommendation and review: “…a deeply melancholic feature-length documentary debut that locates its soul by not pressuring itself to look for it. It’s an ode to a way of living and a portrait of the latter days of a life fully lived, gracefully edited together with a patience mirroring the small rural community where it was shot.”
– Cinapse: “The power of Sosa’s documentary dwells in the pauses between sentences, the breaks in the stories being told.”
– Production Hub interview: “Editor Isidore Bethel Describes Working on SXSW Documentary Feature, What We Leave Behind”
– interview with Iliana Sosa, Isidore Bethel, and Emma D. Miller by Deadline’s Matthew Carey: “Sosa credits Bethel for helping her find the film through their collaboration.”
– interview with Iliana Sosa by Eye for Film: “A moving personal story and a portrait of a world rarely seen on film, What We Leave Behind was one of the unexpected hits of this year’s South by Southwest.”
– interview with Iliana Sosa by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists: Isidore “loved everything I’d always loved about my grandfather — his offhanded comedic timing, his evocative gestures, his wisdom grounded in labor and land. Isidore was also able to situate those feelings in specific moments from the footage. This inspired tremendous confidence in me.”
– interview with Iliana Sosa by The Moveable Fest: “Isidore really took the material and just ran with it…It was such a collaborative process and we would have extensive conversations about what you see in the film. The editing is really the key.”
– on Unseen Films’ First Look recommendation list and Hammer to Nail’s, Austin 360’s, Orca Sound’s, Jim Kolmar’s Realscreen, The Cherry Picks’, Austin Vida’s, and KENS5’s must-see lists for SXSW
– SXSW Lone Star Award Jury Statement: “Iliana Sosa’s exquisite documentary What We Leave Behind is a love letter to her Mexican grandfather, whose final decline she chronicles with artful grace. It is also a moving look at a family disconnected by both border and dreams, and how their patriarch, too old now for his monthly 20-hour bus rides from Durango into Texas, worries who will hold the center once he’s gone. Eighty-nine-year-old Julián has the face and gravitas of an old-time movie star. Sosa has made a profound, gorgeous movie worthy of her precious subject.”
– SXSW New Voices Award Jury Statement: “Iliana beautifully captures the lives and vulnerability of her family, particularly Julián’s humanity, commitment to family and sense of humor in the face of mortality. What We Leave Behind embodies the type of captivating storytelling we work to elevate at Fandor. We could not be more excited to present Iliana with the Fandor New Voices Award.”