Us women . Them women
Nosotras . Ellas
ARGENTINA / 2015 / Spanish / Color / DCP / 65 min
Director, Script, Photography: Julia Pesce
Editing: Lucía Torres
Sound: Federico Disandro
Producer: Juan C. Maristany
Production Company and World Sales: Cine El Calefón
A family of nine women of various ages, all living under the same roof. Something seems to permeate the old mansion—something that has been inherited through the women’s bodies, from their ancestors. The elderly accept death in peace, while young bodies give birth to new life. Filmmaker Julia Pesce boldly and sensitively depicts how the breath of life can be handed over from one body to the next, as if each is but a part of the other. The male figure is faraway and temporary in this world of only women, that emerges on the screen like something out of mythology.
[Director’s Statement] Recently I read something that stayed echoing within me: “We care about documentary gesture because it restores our relationship with the world, with history and with the present.” To think of my relationship with the world is, among other things, having to turn my eyes towards myself, and unavoidably to my core and family history.
I have observed the kind of link that exists among part of my family, confirmed by nine women of different generations. It is not only a blood tie that links us, but a deeper one that seems to need to be protected and isolated from the rest of the world. This family of women became, in a particular moment of my life, something contradictory, a source of conflicts and questionings, a reason for reflection. That was the beginning of my first film.
I began shooting briefly some small situations. The impending death of one of my grandaunts was the starting point that placed me with the camera in every corner of her house. It was a moment that would never return. No moment returns, I thought. And it’s terrible, but at the same time, beautiful. I’m interested in films that exist as a spark, one that shines briefly, for an instant, something that is out there in the world, something that waits to be re-discovered. A sight that gives life to what seems to occur meaninglessly.
Us women . Them women is, in the first place, a movie about this group of my family, an approach to its structure, to these women’s lives. It is my encounter with the world through the intimate exposed, which unveils to us how terrible and amazing it is to see yourself in others’ bodies and eyes.
Julia PesceJulia Pesce is an Argentinean film and art director born in 1984. In 2008 she got her degree as a technician in Audio-visual Media Production at the National University of Córdoba. In 2009 she worked as an assistant director on the documentary feature Criada, premiered at BAFICI the same year within the National Competition and programmed in several national and international festivals and exhibitions. From 2010 onwards, she started working in the art department of several film and TV projects, such as De caravana (2010), La Purga (2011), Siete Vuelos (2012), El grillo (2013), Una noche sin luna (2014) and TRES-D (2014). In 2015 she completed her first feature film Us women . Them women, which had been in the making for five years. The film premiered within the Regard Neuf competition at the Visions du Reel film festival.
Interview