TIFF 2017 Profile: Violeta Ayala
“I believe only women should make films for the next 100 years, we then can start talking about equality in the film industry.”
When we think about cocaine, we often think about it in its powder form. We see it as lines in a mirror in a rock star’s dressing room or as bricks hidden in a car for smuggling via a dangerous cartel. It’s imagery like this that makes it easy to forget that this drug so often synonymous with the rich and powerful starts off as a simple plant.
In Bolivia, the coca plant is grown by local farmers. It is harvested by hand and often by whole families, including children. Coca leaves are used by mediums to read fortunes. Coca is a part of Bolivian life and culture. You see, growing a certain amount of coca is completely legal; it’s the creation, taking, and transportation of cocaine that is not.
It’s this muddled grey area that filmmaker Violeta Ayala explores in her latest documentary COCAINE PRISON. We meet the real people at the heart of the industry and the US’s “War on Drugs” — the true “foot soldiers” rather than the big bosses. These are the people whose lives are being ruined yet these are also the people we know nothing about.
With incredible access Ayala and her producer/cinematographer Dan Fallshaw take us on an eye-opening journey with their three subjects: Hernan, a teenager who was arrested for drug smuggling; his younger sister Deisy, who is trying to get him released from prison; and Mario, a drug worker who is trying to also gain his freedom. All three of their stories take place in and around the infamous San Sebastian Prison, a chaotic open-air prison with a population of over 700, many also there for drugs related crimes.
Cocaine Prison is an intimate and compassionate documentary that will forever change how you view the cocaine industry. It’s subtle, observational camerawork and superb editing fully immerses you in Hernan, Desiy, and Mario’s lives and will have you on the edge of your seat rooting for them against all the odds.
Violeta Ayala is an award-winning Indigenous filmmaker, artist, writer and fighter born in Bolivia. Her prior films include The Fight (2017), which was distributed by The Guardian Shorts and won the Doc Dispatch Award at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival and Best Short at the International Human Rights Festival in Sucre, Bolivia; The Bolivian Case (2015), which premiered as a Special Presentation at Hot Docs and was nominated for Premios Platino and Fenix (the two most prestigious awards in Ibero-America); and Stolen (2009), which also screened at TIFF and 80 festivals worldwide, has won 16 awards, and aired on PBS. She also writes on Huffington Post, which you can read here!
Cocaine Prison will have its World Premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, September 10th at 4:15pm. You can learn more about the documentary and other screening times on the TIFF website.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with filmmaking.
Violeta Ayala: I’m from Cochabamba, a valley surrounded by mountains in the heart of the Andes. I have two younger brothers. I come from a family of doctors because my grandfather (who was a political leader, friend to Che Guevara), he really wanted his children to serve society and my country at the time needed doctors.
I don’t often talk about my mother, because she died when I was 17 and still hurts me a lot. My mum was a very strong woman, she was a feminist fighting for women reproductive rights. One thing I remember about growing up with her is that I had the freedom to dream, she fought against a very conservative society, for me to become a free woman. I grew up fast after she died. I felt so lonely and lost that I had to leave Bolivia; I missed her so much and I still do. I traveled through Latin America, South East Asia and India, took a lots of photos and wrote my diary. I worked in odd-jobs including reading luck on the streets in Auckland. It wasn’t usual for girls to backpack on their own at the time.
Then I moved to Australia to be with my biological father (he left when I was a little girl). In Australia I went to university to study communications. It was during my second year I had a class in video production and as soon as my lecturer showed us the basics of editing, something in my head clicked and I instantly understood how to make films. Soon after I met my partner in crime, Dan Fallshaw and we jumped deep into making films and never looked back.
Tell us about Cocaine Prison. How did you get involved with telling this story?
VA: I was tired of the gun-toting narco myth narrative created by the media because that’s just a part of the story. I’m not saying Pablo Escobar or El Chapo don’t exist—just that those stories are the exception. The majority of the people involved in making and transporting drugs are young and/or vulnerable. It’s a big global business and it works the same way that globalization does — the Indigenous people, the people of color, the young and the poor risk everything, while those at the top make the money.
I wanted to tell the story of the effects of the War on Drugs from my own personal experience. Coming from Bolivia, one of the four countries where the coca leaf grows and cocaine is produced, for me the war on drugs was real. During the more violent times, from the window of my grandmother’s house, I saw DEA agents and Bolivian soldiers beating and killing coca farmers and imprisoning everyone suspected of being involved in drug trafficking yet cocaine was at its most expensive and the market just kept expanding.
You shot Cocaine Prison over five years. Did you have an idea of the main story as you were going along or did it all come together while editing?
VA: We went to San Sebastian prison to look for stories of people involved in the drug trade. What was a surprise to me is that in all of those years we never saw a big fish inside the prison, it was only the young, Indigenous and vulnerable. We met Hernan and Mario during our first weeks teaching english in San Sebastian; we then met Hernan’s younger sister Deisy. I decided very early on to follow the three main characters and their journeys shaped the narrative of the film.
You explored the cocaine industry previously in your 2015 documentary The Bolivian Case. Is there something in particular that keeps drawing you to this subject?
VA: The Drug War is one of the biggest problems in Latin America and because the drug trade is illegal, it breeds corruption, and corruption blocks true democracy. It’s pretty depressing to think—after so many years of a failed war and far too many lives lost—governments continue with this War on Drugs, harming everyone in between while corporations, banks and drug lords get scot-free. I have never heard of a banker going to prison for laundering drug money. Where are they?
The access you achieved with the men in the prison was incredible. Did they easily open up to you and Dan?
VA: It wasn’t easy. We spent almost everyday in prison for three years. We built trust—it’s a mutual thing and we went on a journey together.
Can you tell us about some/all of the other amazing women who worked on this film?
VA: I met Redelia Shaw during Film Independent Lab in LA. We became friends and soon after we started working together. Redelia is a cool producer. We have different personalities — I’m fiery while Redelia is calm — however we are both passionate about using storytelling and filmmaking as a tool to fight the status quo.
We have always worked with Deborah Dickson since our first film, she understand story narrative like no one else. I believe she is one of the best documentary editors in the US, because she never follows a formula and she looks at every film like it was a puzzle.
Lizi Gelber, came all the way from Paris to Bolivia to help us edit the film; she has been very supportive through the journey of making the film.
Pauline Dariou, came to help us shape the story towards the end. Pauline mapped the film like a score — she helped us to build key moments.
Noemy Flores, sings on the opening track of the film; her voice is haunting and amazing.
Kate Taverna and Nancy Baker, two amazing editors also helped us shape the story.
Alex Daly, worked with me for a year helping with grant applications; after she went into opening her own crowdfunding consultancy and wrote a book.
Tell us about why you are a feminist and why it’s important to your filmmaking.
VA: I’m a feminist because I choose to believe in humanity and justice. I’m a feminist because as an Indigenous woman of color I will fight to protect the few hard won rights that I have today. I’m a feminist because my 90-year-old grandmother had the courage to take it to the streets and fight — she was imprisoned, she was fearless and kept fighting for me to have the opportunity to dream.
When I was 17, I had an abortion in a country where it was and still is illegal and my grandmother was next to me, holding my hand. It wasn’t easy for any of us, but she made sure I had the right to choose the time of my motherhood. In Bolivia women are killed in the hundreds every year by violent men; most of those crimes go unpunished. In Bolivia thirteen women die a day because of an abortion that goes wrong, yet the macho government fail to legalize abortion.
I’m a feminist because my sisters, Indigenous woman worldwide from Australia to Canada to Latin America, suffer discrimination and violence yet we manage to fight back and thrive. Our survival is the proof of our resistance.
I believe only women should make films for the next 100 years, we then can start talking about equality in the film industry.
Who are your favourite women working in the film industry?
VA: Ava DuVernay because she is awesome. I was so happy the first time I saw her. I could somehow relate to her; it’s tiring to see woman who look so different than me all the time. I love her work.
Miranda July because she looks at the world from her own POV. She doesn’t look for answers but creates poetry.
Maria Galindo is a Bolivian Icon. She is performance artist, writer, journalist and filmmaker. She has created this organization called “Women Creating” and she challenges and questions the macho society all the time.
What’s the best advice about filmmaking you’ve ever received?
VA: I’m somehow skeptical to advice. I’m like Kung-Fu Panda, go wild my own way.
What are you working on now/next?
VA: I’m co-directing The Fight feature, a documentary about the world’s longest protest of people with disabilities in Bolivia. We made a short first for The Guardian which is a finalist for the Rory Peck Awards and won a prize at the Sheffield Doc Fest and a Human Rights Festival in Sucre. As well, we are making a documentary about the fight of indigenous people in Australia where the leaders are the women. I’m writing a love story, a drama about two artists who come from different worlds and everything changes when they fall pregnant. I’m also developing El Comunista, a feature about my grandfather.
What is your favourite nonsense tchotchke that you own?
VA: I have a lots of nonsense stuff. I love sunglasses and I have quite too many pairs. My handbag is full of non-sense stuff.
If you had one extra hour of free time a day, how would you use it?
VA: I will walk the streets holding my daughters hand.
Finally, recommend one #MUFFApproved** film for our blog readers!
VA: 13th by Ava Duvernay.
