One of the first reactions is: “What possessed him?”
And a second question that stands out for “Twenty-Five Hundred and One” filmmaker Patricia Van Ryker is along the lines of “What can I do?”
Van Ryker, a California-based filmmaker, looks forward to sparking more response here on the North Olympic Peninsula — not with an overtly political movie, but with one about a man’s use of art to honor his community.
“Twenty-Five Hundred and One” is the story of Alejandro Santiago, his pueblo of Teococuilco, Mexico, and the 2,501 clay sculptures he built there. Van Ryker will show the 47-minute movie — and invite audiences to join in discussions afterward — in four public events this week: Tuesday at the Quilcene Community Center, 294952 U.S. Highway 101; Wednesday at the Boiler Room, 711 Water St. in Port Townsend; Thursday at the Port Townsend Public Library, 1220 Lawrence St.; and finally in the Little Theater at Peninsula College on Friday.
Each of the events, presented by the Port Townsend Film Festival, is at 7 p.m.; admission is free for all except the one Friday, where tickets are $5, or $1 for Peninsula College students.
Santiago found success as an artist while still a young man in Mexico’s Oaxaca state and beyond. When he returned to his home town in the Oaxacan mountains, he found hundreds of his countrymen and -women gone.
Ways to make a living in their village had dried up, and they went in search of work in the north.
Help from the pueblo
The film follows Santiago as he creates the life-size Migrantes with local clay and colors from the soil of Teococuilco — and help from his community. Together they build 2,500 sculptures to represent the 2,500 who have migrated, plus one because, as Santiago says, “there will always be one more.”
Despite all of this, “the film is not a downer,” Van Ryker promised.
For one thing, “Alejandro is so charming, so passionate. And you just meet a lot of interesting people: the residents of the pueblo; Alejandro’s gallery representative in Oaxaca, who has two very humorous stories to tell . . . a really cool artist who is a weaver, whose work is just breathtaking; [and] Alejandro’s mother, one of the sweetest humans you’ll ever want to meet.”
Politics of immigration
Yes, the politics of immigration — why the people had to go searching for work elsewhere – underlie the story.
“You get it afterward,” Van Ryker said. But I knew that to make it work, it had to be subtle.”
The film, which had its festival premiere in France, has since won major awards including the grand prize at the San Antonio, Texas, Film Festival.
With it, Van Ryker hopes to show the struggle over migration in a new light, without all the political rancor.
When viewers ask her what they can do about the problem of rural people having to leave their communities, the filmmaker asks them to take a deeper look at the root cause.
Small-scale farmers who used to be able to sell their crops have been hit hard by giant companies that introduce genetically modified corn, Van Ryker said.
These corporations “flood the markets with [their corn], and drive people out of business.”
Van Ryker hopes people on both sides of the world’s borders can find ways to work together, to restore small-scale farming and other sustainable jobs.
For Janette Force, the Port Townsend Film Festival director who is bringing Van Ryker to the Peninsula, the movie is also about the power of art to draw a community together.
She was astonished, too, by Santiago’s ability to “express the inexpressible,” while working with his fellow Teococuilcoans. The 2,501 “re-bound him to his community,” she said.
Power of art
Van Ryker ‘s movie was shown at the Port Townsend Film Festival last September; to bring Van Ryker here for the series of screenings and conversations, Force received funding help from the Port Townsend Arts Commission.
Meantime, Santiago, now 43, still lives in Oaxaca and continues his career as an artist.
And Van Ryker, for her part, is working on another documentary, this time about the prolific 93-year-old surrealist painter Leonora Carrington.
She just conducted the first interviews for the film about the Englishwoman who fled Europe as the Nazis invaded, became Max Ernst’s lover and was disowned by her family at 19, and now lives in Mexico City.
“She is unbelievably fascinating,” Van Ryker said.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.