LGHS grad takes center stage with film
Showing is set for independents festival in San Francisco
By Nathan R. Huff
Los Gatos film director Alí Allié never intended to create a film that cannot be classified--it just sort of happened. Of course, when you're a young filmmaker with a limited budget and a complex and unique subject, sometimes defying traditional classifications is exactly what has to be done.
El Espíritu de mi Mamá (Spirit of my Mother) is the first feature-length film by Los Gatan Alí Allié, a 1987 Los Gatos High School graduate. While at LGHS, Allié studied television production in a class taught at KCAT's community television studio. He went on to direct two weekly KCAT shows, including Story Time With Mother Goose, a children's program starring the late Los Gatos poet Mary Foster.
Former Los Gatos High School teacher Joseph Glasner says he remembers Allié as a "determined" drama student. "He was enthusiastic, quiet but creative, and sincerely interested in his projects," Glasner said.
Since graduating from UC-Santa Cruz with a degree in fine arts, Allié has gone on to make a number of short films about topics ranging from technology versus art to money and corruption in the southern African nation of Lesotho. His newest offering will be shown on Nov. 6 in San Francisco as part of the Film Arts Independent Film Festival.
El Espíritu de mi Mamá, shot in Los Angeles and Honduras, tells the story of Sonia, a young Garífuna woman living in Los Angeles and employed as a houseworker. Sonia, played by Johana Martínez, is plagued by haunting memories of a past relationship with an American soldier, and cannot escape her past until she is visited in a dream by her deceased mother, who carries a sacred request.
Sonia travels to the north coast of Honduras to honor her mother's request and free herself from the past. Back in her mother's homeland, Sonia learns more than the ritual she must perform to allow her mother to rest in peace; she discovers more about her unique African roots, and her own identity as a mother.
The Garífuna people are of West African, Arawak and Carib Indian descent. According to Allié's press information, they came as slaves, before escaping to the island of St. Vincent where they lived for more than 150 years among the Arawak and Carib natives, blending African language and culture with those indigenous to the Caribbean. After England took the island from the French, the Garífuna people were forced off the island and sailed toward the Central American coast.
Johana Martínez, Allié's wife, plays Sonia.
Allié is married to lead actress Martínez, a Garífuna woman he met while working at an orphanage in Honduras. Allié said he originally had no intention of focusing the film on the Garífuna people, whose land and culture are rapidly being swallowed up by tourist-based development, but he ended up doing just that.
"The film shows a group with traditions still intact," Allié says. "It doesn't specifically address these problems, but does so very subtly by talking about what it means for people to know their roots."
The film is the first dramatic feature to use Garífuna actors for the leading roles. Although most of the film is in Spanish with English subtitles, some scenes are spoken in the Garífuna language. Allié said he tried to enter each scene as open-mindedly as possible, allowing the Garífuna actors to improvise and act naturally.
The result, Allié says, is a film experience that blends dramatic and documentary styles. "The ending effect is you have a very unique, hard-to-classify film," Allié says. "The film starts out with you watching the main character's experiences, but shifts, making the audience feel like it's a participant in the film."
The film represents four years of work. Allié said actual filming only took a few months, but paying for it took much longer. Allié received some grant money, but the rest of the funding came from odd jobs and "credit cards."
Allié said the film has gone over well at various small screenings, but he is looking forward to the upcoming showing in San Francisco. Afterwards, Allié will take his work to New York for the African Diaspora Film Festival.
"There are very few films that deal with African culture in Latin America," Allié says. "As we were making the film we were learning as well."
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