TRAMA
4K video, 8’, 2018
Political chaos turns into personal chaos in insidious, apparent and creative ways. “TRAMA” is an experimental short film, in the format of an Instagram Story soap opera, that examines how these are performed by Latin Americans. It loosely documents Alicia’s - Will Fredo’s mother - search for her family in Guatemala where she was kidnapped as a child and trafficked to Europe. Framed around the tumultuous history of the central American country, “TRAMA” blends scenes from telenovelas, social media and news to investigate the intersection where drama, trauma, politics and fiction meet.
Central to the film is the question of who influences whom, what is real and performed and how Latin American performativity, predating US political shifts, can be appropriated for political ends. As a social analysis, “TRAMA” juxtaposes lived with staged drama pointing at how the media uses emotional stories to humanise certain social groups, and how this history affects mental health.
