Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema at Sundance this year and Mexico’s entry for Best International Film at the Oscars, Sujo is a coming-of-age crime drama set amid the violence of the drug wars.
Directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s bleak and tender drama is about a four-year-old boy whose cartel gunman father is murdered. The orphan is raised by his aunts Nemesia and Rosalía in a shack on the outskirts of a city in central Mexico and confronts us with the dilemma of children who have grown up in such a blood-soaked legacy.
To film Sujo, Rondero and Valadez returned to the state of Guanajuato, a rural region of Mexico where they made 2020’s Identifying Features which highlighted the issue of human migration. It is also one of the country’s most dangerous regions.
“It is very important for us that the victims of all this violence and the orphans created by this war have a voice and are seen, which is why the film is dedicated to them,” explains cinematographer Ximena Amann, who also shot Rondero’s previous film, The Darkest Days of Us. “Sujo’s narrative speaks to us from another place, where anyone can come from a place that speaks of innocence, childhood, and love.”
Amann’s collaboration with Rondero and Valadez dates back to their time together at film school. “Our collaboration is based on friendship, which has been essential in our creative process,” she says. “Astrid is a multifaceted artist who not only directs beautifully but also writes, composes the music, and draws each frame of the film. Filming with her is very enriching.
“Fernanda has exceptional creative and technical skills. Our discussions with her focused on elevating the creative level and maximizing the benefits of the equipment we had for the story.”
In the film, Sujo is exposed both to the vastness of nature and to his Aunt Nemesia’s nurturing spirit, which is infused with a mysticism rooted in Mexico’s ancient culture. Amman and her directors went to great lengths to incorporate natural elements such as water, fire, and wind, throughout the story.
“We wanted to create the feeling of ancient magic where nature was the main element,” Amann explains. “We also agreed on how to avoid interfering with the natural world, with the children, and our non-professional actors. This included using only two cameras and a minimum of artificial lighting so our main sources of light were natural or present in the scene.”
This aesthetic was challenging because Amman also wanted to preserve the atmosphere and quality of light in each space. She studied the locations carefully, observed the light, and calculated the best time to film each sequence. “We designed Nemesia's house so that the windows, doors, and ceiling were oriented in a way that the sun would shine through them at different times of the day. To shoot at night, we sought subtle moonlight. We studied the lunar calendar so we would have as many full moons as possible and complemented this with on-screen light sources or moonlight that only illuminated the background and framed our characters.”
The filmmaker’s A camera was RED V-RAPTOR, chosen because of its latitude, color response and contrast. “The V-RAPTOR’s exceptional response to low light made it a great ally. We also loved the camera's compact size and portability, which allowed us to work in small spaces.
“KOMODO was an excellent choice for B-camera, given its good color and contrast match with the V-RAPTOR, as well as its portability.”
Lenses were a crucial aspect of their research since they wanted each of the film’s four ‘chapters’ to have a distinct look.
“We chose the Zeiss Jena lenses for Part I ‘The Eight’ to achieve a specific level of contrast. The father is always lit from behind, a silhouette, becoming a nostalgic image of childhood memories.
“The Minolta Rokkor lenses had a warm quality, with a wide aperture that created magical flares, which worked beautifully with the ‘Nemesia’ chapter.”
Canon FD lenses enhanced the look of electric lights used in Part III. “It wasn’t until this ‘Jeremy and Jai’ chapter that we more firmly integrated practical light, and we wanted this difference to be felt. The glow created around the lights set a special and attractive atmosphere.
“A set of Leica R lenses provided continuity in the image, reproducing the colors of Mexico City very faithfully. Their size, sharpness, and neutrality allowed us to capture all the different environments created in Mexico City in the final chapter where Sujo meets literature teacher and mentor Susan.”
For certain sequences Amann employed slow motion “to capture a moment of rupture in time and convey that something extraordinary was happening,” she says. “V-RAPTOR gave us this opportunity to shoot with the best quality.
“Much of the look came from the camera,” she adds. “We wanted to respect the colors of the landscapes and skin tones as interpreted by the lenses. That’s why we were very careful in choosing them. Most of the effects in the more abstract parts were done in-camera or composed very simply in the editing. We think that gives the film a feeling of closeness to some kind of magic.”
Nemesia, Rosalía and Susan are strong female characters illustrative of the resistance to violence led by women in Mexican communities. This resonated with Amman.
“The motherhood of Nemesia and Rosalía is close to me, endearing, loving, and compassionate,” says Amman. “It confronts me with how, as mothers and people, we are leading others by the hand—people who could have a bright future or not.
“For all these reasons, Sujo was a turning point for me, and for that, I will be eternally grateful to Astrid and Fernanda.”
