31/10/2023 - Carlota Nelson directs an exciting surprise camouflaged under the guise of a television documentary that sheds light on a captivating artist who tells moving stories with images

Anyone familiar with the photographs of Cristina García Rodero cannot deny that each of her works is filled with talent, humanity and, above all, tells stories with a single image: chronicles of festivals, traditions, moments and people reacting to an environment that is sometimes real, sometimes full of human imagination. Last week, at the 68th Seminci - Valladolid International Film Week, saw the world premiere of the documentary Eyes of the Soul [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which reveals how the artist looks at the world. The festival's programmers were wise enough, which at first may have seemed daring or foolish, to include it (out of competition) in the Official Selection, a well-deserved place for this non-fiction film directed by Carlota Nelson (Anclados, Brain Matters).

Because, in the maelstrom of a festival, a documentary with a hagiographic flavour can run the risk of being relegated to the background, when sometimes - and this is the case - its level of emotion, surprise and beauty far surpassed many of the supposed main courses. Why? Because she portrays an amazing being. A slight, free, independent, brave and tenacious woman who not only mimics the human landscape she portrays with her telephoto lens, but who even risks her physical integrity in the middle of a colourful celebration in India or shaken by the waves in an Andalusian pilgrimage.

Punctuated by the self-taught García Rodero's statements obtained in an interview, this documentary introduces the audience to how she works and understands her craft (and life) of a person of overwhelming charisma who does not boast of her numerous trophies, but exudes a disarming humility. García Rodero, who received the festival's special award for Artistic Creation after the screening of the film in Valladolid, admits to Nelson's camera that, like many filmmakers, she is driven by emotions when it comes to travelling to another continent in search of an image that conveys passion, beauty and truth. She also tells of her background in painting (she has a degree and teaches Fine Arts, and some of her snapshots look like paintings by Velázquez, Caravaggio or Murillo) and confesses that she is very happy doing her work. That is why she believes that, at 73 years old, she must make the most of every minute of her life to continue to devote herself to her feverish vocation.

This same desire brought this visual anthropologist to the Burning Man festival in Nevada (United States) in 2001, where she met Nelson and there a friendship was born. The seed of this feature film that is seen as a sigh, thanks in part to the hallucinating and exciting photographs that illustrate it and that manage to overcome time, immortalising moments that will never happen again, but that thanks to García Rodero and to this film will remain alive forever.

Eyes of the Soul is a production from Wanda Films, Ojos Cabeza Corazón AIE, RTVE and Castilla-La Mancha Media. France's Reservoir Docs handles international sales.

(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)