I never know exactly when I start developing an idea for a project, but I know I have wanted to work with women in jail for a very long time. I visited the women’s prison in Ezeiza many times and was moved by the feeling of entering another dimension. Detained people live in an inner space: no wildlife, no city, no strangers. They count down the time: ten years, three years, eight months, a day to go. People in jail feel temporally trapped: the past returns to remind them of what brought them there, and the future never begins.
In 2019, I decided to make a film and theatre workshop inside the prison. The inmates sang, danced and performed improvisations based on their lives to explore how these real stories could be transformed into a script. Initially, I wanted to make the film in prison while they were serving their sentences. But then the pandemic came, and nobody could enter the prison anymore (no family visits, artistic activities, nothing). So I started to think about filming in the former Caseros Prison with people who had been recently released. The decision to film outside the jail with people who had already served their sentences was essential because it allowed me to reconstruct that world through the protagonists’ memories, creating distance from their everyday reality.
I also realized that music and dance were perfect ways to explore their memories. That’s how REAS ended up like a documentary-musical film. The musical genre, which traditionally portrays marginal worlds in a stylised and romantic way with virtuoso actors and dancers, became a vehicle for reconstructing the real stories of a group of people who had no acting or musical training in order to make them shine in an unfamiliar way.
Through songs based on the protagonists’ experiences and choreographies developed with them, real life was transformed into fiction
I wanted to make a film about a women’s prison without reproducing stigmatisation. Through songs based on the protagonists’ experiences and choreographies developed with them, real life was transformed into fiction. We used different popular genres: a pop song tells of Yoseli’s desire to travel to Paris, a cumbia relays the complex relationship between the detainees and the prison service. In each musical moment, real stories unfold in unforeseen directions.
During the filming, I was confident that the musical strategy was the right approach, as I saw how the protagonists shone in those scenes with the songs and the choreography, as they were able to transform their traumatic experiences into something else. Filming in prison was moving, disturbing and also a lot of fun. We filmed a concert for their family and friends and even transformed the prison yard into a beach with sand, palm trees and umbrellas. The aim of REAS was not to make another “prison drama” but rather to focus on the bonds of love and community between cis women and trans people that keep them alive in a space of confinement and violence.
Lola Arias
