Last weekend I was in Mexico City for the official launch of the 2014 Ambulante documentary tour. The roving film festival has an insanely impressive 35 venues through out most of the burroughs in El Districto Federal. It wanders around in Mexico City one more week until the 13th when the tour hits the road to its next stop in Guerrero. The tour will conclude May 4 in the magical land of Oaxaca and by then it will have traveled to 12 different states throughout Mexico presenting its diverse, international lineup of the latest documentary cinema.
Ambulante has 12 different programming sections including the popular music section, Sonidero, Dictator’s cut, devoted to human rights & freedom of speech, and Injerto, the art & cinema experimental section. Ambulante’s viscus however is Pulsos, where you’ll find the most recent, most original voices of the robust Mexican non fiction narrative. It is here that the world premiere of Death in Arizona, a futuristic documentary, as described by the director, Tin Dirdamal is being presented.
I first met Tin at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival with his opera prima, DeNadie which won the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. He is by far one of the most curious, unpretentious, inspired minds I’ve ever met. We took a jaunt up to Coyoacan plaza, an ancient mecca of artisan vendors and merchants, for coffee at my favorite El Jarocho, tamales, and found a relatively quiet garden to have a conversation.
The story is quite personal, about a love lost and a self found, to say it broadly. Without giving away too much, the love in the film is also the producer and co-director Christina Haglund. I asked Tin about his creative process, his favorite Jodorowsky film, his experience at Sundance, and his philosophy on filmmaking and well, life. Check out our conversation and then the trailer to his film. He is truly a one-of-a-kind, thought-provoking, and perhaps the most brilliantly unassuming human being I’m happy to know. Now you meet him.
Here is a trailer of the film – that for me resonates as a journey culminating towards a flickering light and illumination at the end of a tunnel of heartbreaking solitude. The intimate, moody, futuristic and transcendent film, Death in Arizona.
Chicana from Chicago 