Magical realism and horror both lull audiences into a sense of acceptance. Dark fantasy is the sugar to help the hard-to-see truths on the screen be seen and understood. That’s the approach Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante takes to his stories. In La Llorona, Bustamante captured the Silent Genocide on screen by reimagining a Latin American foundation folktale. In Rita, he uses the supernatural to tell his audiences about the very real violence 41 girls faced when they burned to death at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe House in Guatemala on March 8, 2017.
Rita is the story of a 13-year-old girl. The titular character, played by Giuliana Santa Cruz, is placed in an oppressive state-run orphanage after escaping a neglectful household. But the orphanage isn’t any better than the life she left. Rita’s arrival provides a glimmer of hope to the girls inside, who share a prophecy that an angel will appear to release them. For them, that’s Rita. Encouraged by one another, the girls plan an escape to claim their freedom and expose the orphanage’s abuses of power.
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Jayro Bustamante is not afraid of historical trauma, and his use of magical realism directly approaches the pain that ripples through his country. We spoke with the filmmaker ahead of Rita’s release. With both of his films released on Shudder, the United States premiere horror streaming service, Bustamante has become a celebrated horror director. But for him, using genre film as a vehicle to confront the past is about more than horror.
“There are two reasons,” Bustamante began, answering why he uses genre film to tell his stories. “I intend to make the international audiences understand that there is not just horror or fantasy, but there is another thing called magical realism that is more than just an artistic movement.”
He continued, “[Magical realism] is a lifestyle in Latin America. We are using it, and we live like that. The Western world tells us that phantasmas—ghosts—are the bad guys just because they are dead. In reality, for [Latin Americans], ghosts are our protectors. They are our successors, our guides. For sure, they can haunt you, but only if you have something to pay for.”
As Bustamante explains the magical reality Latin Americans believe and experience, I can see my own identity in his words. The way that I was taught the noises that the house made at night were duendes, how I learned about my family’s deep fears of losing their children took shape in la llorona, how there was a supernatural reason for every gust of wind that closed a door or lightbulb that popped. There was always something else under the surface for my family, and listening to Bustamante explain how he uses magical realism, not horror, made immediate sense on a cellular level.
“The second reason is that I’m from a country that lives in a very difficult situation,” Bustamante continued to explain his filmmaking process, “Years of war during that period [meant that] we didn’t have artists. We didn’t have movies. We didn’t have anything. So, we need to tell many of our stories to build with memory. [We need to build a] historical memory. But that historical memory is still hurting us. That is the other magical thing about magical realism. It gives us the opportunity to go into these stories in a softer way, protecting [ourselves].”
He added, “In Rita, that came because when I did the research [for the film], all the girls that I interviewed were very brave. They were telling me their stories with a lot of hard details. But in a way, they were making it a [fairy tale]. They told them in a metaphorical way, in a fairy tale, because they still wanted to protect the little girl living inside them.”
The innocence we see in Bustamante’s Rita is powerful. Despite the pain the girls endure, their power and their resiliency never obscure the fact that they are children. They are not young women; they are little girls, beautiful and deserving of love despite their circumstances. When securing that, Jayro Bustamante spoke about balancing tragedy against their right to innocence.
Bustamente explained, “With Rita, it was very difficult because it was based on a real story in Guatemala in 2017. In reality, 41 girls died in an institution in a fire. For us as a society, it was very hard to understand why there was no issue and why there was this injustice. It was very hard to tell this story because, in a way, we understood that we had a little bit of responsibility in this. Because, as a society, we are permitting our children to be treated like that.”
At this point in the interview, Jayro Bustamante is more somber as he explains the story that Rita brings to life and his mission as a filmmaker. He continued, “In many of the interviews and my research, I discovered that is a common point [across Latin America]. Because the research wasn’t just in Guatemala. I researched in Central America and Mexico, and each time the girls are abused [in these situations, it was always more girls than boys]. The girls would say basta. They asked for help. Then, they made a revolution. And when they [did that], adults started saying, ‘They are not girls.’ Adults call them dangerous. The girls are called terrorists.
So, at that moment, [our team] had a mission. [If they are] saying ‘you are not girls,’ then we will change the narrative. Okay, they are not girls. They are more than that. They are magnificent creatures. And so, that became a little bit of the mood of the film.”
Protecting the girls is central to Rita, manifested in the different mythologies Bustamante weaves into the story. More importantly, the very nature of the genre Bustamante chose instead of directing a biopic or dramatic retelling of the event is central.
He explains, “It’s not just one genre [telling this story]. It’s all the elements that you can use when the genre you choose permits them. For example, [Rita] is full of icons coming from different legends and religions. It’s filled with Protectors. We have the Archangels. We have Medusa. Every single protector that existed in the world. We try to put it in [Rita] to protect the girls and, after that, use them as part of the narrative. Even icons coming from the dark side will be transformed to give them light. That is something that is easier to do when you are working with magical realism instead of just drama.”
For Bustamante, the goal of making Rita is clear for his Latin America audience. And that doesn’t change much when it comes to international audiences, either. He wants you to see Rita and think of the girls, the children who have been lost to suffering.
“[I want] international audiences to watch and pay attention to the local audience and the situation [we go through]. That’s important. [Additionally,] sometimes in the Western world, it is very easy to watch [films] talking about suffering in the third world because they say that that kind of [thing] doesn’t happen in powerful countries. But [stories like Rita] are not happening just in [Guatemala]. The reality of kids’ suffering is a global thing, and Rita is an invitation for a reflection on that, too,” Bustamante explained.
And genre filmmaking is vital in helping the audience understand the hard truths of the world around them. “I think in a way, when we are going to watch a film, and we know that it’s a genre film, we are open,” Bustamante explained, “And because we are open to being scared, we are also open to being surprised. We are open, and I think it’s very smart to use that situation to talk about other things that can be more relevant than to scare somebody or entertain somebody. I’m trying to use it to push the people to Google [the situation they are feeling] empathy for and to reflect on it.”
Bustamante also chose to work with young Guatemalan actors, opening the door to their careers. When asked about the casting process for Rita, Bustamante explained, “We have an acting school in Guatemala that we opened in 2012 when we started making feature films. The girls who played in Rita came to the school with the goal of becoming an actress and becoming famous.
“But when the girls started understanding the theme that the film was speaking to, they transformed their individual needs, and the goal became [advocacy]. They wanted to be the voice of other girls, [the ones we lost]. We built the universe of each one of the clans together,” he continued.
Adding, ‘It was a perfect moment in human existence because, normally, our brains don’t like change. We don’t like it because it’s very difficult to force us into that as an adult. But at their age, the brain opens a window, and they are looking for change. And then, in [Rita], they’re living in it. It was a kind of a school of humanity for the adults [on set] who were working with [the girls]. And if it was too much for the girls at the moment, we needed a lot of psychological, social, and anthropological support to make that path together.”
On a final note, Jayro Bustamante doesn’t just make a concerted effort to cast local actresses in his film. He also makes a concerted effort to spotlight Indigenous girls and women in his films, faces often omitted from media in Latin America.
“Guatemala is a 70% Indigenous population country,” Bustamante explained, “But just 40% of them actually identify as Indigenous. That choice is because of the discrimination. It is so hard, and that makes people try to hide their origins. It makes people try to forget their language and their traditions. But I think that if you can have our real faces on the big screen and make icons that come from our own beauty, then maybe that can help people feel strong and proud to be who they are.”
Ending on that note was an emotional one for me. As an Indigenous woman from a family that worked hard to erase their culture but whose brown skin and facial features don’t let her forget her identity, hearing Bustamante speak impacted me more than I thought it would when I asked him the question. And in the end, that’s ultimately what watching a Jayro Bustamante film is like. It’s like he speaks directly to you, teaches you, and tells you to empower others and yourself.
Jayro Bustamante’s Rita is streaming now on Shudder and AMC+.
