TIFF 2022 Women Directors: Meet Laura Baumeister – “Daughter of Rage”

Laura Baumeister was born and raised in Nicaragua and trained at Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. A sociologist as well as a filmmaker, Baumeister has directed the shorts “Isabel in Winter” (2014), “Fuerza Bruta” (2016), and “Ombligo de Agua” (2018). “Daughter of Rage” (2022) is her feature debut.

“Daughter of Rage” is screening at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, which is running from September 8-18.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

LB: “Daughter of Rage” immerses us in the life of María, an 11-year-old girl in Nicaragua who lives on the outskirts of the Managua garbage dump with her mother Lilibeth, a garbage collector who also sells purebred dogs on the black market to survive. They both have a particular way of expressing their affection for each other.

When María accidentally poisons the litter of dogs, Lilibeth is forced to take her to a recycling factory where she will have to live and work alongside other children. Maria cannot [accept] that her mother has abandoned her, so with the help of her new friend Tadeo, she goes looking for her.

On this path, Maria finds that her house has burned down and that her mother is nowhere to be found. By that time the dreams she has been experiencing with her mother begin to make be more intense and they even start to make sense. She starts questioning herself: Could it be that now her mother lives in them? This possibility, without a doubt, comforts and gives Maria a second breath — it helps her to keep going. 

W&H: What drew you to this story?

LB: As a teenager I knew a place that remained imprinted in my memory: the municipal garbage dump of Managua. Years passed, I developed as an artist, I studied, I lived in other countries, but somehow this space always found its way back to me, as if calling me. There is a contrast in its location, on the edge of the great lake of Nicaragua, that unsettled me, as well as its people. — specifically their ability to make their living thanks to waste.

How does a natural paradise become a garbage dump? How do entire families survive on everything that we throw away? With these and other questions in mind, I clung to my usual obsessions to build a story that would unfold in that place, a difficult mother-daughter relationship; the duality between tenderness and harshness of affections; humans interacting with animals; imagination as an act of resistance. All of this came together and our “Daughter” was born. It was born from the act of weaving around an obsession. 

W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?

LB: “Daughter of Rage” is a film about the power of imagination, about the ability each of us have to be protagonists of our own story. What is it that activates the imagination? Beyond the desire to create, to invent, I deeply believe that imagination is awakened by need of chance It’s strengthened as a way of facing the reality that we want to change. In other words, we first imagine everything that we don’t like and then we change it, right? It is as if imagination could be the prelude in order for someone to take action.

I want the people who see the film to leave feeling that if a girl like María could come to believe that her mother was transformed, instead of that she died, then we could all rewrite our own personal history to whatever empower us the most. 

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

LB: There were many challenges, but one of the most memorable was making the film mostly Nicaraguan, it seems like a paradox, but it’s the truth. Making the film in Nicaragua is one of the film’s greatest strengths, but it was also its greatest challenge. Nicaragua is a country without a film industry, without funds, without cinema schools, and also immersed in a very unstable political situation, all of which implied a titanic effort of great conviction and strategic thinking to get this movie done there. At times I thought we would not succeed, but thanks to the tenacity of a small group of stubborn women it was possible! Ha. 

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

LB: “Daughter of Rage” is a co-production between seven countries — Nicaragua, Mexico, France, Holland, Germany, Spain, and Norway — plus a private investor. All these countries consolidated their share with mostly public funding. As soon as the first one entered, we began to travel a lot, to participate in markets that allowed us to meet the next ally and so on until a snowball effect was created that allowed us to finance the entire film. 

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

LB: Many reasons, but one of the most personal was my grandmother. From a very young age, she taught me about the magic and power of stories. She told me the same historical event, an earthquake that destroyed the capital of Managua in 1972, from different points of view, and with each one the story changed. I don’t know how many times I told her to tell me what had happened, over and over. And every time I just closed my eyes and let myself be carried away by her words. I loved those afternoons with her so much that now I practiced them with myself and with my closest collaborators — telling them the same story, countless times, until I’m forced to film it.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

LB: One of the best pieces of advice was not given to me [personally]. I read it in a book. One should fall in love with their stories in body and soul with all the emotion and desire that this implies. If I’m honest, every time I think about a project I look for that, that spark that you feel in your stomach when you know you like someone, and I nurture that spark to see if it grows until it reaches that point where there is no turning back–you have fallen in love and you are going to live what you have to live with that project. 

There are two very bad pieces of advice that come to mind with this question. The first is that on a set the director should never show her fragility and that therefore the director is always acting on set. For me, this is dishonest. I deeply believe in the opposite, the more transparent and exposed you are as a director, that is impregnated in the work, and vice-versa.

The other bad advice was to stop talking about myself, not to be so self-referential but to look for stories outside. For me, this dichotomy outside-in is wrong and profoundly limiting. I think that everything that is inside is as valid and necessary to be told as the outside, and that the dance between both worlds is the most beautiful, powerful, and successful when it comes to storytelling. 

W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors?

LB: That they commit to their personal stories, don’t let them go so easily, don’t judge themselves so much. Don’t direct or write to please others. If a story is there, insistently knocking on the door of your mind, it’s for a reason. Pay attention to that inner voice. The world teaches us too much to communicate with the outside world, with others, which is important, but it is just as important to learn to communicate with ourselves, to listen to ourselves, to tell our stories.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

LB: I have two women that I feel the urge to mention. One is Jane Campion with “The Piano.” This was the first movie I remember watching with the clear knowledge it was directed by a woman. I was like 15 years old, but immediately that idea fascinated me. I loved the entire film. The mother-daughter relationship, the desire for a more untamed world, the music. I see it every now and then, it is really close to my imaginary world.

Then the other master filmmaker which I adore is Lucrecia Martel, all her movies, but especially “The Holy Girl” (“La Niña Santa”) and “The Headless Woman” (“La Mujer sin Cabeza”). Both this films blew my mind, especially in how it’s possible to enter a character’s mind and feelings with so much poetry, depth, and cinematic skills at the same time. She is like a cinema whisperer for me, if we could use that analogy. 

W&H: What, if any, responsibilities do you think storytellers have to confront the tumult in the world, from the pandemic to the loss of abortion rights and systemic violence?

LB: I think that as artists we are social subjects, and therefore children of our time. Having said that, I think it is necessary for us artists to connect, dialogue, and dare to say the things we think about what surrounds us. I think of the vast majority of artists that I admire and it is hard for me to imagine them outside the social pulse, either through their works or through their lives. I perceive that they are people who assume a political position, and by politics I do not mean a political party, but the idea that we live in a world where there are a series of rules, norms, and social agreements that can be questioned if society or individuals consider it important to do so. I prefer the idea of being proactive instead of just following the social order. I think that as artists we naturally create worlds, so why not create different worlds that we like? Maybe light the way with them.

W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color on screen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?

LB: From my point of view, the decolonization of the gaze is something profound that does not only go through representativeness. This is an important step, without a doubt. It is necessary to see people of color or minorities in roles traditionally associated with the white rich heterosexual man, yes, but if through those roles – now played by minorities – models of heroism, competence, leadership, and power continue to reproduce the status quo of society, to me that is a mild, superficial change.

In order for us to subvert the sea of inequalities in which we live, we must go one step further. It is not just about representation, but representation for whom? For what model of power? To see more superheroes? More billionaires who can decide on everyone’s life? Countries that invade other countries? Companies taking over the world? If that doesn’t change, I think that at the level of the content within the stories it will be a little more of the same.