UN FILM DE MARK KENDALL

LA CAMIONETA

SINOPSISCada día docenas de autobuses escolares ya retirados emigran desde los Estados Unidos hacia Guatemala donde son reparados, pintados de nuevo, y transformados en camionetas de colores brillantes que transportan la gente al trabajo todos los días. LA CAMIONETA sigue uno tal bus en su viaje transformativo: un viaje entre Norte y Sur, entre la vida y la muerte, y un viaje a través de un desplegar de momentos, de personas, y de lugares que últimamente sirve para recordarnos calladamente de los mundos interconectados en que vivimos.

2012 – 72 min & 52 min – HD – Color – Español – EEUU/Guatemala

PREMIERE MUNDIAL

EMERGING VISIONS // SXSW FILM FESTIVAL // 2012

Alamo Ritz 2320 E. 6th St.Austin, TX 78701Saturday, March 10th, 20126:30pm

PREMIERE INTERNACIONAL

DOCUMENTAL IBEROAMERICANO // FICG // 2013

TRANSMISION

Todos los derechos de transmision estan disponibles.

Para bajar el paquete de prensa y fotos en alta resolucion por favor visite: www.lacamionetaflm.com

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LA CAMIONETA

ACLAMACIÓN CRÍTICA

“La película retuerce una cantidad increíble de sustancia política, humanística y espiritual desde este marco limitado. El ojo de Kendall para historias inauditas, así como su instinto para coger imágenes de manera evocadora en el momento, lo marcan como un nombre para mirar". Andrew Barker, VARIETY

“NYT CRITICS PICK! Una historia animada de resistencia, regeneración y imaginación artística."Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Un film poético, incluso soñador."J. Hoberman, ARTINFO

"Inesperado y fascinante."Sheri Linden, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"Increíble ... una microhistoria brillante de un mundo globalizado."Matt Brennan, THOMPSON ON HOLLYWOOD

“Un documental lírica.”Guy Lodge, THE GUARDIAN

“Poderoso...bellamente rodada y graciosamente editada.”Ernest Hardy, VILLAGE VOICE

"Una experiencia que es profundamente poética."Craig Kennedy, LIVING IN CINEMA

"LA CAMIONETA es a la vez un documental intuitivo y una alegoría emocional.”Emma Bernstein, THE PLAYLIST

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LA CAMIONETA

NOTA DEL DIRECTORCuando viaje por primera vez en las camionetas a través de las montañas de Guatemala en el 2009, les reconocí instantáneamente como viejos autobuses escolares del EEUU. Mi curiosidad fue despertada cuando un piloto medijo que la camioneta en que viajábamos provenía de un distrito escolar en Tennessee, a solo 20 millas dedistancia de donde yo vivía durante ese tiempo.

Me pasaba pensando en los autobuses escolares que tomaba en la secundaria. ¿Dónde estaba aquel autobús ahora? ¿Estaría caminando por algún lugar en Guatemala? ¿Quiénes serian las personas que compraban estosautobuses? ¿Cómo y por qué los traían a Guatemala? ¿Y quiénes dedicaban su tiempo y energía para decorarlos tan cuidadosamente? Un año después decidí averiguar.

Originalmente mi idea era encontrar un autobús que estuviese fuera de servicio y seguir todo el recorrido deconvertirse en una camioneta, usando ese proceso como una vía para entretejer las historias de las personas que lo hacen todo posible. Seguir el autobús me parecía como el vehículo perfecto para explorar las historias personalesde emigración, intercambio, transformación y conexión.

Empecé por buscar un autobús que estuviese destinado a Guatemala. No sabía donde terminaría el autobús, quien sería su nuevo dueño o en que ruta terminaría por integrarse. Sin saber que traería el futuro me entregue a la esperanza que los personajes y las historias se desenvolverían naturalmente por la experiencia que ocurriera.

Yo no buscaba hacer un flm sobre la violencia, pero la historia cambio rápidamente cuando Ermelindo compro el autobús y lo integro a las Rutas Quetzal, una de las rutas más peligrosas en Guatemala. Durante el rodaje, nuestros personajes estaban enfrentando un alto nivel de violencia en contra sus colegas y acusaciones al liderazgode Rutas Quetzal con involucramiento directo con la red de extorsiones. Fue un tiempo muy delicado para todas las personas asociadas con Rutas Quetzal. Rafael González (productor) y yo decidimos no investigar los actos criminales porque eso no fue nuestra meta. Fuimos pacientes y honestos con todos sobre nuestras intenciones y con el tiempo ganamos su confanza para participar en el proceso.

A mí siempre me ha interesado conocer como individuales defnen y buscan desarrollar sus propios mundos individuales y culturales. Mi primer cortometraje THE TIME MACHINE cuenta la historia de un relojero Hondureño que trabaja en la terminal de Grand Central. En medio del estruendo de Grand Central donde la puntualidad es reina suprema, el flm explora los conocimientos de su labor, revelando el contraste entre su deber público de mantener a todos los neoyorquinos al horario y su deseo personal de librarse de las ataduras del tiempo. LA CAMIONETA, mi película más reciente, sigue el renacimiento de un autobús escolar y explora la relación de cada persona con el proceso de darle vida nuevamente, silenciosamente revelando una meditación en mundos interconectados.

En cada una de mis películas, mi objetivo ha sido explorar cómo los distintos acercamientos de las personas a su profesión les otorgan, de alguna manera, el poder para superar los limites de su medioambiente inmediato. Aunque las películas son muy distintas en contenido, forma y estilo, las dos son inspiradas por mi interés en las actitudes de cada individuo hacia su trabajo y el deseo mío de crear una experiencia entera que refeje mi perspectiva del mundo.

− Mark Kendall 4

LA CAMIONETA

PERSONNELMARK KENDALLDIRECTOR / PRODUCTOR / DIRECTOR DE FOTOGRAFÍA / EDITOR

Mark Kendall es un director de cine basado en Brooklyn y nominado por la Academia Estudiantil. Después de estudiar Antropología y Estudios Latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Vanderbilt, se graduó con una Maestría en Bellas Artes (MFA) con una concentración en Cine Documental Social en la Escuela de Artes Visuales en Nueva York. Su primer cortometraje The Time Machine, fue finalista nacional en Los Premios Estudiantiles de la Academia, recipiente del CINE Special Jury Award, y CINE Golden Eagle Award, ganó Grand Prize Winner en el concurso de Telegraph’s 21 “Best of Student DOCS” y ha ganado otros 10 premios en festivales. Kendall fue miembro del Sundance Institute Creative Producing Summit en el 2011 y fue uno de los 25 cineastas seleccionados para participar en el primer programa anual de “Emerging Visions” desarrollado por IFP y el Film Society de Lincoln Center en el New York Film Festival en 2011. La Camioneta, su debut como director de largometraje, estrenó en el 2012 SXSW Film Festival, ganó un premio del Assocacion Internacional de Documentales (IDA), y lo marcó como "un nombre para mirar" por Variety.

RAFAEL GONZÁLEZPRODUCTOR

Rafael González es un galardonado periodista y director de documentales que está basado en la Ciudad de Guatemala. Es fundador de EK BALAM PRODUCCIONES, una productora que ha trabajado con las Naciones Unidas, la Unión Europea, y la Fundación Soros en films sobre temas sociales. A lo largo de su carrera como periodista y productor de cine y televisión, su trabajo se enfoca en las experiencias de comunidades inmigrantes e indígenas, y en preservar la memoria histórica de Guatemala. Su proyecto más reciente “Dignity, Prevention, and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims in Guatemala” fue premiado Primer Lugar en los Premios de Comunicación organizado por DEVCO y la Unión Europea en el 2010.

SHANNON KENNEDYCOEDITORA

Shannon Kennedy es una premiada editora de cine, sus créditos incluyen The Trials of Daryl Hunt (Nominada por Excelencia en Edición Documental - Sundance, 2006) que fue transmitida en HBO, A Walk Into the Sea de Esther Robinson (Mejor Documental - Berlín, 2007) y Prodigal Sons de Kimberly Reed (Premio Especial del Jurado - Nashville Film Festival, 2009). Shannon también ha hecho ediciones de cine y consultaciones adicionales para El General de Natalia Almada (Premio de Dirección - Sundance, 2009) transmitida en P.O.V., Utopia in Four Movements de Sam Green (Sundance, 2010) y Natalia Almada's El Velador (Cannes, 2011). Shannon vive y trabaja en Nueva York y recientemente editó Words of Witness de Mai Iskander que estrenó en el Festival de Cine Internacional de Berlín en el 2012.

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T. GRIFFINMÚSICA ORIGINAL

Música original para LA CAMIONETA fue compuesta por Todd Griffin. Un músico extremadamente versátil con un sonido original, Griffin ha compuesto música para Liza Johnson (Return, 2011), Tristan Patterson, (ganador de premios en SXSW y HotDocs Dragonslayer, 2011), Sam Green (Utopia in Four Movements, 2010), Tze Chun (Children of Invention, 2009), Landon Van Soest (Good Fortune, 2009), Kim Reed (sensación en el Festival de Telluride Prodigal Sons, 2008) y Esther B. Robinson (Ganador del Premio Berlín Teddy A Walk Into the Sea, 2007). También ha compuesto para los cortos de Peter Sillen, Jem Cohen y otros. Todd fue un miembro del Sundance Institute Composer's Lab en el 2008.

BERNARDO RUIZASESOR DE PRODUCCIÓN

Bernardo Ruiz fundo QUIET PICTURES en el 2007 para producir documentales en toda plataforma que sean estéticamente innovadoras y socialmente relevantes. Desde el 2009 Bernardo ha trabajado con un grupo selecto de directores de cine documental emergentes, con el objetivo de crear la próxima generación de productores en los medios de comunicación público. El es el director/productor de American Experience: Roberto Clemente (PBS, 2008), ganador del Premio ALMA for Oustanding Made for Television Documentary y coprodujo el documental de P.O.V., The Sixth Section, ganador del premio de cortometraje documental en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia en el 2003. Empezó su carrera en los medios de comunicación público en el 2000 trabajando como Productor Asociado en la serie de PBS Matters of Race. Posteriormente trabajo como freelance productor para P.O.V. / American Documentary on Borders, uno de los primeros intentos por los medios de comunicación de incorporar nuevos medios de narración. Recientemente completo REPORTERO, un documental enfocado en un reportero veterano y sus colegas en la frontera de E.E.U.U. y México durante la ola insólita de violencia en contra periodistas en México que fue transmitida en 2012 por P.O.V.

ESTHER ROBINSONPRODUCTOR EJECUTIVA

Esther Robinson es una directora de cine y productora galardonada. Escogida por la revista Filmmaker Magazine “25 to Watch” en el 2006, su aclamado debut directoral “A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory” ganó los premios mayores en los festivales de cine de Berlin, Tribeca, y Chicago en el 2007. Como productora, sus proyectos incluyen: Home Page por el aclamado director Doug Block (HBO/Cinemax, Sundance Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, SXSW), The Canal Street Madam de Cameron Yates (SXSW, Hot Docs), y Strong Island de Yance Ford (actualmente en producción); la premiada serie de PBS Alive From Of Center. Robinson ha servido como directora de Film/Video y Performing Arts para Creative Capital Foundation (1999-2006). También es presentemente es una contribuidora a la revista Filmmaker Magazine, copresidente de The Cinema Eye Honors, miembro del comité Women Make Movies y fundadora de ArtHome, una empresa sin fines lucrativos que ayuda artistas a crear fuerte recursos económicos por medio la creación de activos y equidades. También cuenta con la licenciatura de cine y televisión de la Universidad de Nueva York (NYU).

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LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

Posted: Fri., Nov. 9, 2012, 8:15pm PT

La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus

Kendall's eye for untold stories, as well as his instinct for catching evocatively framed images on the fly, mark him as a name to watch.

By Andrew Barker

First-time feature helmer Mark Kendall's "La Camioneta" boasts an odd, not entirely promising premise, entirely concerned as it is with tracking a decommissioned American school bus from the auction floor to its refurbishment as a Guatemalan public-transport vehicle. Happily, first impressions couldn't be more wrong here, as the film wrings an almost bizarre amount of political, humanistic and spiritual substance out of this limited frame. Kendall's eye for untold stories, as well as his instinct for catching evocatively framed images on the fly, mark him as a name to watch.

The basic moral thrust of the story -- that the refuse of the First World can be adopted and lovingly resurrected by the Third World -- contains a rather obvious grand lesson, though it's not one the filmmaker over-stresses. Kendall seems to realize how much more powerfully minor epiphanies can register when they aren't spelled out, and appropriately, the film contains no narration or explanatory onscreen text. It simply tells the story of the bus and those whose lives it crosses, leaving all exegesis up to the viewer.

The story begins in Pennsylvania, from which Kendall rides with the auctioned-off bus down through the U.S. and Mexico, all the way to a Guatemalan junkyard. Here, the bus is painstakingly renovated by a group of artisans, while its new owner, for whom running a local bus route is a major step up from farmwork, waits anxiously to get the vehicle on the road.

There are two primary reasons why "La Camioneta” works. The first is that Kendall's laissez-faire approach of simply following the bus from station to station happens to uncover a range of intriguing, immensely sympathetic subjects. The second is that he's more interested in process -- the simple act of making things and performing a job -- than message. One scene takes an extended, loving look at a bus painter as he obsesses over the taped-off patterns on the side of the vehicle, adjusting, trimming and consulting with serious diligence. Like the rest of the film, this sequence should be dull but instead exudes a strange fascination.

There's plenty of low-key philosophy here, especially from an early subject whose entire life is consumed with buying school buses at U.S. auctions, navigating them through the perilous backroads of Mexico, then heading straight back to buy another one. Like most of the film's characters, he acknowledges that this life is hard and that his place in it is a little absurd, but his cheerful stoicism registers higher than any underlying despair.

Kendall doesn't underplay his subjects' hardships, and he certainly devotes time to the dangers faced by bus drivers, who are routinely shaken down and, with alarmingly increasing frequency, sometimes even killed by racketeers. Visits to a local police station and a government debate over the issue underline its seriousness, as do the worried looks from drivers' wives as they venture off into the breach.

Featuring sharply intuitive camerawork, the film looks great for its means, and manages to convey the striking beauty of the Guatemalan countryside without brushing past the destitution of so many who live there. A late scene -- in which scores of newly renovated buses, bedecked with flowers and decorations, are blessed by a priest before heading out on the road -- is a particular highlight.

Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Read the full article at:http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948724?refcatid=31

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

Retired in America, Reborn in Guatemala‘La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus’

A scene from "La Camioneta," directed by Mark Kendall. Image courtesy of Follow Your Nose Films.

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: May 30, 2013

Mark Kendall’s quietly moving documentary, “La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus,” is as modest and farsighted as its cast of Guatemalans who make a living resurrecting discarded

American school buses. The movie begins in rural Pennsylvania, where yellow buses — decommissioned after 8 to 12 years of use but still in good condition — are auctioned to bidders, many from Central America.

Domingo Lastor, who purchases a Spotsylvania County, Va., school bus, intends to resell it in Guatemala. There it will be refurbished, painted red and blue, brightly decorated with stars and images of birds, and used for public transport. The long trip to Guatemala via Mexico is exhausting and hazardous because of the risks of armed robbery once the vehicle crosses the border into Mexico. In Guatemala the bus is sold to a dealer, renovated and given to a designer who thinks of the buses as “migrants” in a two-way exchange, since many residents of his small rural town have moved to the United States.

The lovingly restored vehicles are known as camionetas. An American nickname is “chicken bus,” because many passengers carry live poultry on board.

This particular bus lands in Quetzal City, which has endured an epidemic of violence in which armed gangs extort payment from the drivers to keep their passengers safe. In 2006, the film says, nearly 1,000 drivers and fare collectors were killed in Guatemala.

But “La Camioneta” is not a graphic exposé of the horrors born of desperate poverty. It is an upbeat story of resilience, regeneration and artistic imagination. For all the perils they face, the Guatemalan drivers, dealers and mechanics are able to make a living from American refuse and in the process turn the buses into mobile works of folk art.

A philosophical voice-over by Luis Aguilar, a frequent passenger, lends the film a cosmic perspective. “When you die, your body dies, but your being doesn’t die,” he says. “Your being, your energy lives on inside of everyone. It’s the same for a bus, isn’t it? For me, life is a journey. Everything carries you along.”

La Camioneta

Opens on Friday in Brooklyn.

Directed and edited by Mark Kendall; director of photography, Mr. Kendall; music by T. Griffin; produced by Mr. Kendall and Rafael González; released by Follow Your Nose Films. At the reRun Gastropub Theater, 147 Front Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn. In English and Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 12 minutes. This film is not rated.

A version of this review appeared in print on May 31, 2013, on page C12 of the New York edition with the headline: Retired in America, Reborn in Guatemala.

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

In 'La Camioneta,' Mark Kendall traces school bus' strange trip By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times

6:00 AM PDT, June 11, 2013

In a memorable scene from Robert Altman's 1975 classic "Nashville," a ditzy British reporter played by Geraldine Chaplin wanders beside a fleet of yellow school buses, scavenging for glib metaphors about the fissures in U.S. society.

In Mark Kendall's first feature film, the documentary "La Camioneta," the metaphors about buses are considerably more nuanced and surprising. They're also much more understated, never spoken aloud either by a narrator or by the movie's mainly poor, rural Guatemalan subjects, who scratch out a living by selling, artfully remodeling and driving discarded U.S. school buses.

"In approaching this project I wanted to try to reveal the layers of complexity while simultaneously preserving the mystery," Kendall said last week, speaking by phone from his Brooklyn apartment.

This palpable sense of intrigue comes from the movie's fusion of mundane reality with a magic-realist story of transformation that might've been lifted from a Gabriel García Márquez novel.

Named for the Spanish word for truck, "La Camioneta" follows the strange but true odyssey of a yellow school bus once used for transporting rural Pennsylvania pupils.

In the movie's opening minutes, we watch the bus — barely a decade old, and still in apparently good condition — being auctioned off in Texas. Following an arduous and dangerous journey across Mexico,

it winds up in Quetzal City, Guatemala, where it is sold to a dealer. It is then commissioned to a local designer who lovingly outfits such vehicles with bright colors and elaborate folkloric images of birds, stars and other indigenous Maya motifs.

Ultimately, the bus, now turned into a sort of four-wheeled art installation, is destined to shuttle Guatemalan workers across a region plagued by violent gang extortionists who menace passengers and drivers alike.

Critic Stephen Holden of the New York Times praised the film, which is playing this week at the Downtown Independent theater, as "quietly moving," "modest and farsighted."

It would be easy, in the manner of Chaplin's character in "Nashville," to belabor certain obvious symbolic themes in "La Camioneta": how First World castoffs become developing-world treasure; the contrast between North American prosperity and wastefulness and Central American resilience and resourcefulness.

But Kendall, working with Guatemalan co-producer Rafael González, decided to jettison all such metaphorical baggage. The film also eschews any journalistic recitation of hard facts about the country's poverty rate or crime-rate statistics.

Instead of supplying the movie with prefabricated significance, Kendall said, he wanted to allow his viewers to draw those interpretive links for themselves, and allow "the context and sort of the socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions" of the tale to "seep into its very essence."

"I am generally drawn toward stories about process," said Kendall, whose previous short film, "The Time Machine," profiled a Honduran-immigrant watchmaker who labors amid clock-obsessed commuters rushing through New York's Grand Central Terminal.

That earlier movie, Kendall said, "was in part about the relationship between his craft and the landscape in which he does his craft'' — a description that also could apply to the cheerful, hardworking bus restorers of "La Camioneta."

"There were also certain existential questions that I thought the subject perhaps offered itself to, although I didn't know how that was going to take shape," the director said.

Kendall began honing his interest in, and knowledge of, Guatemala while pursuing a two-year master's program in Latin American studies, focusing on the Quichean language and culture of indigenous Central Americans.

Although he never planned for his low-budget film to have a theatrical release, it was shown in New York before landing at the Downtown Independent. In coming months "La Camioneta" will have additional screenings on the art-house circuit, at museums, performing arts centers and other venues. And Kendall plans to make the DVD version of the movie widely available in Guatemala, where many people can't afford to attend theaters or even buy full-priced DVDs, by leaking the film to video pirates.

"We're going to go straight to the black market, get it out on the streets, make it as accessible to people as possible," he said.

One of their first stops, he added, will be a well-known Guatemala City street vendor who specializes in offering ultra-cheap, customized DVD versions of pirated indie films (you can pay extra to get the "special features" or the original casing.

Like the bus painters of "La Camioneta," the vendor is engaged in a commercial transaction that offers good value for minimal cash. "And being really efficient and effective with the available resources," Kendall said, "and developing your trade based on the relationships and the reputation that you generate through your work."

LA CAMIONETAREVIEWS & PRESS

La Camioneta: LAFF Review4:20 PM PDT 6/21/2012 by Sheri Linden

The Bottom Line

An unexpected and fascinating aspect of migration in the Americas, viewed in intimate close-up.

Venue

Los Angeles Film Festival

Director-director of photography-editor

Mark Kendall

Mark Kendall's rich and vivid documentary tracks the journey of an old American school bus

U.S. director Mark Kendall has put his interest in cultural anthropology to rewarding use in his first feature documentary, a film that’s rich in detail and character observation. La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus is just what the title indicates — and that turns out be an intimate and vivid report on a surprising connection between North and Central America.

A selection of the Los Angeles Film Festival, the concise and well-constructed film looks destined to continue a successful fest-circuit journey, and would be a fine fit for small-screen venues that welcome adventurous nonfiction fare.

Having discovered that the public transportation camionetas widely used in Guatemala are repurposed American school buses, Kendall embarked on a filmmaking project that would trace one such vehicle’s transformation. The action begins with a Pennsylvania auction of decommissioned buses, where most

of the bidders are men who have traveled from Central America. For the man who buys the titular bus, on a payment plan, after it has arrived in Guatemala, the transaction fulfills a lifelong dream.

Another one of the individuals that Kendall’s astute camera highlights is a young man who makes the trip between Guatemala and the U.S. twice a month, driving 16-hour days, to purchase and deliver the buses. He’s at peace with the nature of his work, but can’t deny the dread he feels each time he enters Mexico, an understandable reaction given the country’s recent spate of violence.

The homefront is not much easier, as La Camioneta makes clear without reaching for heavy-handed explanations. Camioneta drivers must contend with gangs that extort them for cash. Those who don’t comply are often the victims of shootings or grenades; in 2010 alone, nearly 200 drivers and fare collectors were killed.

In succinct fashion, the film captures the situation at the public and the private levels. There are the crime scenes and dead bodies, the appeals to legislators for compensation to help the orphans and widows, and, in a dark-comic nod to a legacy of institutional corruption, a wanted poster for a former chief of police. Sociopolitical implications are neither forced nor denied; Kendall’s chief interest is his subjects’ experience, as when he catches the anxiety in the faces of two drivers discussing their daily challenge.

Yet as much as it is an alarmed look at dark doings, the film is also a celebration of ingenuity and the buses’ refurbishment. Body-shop workers transform the classic yellow behemoth into a multihued work of art, designing its new shell with care and pride.

Priests bless the finished product and offer prayers for the drivers’ safety. But another kind of faith fuels La Camioneta — an existential equanimity in precarious times. “Everything carries you along,” one driver says. “On a journey,” another observes, “there’s nothing that is written.”

Venue: Los Angeles Film FestivalA Follow Your Nose Films production (In Spanish with English subtitles)Director/director of photography/editor: Mark KendallProducers: Mark Kendall, Rafael GonzálezExecutive producer: Esther RobinsonMusic: T. GriffinCo-editor: Shannon KennedyNo MPAA rating, 71 minutes.

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

Now and Then: Remarkable New Doc 'La Camioneta,' a Masterful Miniature

By Matt BrennanMay 29, 2013 2:10 PM

Spotsylvania County, Virginia and Queztal City, Guatemala are separated by nearly 3,000 miles of road, and by what would seem, at first, an unbridgeable cultural distance. But in Mark Kendall's remarkable documentary "La Camioneta" -- a brilliant microhistory of our globalized world -- you're hard pressed to consider them anything but neighbors. The film debuted at SXSW 2012 and opens in limited release starting May 31.

At a mere 71 minutes, "La Camioneta" takes the shape of a novella (per Merriam-Webster, "compact and pointed... psychologically subtle"), deploying its transnational tale with the utmost economy. A sort of nonfiction film version of the literary form, it distills the poetics of an epic journey into a powerful miniature: its story of a handful of Guatemalan men who purchase, transport, refurbish, and recycle a decommissioned Virginia school bus is both a graceful, ground-level portrait of Guatemala's working

class and a cri de coeur from the shadows of affluence.

According to the film's website, approximately 1,000 bus drivers and fare collectors have been murdered by Guatemalan gangs since 2006, on the wrong end of an extortion scheme whose gruesome consequences comprise the film's Ground Zero. The ex-chief of police evades justice, while a poster pleads that "the corrupt elements of the police are NOT OUR COMRADES, they are just A FEW BAD APPLES." Later, the camera glimpses the police dragging a man's corpse through the doors of a former school bus, the blood soaking through his shirt a dark inversion of the vehicle's more innocent past life.

But "La Camioneta," like its courageous subjects, refuses to resign to the violence. Its resolute stillness -- the camera peering out through a windshield, or lingering on a boy cooling his coffee with short breaths -- defies chaos. Instead, Kendall, who produced, directed, shot, and edited the film, discovers unexpected beauty in an otherwise troubled existence. Hand-mixing paint and applying chrome siding, Mario, the man in charge of the retrofitting process, describes his pride in "the art of creating a camioneta, the time that goes into creating it."

When Mario rests for a moment amid a rainbow-colored scrap heap of parts, leaves of grass stretching up and scraping against the hoods and tires, he is briefly at peace -- a sculptor surveying his false starts, readying himself for a new project. "One man's trash..." the saying begins, and watching this cadre of drivers fashion an object so hopeful, so bright, from someone else's discard pile is to witness the transformation of trash into treasure. "They're migrants, too," Ermelindo, the buyer, says of the buses. "It's not like we build the buses here. They come from the U.S.A."

All too often, though, the proverb of trash and treasure works in reverse, and if from a political standpoint "La Camioneta" neglects to make the long tradition of U.S. malfeasance in Latin America explicit, its subtle construction builds to an emotional impact that far exceeds its size. The camioneta that emerges when the tape and newspaper are peeled away glistens in red, white, and blue -- and chrome. Its souped-up, modified Americanism at once nods to the United States' official ideals and critiques its baleful reality, casting a shine, as the film does, into the shadows.

The film ends as it began, traversing the border. The scene shifts from children in Guatemala celebrating the new camioneta's unveiling to children in the United States, smilingly blissfully -- and blissfully unaware -- as their school bus glides through their comfortable suburb. "On a journey, there is nothing that is written," one of the drivers reflects in voiceover. "You always meet new people, new friends. And even if they weren't really friends, you shared the same bus for a short time. And that makes you part of the same journey." The journey depicted in "La Camioneta" belongs, then, not only to Kendall, to bus drivers, to Guatemalans. It's ours, too.

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

The Magic School Bus: 'La Camioneta' Tracks a Transformative JourneyBy Katharine Relth, Documentary Magazine(Online Articles: May 2013)

It once shuttled thousands of school kids, from kindergarteners to high school seniors, through sweltering heat and blizzards, from the nervous anticipation of the first days of school in September through the giddy excitement of the last days in June. But as it yields to newer, sturdier vehicles, it undergoes a transformation and repurposing, from public school bus in suburban America to mass transit vehicle in Central America.

Thus is the life of a single decommissioned American school bus, as poetically depicted in Mark Kendall's debut feature film, La Camioneta. We follow this camioneta on its journey from an auction in rural Pennsylvania, south through Mexico to its new home in Guatemala, where the vehicle is sold into a fleet, refurbished, repainted and eventually staffed by dozens of drivers as a reliable method of transportation for the daily masses navigating the route between Guatemala City and Quetzal City.

The care that goes into repurposing this vessel is not unique—all auctioned camionetas go through a similar bidding, travel and renovation process. But as Kendall's film highlights, every bus has a different story to tell. The particular vehicle featured in La Camioneta represents just one of hundreds, and the people involved in its continued operation just several among thousands.

Image courtesy of Mark Kendall

Beneath this narrative of continued life and fulfilled dreams lies a sinister truth: In the past six years alone, nearly one thousand camioneta drivers have been murdered for failing to pay extortion money to members of the local mafia. This fact doesn't deter eager visionaries like Ermelindo, who, since the age of 13, has dreamed of owning his own bus. For him and drivers such as Angel Mario Voc Bixtún, owning and operating these camionetas is their livelihood; they risk their lives every day by simply doing their jobs. But Kendall does not overtly make these men heroes. They're doing what they need to do to survive and ensure that their families can also live on.

Kendall opts to focus on the personal stories, rather than the widespread violence so prevalent in Guatemala's current narrative. It is through the characters that we learn about the recent murders and hijackings in their metropolis, sparing us from witnessing too much bloodshed firsthand. There is a short segment that illuminates some of this death and suffering, as police and medical workers drag a limp body from the steps of one of the many camionetas that run through the streets of Quetzal. Kendall spares us from seeing the dead man's face, but we do see the faces of the children who have lost their fathers in recent months.

Kendall came to his story while in the Social Documentary Film graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. "I began to develop the idea a bit right before the end of the first year," he related in an e-mail. "Once the summer came around I pretty much jumped right into production. I'd go down to Guatemala any time I had free from my obligations at school and then I'd come back to New York to continue with classes." Having earned a Student Academy Award nomination for his documentary short The Time Machine, Kendall had the instincts to produce another successful film. He engaged Guatemala City-based award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Rafael González, who assisted him on the trips to Central America. His guidance during production is probably what kept them out of harm's way.

"Originally I had imagined we'd follow the converted bus into its new route and spend some time seeing it back in action and getting to know some of the folks in the community it serves," Kendall said in an e-mail following the film's premiere at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival. "But given how things were going, I decided it wouldn't be safe to film on the camioneta while in its route—not only for our own safety but also for the safety of our subjects. So in some ways we chose to stay of the way of trouble." This restraint during the filmmaking process eventually dictated the focus of the final cut, which, as mentioned, celebrates life, rather than dwells in death.

The arc of the film unfolds at a calculated pace, never defying the time frame from the auction purchase to the complete transformation of the bus into a bright, colorful and fully-functioning camioneta. We are right there as Domingo Lastor takes the vehicle on its 16-hour journey from the United States through the Mexican border and down into Guatemala. The story doesn't try to rush through the painstaking care taken by Mario Enrique Valle as he stencils the elaborate designs over the exterior of the vehicle. Kendall is not afraid to let his camera linger on the mundane, understanding the delicate and quiet beauty of meditation.

In a few of these still moments, droplets of rain gather on the camera lens, making the viewer aware of the piece of glass between the filmmaker and his subject. A perfectionist would have gone back for pick-up shots, deeming the footage with the rain spot unusable. But these little imperfections lend the film a cinema vérité authenticity. Never do we experience a traditional interview with any of the characters. Instead, we are introduced to them as they move throughout their lives, their stories revealing themselves slowly and sparsely through voiceover or conversation. Kendall—who spent 18 weeks over the course of one year filming his subjects on the road, at home and on the job—has put his supporting subjects completely at ease, despite the camera's presence.

La Camioneta unfolds beautifully, with still and deliberate intention. There is no emotional

manipulation, no social or political agenda, no ulterior motive from the filmmaker. Kendall's is a simple and poetic document of the journeys we all take, and the ways we can help each other along these roads. Don't expect sensation. Engage this film with tranquility, and you will emerge slightly more connected to humanity.

Image courtesy of Mark Kendall

La Camioneta won the David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award at the 2012 IDA Documentary Awards. The film runs May 31 to June 6 at New York's ReRun Theater, and June 7 to June 13 at the Downtown Independent Theater in Los Angeles.

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

MARK KENDALL'S “LA CAMIONETA”

From Pennsylvania to Guatemala: Mark Kendall’s La Camioneta follows the journey of the familiar into the unfamiliar as a yellow school bus transforms into a colorful camioneta used to transport Guatemalan workers. Since 2006, nearly 1,000 camioneta drivers and fare collectors have been murdered for refusing or being unable to pay the extortion money demanded by local Guatemalan gangs -- raising the stakes in this visually stunning and poetic feature length film. Here director Mark Kendall tells P&M how he found himself on this particular bus ride...

1. What were the series of events that led to the particular story of La Camioneta?

The film was inspired by a conversation that took place on board a camioneta back in January 2009. At

the time, I had recently completed a Masters program in Latin American Studies and had been looking for an opportunity to travel a bit through Central America. Over the holiday break I was able to carve out some time away from my job, so I decided to take a six-week bus trip through Central America and explore a bit. During my time in Guatemala, the camionetas were my main form of transportation and as someone who had frequently ridden on school buses as a child I was naturally curious about them. One day I began talking to the driver a bit about how the camioneta industry works, and it turned out the bus we were riding on had originally come from a school district about 20 miles away from Nashville, where I was living at the time. The driver and his uncle used to have a small shop just outside of town and would buy recently-decommissioned buses directly from the Nashville Public School system, fix them up a bit, and then drive them down to Guatemala where they would eventually become camionetas. I remember being struck by just how close this all felt to home, and the experience stayed with me for quite some time after I returned to Nashville. Whenever a school bus would pass by, I'd often tell people about this encounter I'd had in Guatemala and over time I think the story really began taking root in my imagination.

About a year later I decided to move up to New York to begin film school at the MFA program in Social Documentary Film at the School of Visual Arts, and at the end of our first year I needed to propose a thesis project. I wasn't sure if it would be possible, but when I pitched the idea to the thesis committee the response was overwhelmingly positive. Within two weeks I had recruited a friend to join me for the first production trip, and within a month we were on the bus and on our way to Guatemala. Everything else began unfolding from there.

2. The film is unique because it actually follows the bus. Can you tell me about the form of the film?

What struck me when I first started researching a bit of how camionetas are made is that during their liminal stage – when they're not quite school buses and not quite yet camionetas – they almost look like giant works of paper mache. They're emptied out, smoothed down, covered with a base layer of paint, and then all these strips of newspaper are plastered onto the frame. But there are also some noticeable differences. Whereas with paper mache the adhesive is usually some sort of glue, with camionetas tape is the preferred choice. And rather than carelessly slapping on newspaper scraps in an attempt to “leave no space uncovered”, with camionetas the newspapers – themselves collections of stories – are carefully sculpted into shapes and designs that will ultimately serve to identify the bus' owner, the places it travels, and the craftspeople who worked on it. These shapes generally have some sort of geometrical integrity and never fully dominate the body of the bus – on a fully finished camioneta, there's always room left for plenty of empty space. Sometimes those spaces will eventually get covered up by decals or lights or advertisements once it's been out on the road for a while, but when they first leave the shop there's plenty of empty space.

I began thinking that this might an interesting way to structure the film formally in a way that also evoked the form of its subject. It's a bus made by stories, colors, designs, and people (among other things). And the way that I'd imagined it, the film was going to follow this bus and there would be all these different layers – almost like branches of a tree, or rows of seats, or something like that – that would both depart from and shine light on the bus and on the world in which it is embedded. So the film constantly moves away from and then returns to the bus, which carries the viewer through time and provides a frame of reference that is constant yet always in flux. So, very early on there was something about this idea of having something that at first glace appears singular, fixed, and uniform, and as you pass through time the different layers are revealed and become part of a cohesive whole that slowly reveals itself.

It's like weaving together a tapestry. You have these different layers, and shoot them in production without necessarily knowing if they'll end up in the film or if they'll get tossed out. But somehow following those threads is a really important part of the process, because sometimes they can lead you along to other things or open up doors that you hadn't even imagined to be there in the first place. So it's important to try things, and it's important to allow those things to have the possibility to fail. But things really come together in the editing room – that's where you have a chance to figure out what it was that you were doing in the field.

3. The film is a documentary but has the feel of a feature. Can you talk a bit about some of the choices you made with respect to style and pacing?

Well, I think the relationship between documentary and fiction is perhaps a bit more permeable than some might be willing to admit, and I think in every film those modes bleed into each other in varying degrees. We could talk at length about this but I want to get to your question, which is about the pacing.

For me, the pacing begins with the shooting. So it's actually a part of the process that starts early on while I'm still in the field. To get the kind of material I like to work with, I always pay close attention to composition and generally prefer shooting in long takes to allow things to happen inside the frame and to provide the space necessary for those serendipitous chance encounters you otherwise couldn't possibly find. Those are the types of shots that can be used later on in the edit to create that sense of pacing. I think pacing is one of those things that's purely about feel – that's why everyone has their own style. It's like the fingerprint of your heartbeat recorded at 24 frames-per-second.

4. The way you treated the violence in the story was unlike what I was expecting, and I presume it's also quite different from the way the violence on camionetas is covered in the mass media. Was this part of your initial idea for the film? And how did you go about navigating some of those choices?

When I started out I really wasn’t really sure how the journalistic elements of the story were going to interact with the more conceptual ideas I had for the film. I had done some research on the violence and extortion before I began so that I could both make decisions based on accurate social and political context and be as safe as possible while in the field, but I gave the film plenty of room to breathe along the way.

For the first few weeks of production, I didn’t know where in Guatemala the bus might end up, who might be its new owner, or what route – if any – it might end up joining. When Ermelindo bought the bus and decided to enlist it into Rutas Quetzal, the direction the film would take became more clear.

I think the goal for any filmmaker is to have your story inhabit a world and to have your world inhabit a story. How you choose to go about that is up to you and has just as much to do with personal aesthetics as it does with the needs and limitations of the story you're trying to tell. Limiting the scope of the film to the journey of one bus from the very beginning ended up being a great way to focus the film as we got further into production, and it forced me to find a new language to explore a wide range of things – violence being just one of them.

When you think about it, violence isn't just something that happens in specific and isolated incidents in the streets or on board camionetas. That's the way it's often times depicted in visual media – especially in the news – but there's also a deeper psychological component to violence. When you have widespread violence coupled with impunity on the scale of what's happening right now in Guatemala, the effect it has on the population at large becomes deeply embedded in the very fabric of how people live their daily lives. It's something that lies beneath the surface in the very struggle for existence, and I think that comes across far more vividly through a tiny gesture, a moment of candid conversation, or a quick glance than through textual explanation or overt force.

I was also interested in trying to create a sort of bridge between the world of facts and the world beyond the facts – to reveal the soul and the complexity of the place while at the same time conserving its mysteries. Regardless of whether they are more journalistic or more impressionistic in their approach, I think all films reveal the interior dimensions of the people who created them. So, staying true to that, I wanted to weave this element of the story into the broader vision I had for the film.

5. How was the experience of making your first feature?

I hear it said all the time, but going through this whole experience has made it abundantly clear to me just how important it really is to work with and surround yourself with supportive people who have similar goals and values and who can help you stay true to yourself and keep everything in perspective. It makes the process so much more enjoyable and is such a source of strength at the times when you need it most. I was very lucky to be able to collaborate with such an amazing group of talented and supportive people on this project.

I think one of the greatest freedoms I had on this film was being able to begin the editing process while we were still shooting. Since I wasn't quite sure how these different elements were all going to come together, it helped tremendously to get a sense of what was working and what really wasn't working. I could feel the voice of the film emerge early on and that became important as we got further into production because it could help inform all sorts of choices we made later in the field.

The hardest thing of all is to preserve your freshness of mind, so that you are open at all times to being surprised by what you think you already know. It's so important to follow your instincts -- if you stop listening, eventually they'll stop trying to reach you!

6. Any idea what might be next?

I'm still very much involved with the distribution and management of this project, but I'm beginning to think about what's next and there are a few ideas that excite me. We'll see what happens.

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

Domingo

La vida de una camionetaM. Sandoval/ J. Oquendo

Al subir, los recuerdos empezaron a aflorar. Esos sillones y las ventanas que se deslizan con más fuerza que maña eran los mismos que veía a diario cuando era niño, cuando subía al bus que le llevaría a la escuela. El cineasta Mark Kendall descubrió de inmediato que la camioneta que lo transportaba en Guatemala había sido antes –en su otra vida– un bus escolar. Pero ahora, del amarillo trocó a un colorido exagerado. Y de la paz a la angustia. Era como si el aire que circula dentro del vehículo también lo hubieran cambiado, ahora era más espeso, más difícil de respirar. Los sonidos eran muy diferentes: las risas, las canciones infantiles se convertían en oraciones cuchicheadas en las bocas de las señoras, o las rancheras que el piloto hace sonar para distraerse. La camioneta y el bus se parecen en la carrocería y nada más. Aunque sean lo mismo.

Viajando en camioneta, Mark se interesó por descubrir de dónde llegaban los buses y le preguntó al chofer. La respuesta le impactó: el bus en el que se transportaba en ese momento había sido antes vehículo escolar, muy cerca de donde él vivía. Pensó en el bus en el que viajaba de niño y en lo que el destino le pudo haber deparado. Y fue así como decidió filmar una película cuyo personaje principal fuera una camioneta. Un bus antes de convertirse en camioneta.

El bus sería el pretexto para narrar también la historia de la dependencia de Guatemala, de cómo las basuras del norte son los tesoros del sur, y la violencia que se manifiesta en todas partes. Así nació la película La Camioneta, que ha ganado premios en Estados Unidos y que el 18 de noviembre se presentará en Guatemala como parte del festival Ícaro.

Su protagonista resultó ser Hermelindo, un joven que soñaba con tener su propio bus. Kendall desconocía qué pasaría con el bus, por eso planear un guión o definir a los protagonistas era imposible. Como fue imposible también eludir el tema de la violencia. Hermelindo decidió que trabajaría en rutas Quetzal. Justamente ese mismo día habían puesto una granada en uno de sus buses y fue entonces cuando la realidad fue guiando la trama de la película.

¿Cómo empezó el proyecto?

– Con una idea muy simple: seguir un bus desde que salía de Estados Unidos hasta que se convertía en camioneta. Mi investigación inicial me llevó a 422 Bus Action, una subasta de buses usados. Allí conocí a Mingo y le propuse viajar con él hasta que llevara el bus a Guatemala. Yo no sabía a dónde iría a parar ese bus, no tenía idea de quién sería su dueño ni de a qué ruta pertenecería si es que llegaba a pertenecer a alguna, porque muchos buses se quedan en los predios o se venden por partes.

Llegamos a Chimaltenango y allí Mingo nos presentó a su cuñado Gerónimo, que administraba el predio donde el bus pasaría los siguientes días hasta que se vendiera. Más tarde conocimos a Hermelindo, quien finalmente compró el bus y accedió a que lo siguiéramos en el proceso hasta volverse una camioneta de Rutas Quetzal.

Mi idea original era seguir un bus escolar en el recorrido entero que hace hasta convertirse en camioneta y usar ese proceso como una excusa para contar la historia de las personas que hacen posible esa transformación. Seguir el bus parecía la mejor manera de meterme en el mundo de esta historia y era a la vez un vehículo para explorar una serie de temas que también me interesaban. Yo tenía una clara y bien enfocada historia en mente. Pero el proceso de filmación me fue guiando hacia los mundos y las vidas de las personas que trabajaron en la transformación del bus. En muchos sentidos este fue un viaje de fe, no sabíamos qué pasaría, y ese fue uno de los elementos que hizo que el proceso de producción se volviera muy visceral.

La violencia aparece en las imágenes tomadas de periódicos, pero también en conversaciones íntimas, entre familia. ¿Se propuso mostrarla así?

– La violencia no es solo algo que ocurre en casos concretos y aislados en las calles o en camionetas. También hay un componente psicológico más profundo, y creo que cuando tienes una violencia generalizada como está ocurriendo ahora en Guatemala, queda profundamente arraigada en el tejido social, en la forma en cómo las personas viven sus vidas a diario. La comunicación no tiene que consistir únicamente en mostrar imágenes gráficas o dar datos y cifras. Creo que las conversaciones cotidianas, gestos y expresiones faciales también tienen el poder de decir mucho.

Aunque existe cierto uso de entrevistas, gran parte de la película juega con una progresión de escenas y secuencias de enclavamiento que el espectador está presenciando en una forma muy inmediata. Esta es una técnica que permite que el espectador se sienta como si estuviera presente y fuera testigo de los acontecimientos a medida que ocurren, y que creo que eso también les obliga a pensar sobre su propia relación con lo que están viendo y oyendo.

¿Qué reacción espera de la película en Guatemala?

– Esta no es la clase de película que generará una reacción de un solo tipo, tampoco es el documental que funciona para transmitir un mensaje que es familiar para la audiencia. La cinta definitivamente tiene un punto de vista bastante fuerte y hay varios temas políticos y sociales que se encuentran inmersos en el mundo de la historia, pero existen más entre líneas. No está narrada en un formato de problema/solución porque estos temas son demasiado complejos y no quería tratarlos así.

Espero que la cinta quede colgada en la mente de las personas mucho tiempo después de que la hayan visto, para que sus pensamientos y sentimientos puedan resurgir y evolucionar con el tiempo. Tengo la esperanza de que la próxima vez que vean un bus o una camioneta repitan estos momentos de la cinta y continúen cuestionándose su propia relación con algo que les parece tan familiar, algo que dan por hecho. Cuando la gente ve cosas familiares en escenarios extraños aparecen posibilidades interesantes.

¿Qué fue lo que más le sorprendió de la experiencia?

– Viendo atrás, creo que toda la experiencia fue una larga y envolvente sorpresa que se reveló poco a poco. Y ahora me parece que no hubiera podido suceder de ninguna otra manera. Esta es una de las cosas más increíbles de hacer documentales.

LA CAMIONETA

CRÍTICAS Y PRENSA

LA CAMIONETA

CREDITOS

UN FILM DE MARK KENDALL

Director / Productor / Director de Fotografia / Editor MARK KENDALL Productor RAFAEL GONZÁLEZ

Asesor de Produccion BERNARDO RUIZCoeditora SHANNON KENNEDY

Musica Original T. GRIFFIN Sonido TOM PAUL Colorista WILL COX

Editor Adicional DAVID TEAGUE Productores Asociados KARA ANDRADE

ANDREW LARASONELLEN PECKSASCHA WEISS

Productor Ejecutiva ESTHER ROBINSON

Producido por:LA CAMIONETA, LLC & FOLLOW YOUR NOSE FILMS, LLC

En asociación con: EK BALAM PRODUCCIONES

Financiacion adicional proporcionada por:The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, the Jerome Foundation, the School of Visual Arts

and the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University.

Apoyo adicional proporcionado por:IFP & Film Society of Lincoln Center's “Emerging Visions” program

Patrocinadores fiscales:Visual Arts Foundation &

Independent Feature Project (IFP)

LA CAMIONETA

CONTACTO

Mark KendallDirector //// Productor

502 + 3219-7035 (Guatemala)(615) 417-6131 (EEUU)kendall.mark@gmail.com

LA CAMIONETA

CONTACTO - GUATEMALA

Rafael GonzálezProductor

502 + 5376-0695 (Guatemala)rafache@gmail.com