Filmmaker Statement

The folk story told within the script is one that Esteban remembers as far as he can when he was a little boy - having faced death from loved ones early on while not understanding it. Even then, through the comforting stories of tradition in relation to death, he had not truly experienced grief until later in his life. His mother Ixchel shared with him the story of La Catrina, which is the story that he aimed to tell through fresh young eyes for this film. ‘Vela’ is an immigrant story weaving the Mexican folk tale with a family drama. It melds horror elements to portray the spectrum of emotional weight that impacts our young protagonist Xime – and displays the transformation of grief into something more positive once the unknown is faced head-on. The story is close to Esteban not just culturally, but from a deep place of personal loss; his own hauntings have led him to return to ghost stories in many forms in his previous works. As important as the supernatural aspects are in ‘Vela’,