MARISOL: A Short Film That Packs A Punch (& Interview With Director Zoé Salicrup Junco)

Stephanie Archer for Film Inquiry: I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and for the chance to screen your last film. It was definitely a pleasure to see it.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Aw, so glad to hear that. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it.

No worries. It resonates and sticks with you long after it’s over. I actually had to take an Uber this morning and, besides our interview today, I found myself thinking of it.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Oh Wow. That’s awesome.

So this is your fourth short film?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, uh, third? Well this is actually my third. I’m actually finishing my fourth now.

That’s awesome. With your other shorts, you previously tackled issues of mental health, loss and familial relationships. With Marisol, you bring immigration to the foreground and the perceived importance of its legality. Where did the idea for this short come from?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Well actually, this is the first short film that I direct but didn’t write. Tim Eliot the screen writer I believe was just like really inspired by the current events. He wrote it, I think he wrote it right after the election. I know Lauren Sowa our producer was like caught in a situation where she was caught in an Uber and I guess he took a wrong turn and he would definitely not from the state, you know she witnessed how the authorities kind of abuse a little bit of their power. And I think between that and everything that was going on in the world, they kind of decided they wanted to tell this story. And so, you know, they’re not Latino and they felt like they did need a Latino voice, somebody who could, you know, not necessarily had gone through the painful process that the U.S. makes it when it comes to immigration, but someone with a Latino background who could really understand the complexities of it. And that’s where I came in to play.

In mentioning your Latino background, having been born and raised in Puerto Rico, was there any personal significance that, other than just being Latino, that drew you into wanting to be a part of this project?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: For sure. You can probably see it in my work, I definitely gravitate towards stories that center around, you know, strong female leads, and more than strong, it’s just like authentic female leads, like, female characters that read real, that when you see them on screen, they are real and raw and full of great virtues. It’s like very rounded female characters. And when I read the script that was something that definitely resonated with me because it reminded me of the characters I’ve had to write.

I like that. You mentioned the female lead, cause we need more of those, and the fact that it brings a diversity of a female lead as well is amazing. Do you think that the choice to have her job be an Uber, or a Quikk driver, do you think this challenges the public image and an idea of a stereotypical job many feel illegals are stealing from hardworking citizens?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: What do you mean like that ride sharing apps…

So there’s a cliche, certain jobs that are associated with illegal immigrants: house cleaners, landscapers, to have it be an Uber driver, do you think that it is further challenging the idea of what immigrants can and are willing to do?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Right. As in like we are painting a stereotype just because they tend to do those kind of jobs?

Yes, exactly. Branching out from the stereotype.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah. Well, it was important that, Marisol was always working, that was like the whole concept. That she borrows a car, it is actually something that happens, I don’t know if it is something that happens outside of New York, but when I started working with Tim and Lauren, they had done a lot of research and you know, it is something that happens, not only with like Latino immigrants, but just in general. You know, you don’t even have to be an immigrant if you want to make a quick buck, you know, supposedly this kind of stuff does go on where if you know somebody who has like a business with a ride sharing app, you could potentially borrow your car. It’s obviously completely illegal. But you don’t necessarily have to be in a situation where your legal status is tending to do that, you know, it’s more about the fact that like you’re strapped for money and you have to make ends meet and regardless of your immigration status – when you have to pay rent, you know you have to pay rent regardless of where you come from.

It was so important to me to not just portray another Latino and these kind of jobs, and that’s something I worked with Emma Ramos, the protagonist, the actress, to kind of develop this backstory about how Marisol when you see it at the beginning of the film, she is trying to put together her business, she is trying to make her business take off and have agency and ownership over her financial future. Except that the fact that she has this situation where she has to live in the shadows of the system doesn’t allow her to grow as quickly as others could potentially do. So that was something that was important to us. It wasn’t in the original script, but we developed it once I came along, we were like, okay, how can we make this woman a little bit more in control of the future professionally and financially.

I definitely noticed that. I liked that there was this entrepreneur status to her with the laundry. And also the attentive mother fostering her child at the same time, just like any other citizen, legal or illegal. You said that this wasn’t in the original script so you included it to kind of broaden her character and to drive these points.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, we added a little bit more.

Were there any elements that you wanted to include in the short to help expand her character but that had to be left out, whether it be due to timing or a balance of the story?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, you know, this is very minimal. You have to watch the short, to see it a few times, but the backstory was that she was going to school, she is finishing her degree because in a lot of schools, your immigration status is not questioned. Some of them do now, but not all of them. So that’s why you see her wearing a backpack, she puts in a laptop, she has a few books. That was a need, that’s a very minor detail that obviously meant the world to me and Emma, but a short is the short and you want to have a certain amount of time to tell a story from beginning to end. But let’s say we expanded to a feature, that’s something that, you know, we would definitely expand upon, like what she does in her regular day to day. So you just don’t see the risks that she has to take, you can also see the positive efforts and strides she makes to provide a better life for her daughter.

Speaking of her daughter, that was another element I really liked about your short, the family aspect rather than strictly an individual. It really heightened the intensity and severity of Marisol’s predicament. Was this part of the script or was this a decision that you had made?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, Maria was always there. She was a big part of it. The way we thought of her daughter is basically that she is Marisol’s North Star, right? That is the element that’s guiding her forward, besides the fact that everything in her life might be saying the opposite. Everything might be saying, “go back where you come from, this is not a safe country, you run the risk of getting caught”, but you know, Maria is that shining light that says, “no, you get up and you know, go for it again and do whatever it takes to provide a better life for your daughter”.

I really liked having that rather than just her being a driver. It was an all encompassing person being a driver. Before the ICE agent becomes Marisol’s final drive, each of the passengers she picks up pays little to no attention to her. It was such a beautiful example of not only the treatment of those who work in service industries, but the lack of harm illegals extend to those around them. Was this always the intention when the short was filmed?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, I mean I feel like we just live in this very disconnected world where when you get in an Uber, the first thing you do is pull out your phone and you start going through social media, checking your emails or whatever it is. So there’s very little interaction with the person who’s driving you, which is ironic, right? Because your life is in their hands basically. So I just always find that interesting. I just wanted Marisol to kind of punctuate the fact that she’s alone, she’s really doing this alone, and it says a lot about her character. She probably doesn’t even recognize it. She feels it more and more, and that need to connect is what unfortunately leads her to open up to Frederick, right? Because she hasn’t spoken to anyone in a while, the entire day she’s been ignored. So, you know, all of a sudden this charming guy starts to talk to you and make small conversation and as street smart and savvy as you can be, sometimes when you need to connect, you need to connect and you lower your defenses and that’s how Marisol unfortunately falls into the trap.

Yeah, that makes it so much more heartbreaking listening to you describe it like that, this need for connection. What I felt really reverberated as she fell into that trap was this feeling of a witch hunt, like a modern day witch hunt.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, yeah.

It was really sad to see and watch it happen. This feeling of a witch hunt, was that intentional?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: I don’t think witch hunt went through my mind. That’s an interesting word, but it was definitely, like it is supposed to feel like a very uncomfortable conversation that I feel a lot of women end up in. And when you end up in that conversation, I don’t know why we immediately start to question ourselves, like, is this really happening? Am I overanalyzing? Am I being extra-sensitive?

We immediately think it’s our fault and not that it’s reality. It is a very surreal experience, I don’t know if you’ve had that situation happen to you, but you just don’t understand what’s going on. And when they kind of lead you into this corner and the way they’re leading you, it’s like through the thing you value the most. She [Marisol] starts to talk about her daughter and that’s when she beams, you know, and it’s the moment she reveals the title of the song and where the song is from that she unfortunately gives away too many details. I didn’t necessarily think of the word witch hunt, but it was definitely someone leading her to expose herself. Yes.

The moment that the cop pulls over Marisol and is willing to let her go with a warning and the ICE agent jumps out and cries “illegal”, it was such an impactful moment because you see basically our opposing sides in our country where you have the people who want the illegals out and you have those that don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. It was a very impactful image. Did you create that image to give that feeling at that moment rather than have it sort of slowly reveal itself?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, when Tim wrote that scene, he definitely nailed it. He wanted to show the conflicting views between federal government and local government. The reality is those cops, that’s out of their jurisdiction. So it’s more like they needed to handle the whole “you ran through a stop sign”. But in that scene I think we’re just tackling so many different points of views because you know there is the local government with the local authorities, then you have Frederick who was more on the federal side except he’s off duty. Then you have Marisol’s point of view. And then you also have an audience’s point of view.

Like you’re watching all of this develop. It was definitely a really tricky thing to watch and when we were editing, we tested the scene and everything. It was important to me to keep it as authentic as possible, because it is a cringeworthy moment, like you know what’s going to happen and you so don’t want it to happen. And it was weird, it was a tricky balance between having an audience be okay to go down that journey with you, but also making sure it wasn’t too uncomfortable to the point where we turned them off and they stopped watching the film or stop understanding what the film is about. So it was a very delicate balance that we had to work through the edit, because Frederick goes hard on Marisol and on the local cops. That was an interesting scene to edit for sure.

It was definitely, I think, one of the most impactful moments in the film. I mean not just with dialogue but also just as an image, you know, different sides of the car and everything. It was crafted really, really well and it made an impact. With the cops themselves, well, actually the cast in general, there seems to be an important element of diversity within the casting, especially with the police officers. The police officers are the, obviously other than Marisol, are the minorities. Was this an intentional casting?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah.

Okay.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah. It was an intentional casting. I think, you shouldn’t quote me, [laughs] but I feel like the very fist script maybe it was like, no no no, it was always a female and a man, I take that back. For a second I was wondering if they were both male at one point, but I think there was as always a female cop and a male cop. I think that the debate was who was going to let her go. Was it going to be the male cop or the female cop? And I definitely vouched for the female cop just because I felt like it was important to establish kind of this message of camaraderie that I think now is starting to become really powerful among women, you know, to support each other. ‘Cause I think we’ve always been able to connect with each other privately, but going out in the real world and vouching for one another, it’s something that was important for me to showcase in the film. And I think that’s where that cop comes from. She gets it and she understands that this guy’s off duty and this is more about harassment and less about prosecuting this person fairly. So yeah, it was important for me to have the female cop let her go.

I also thought it was very interesting their ethnic backgrounds that encompass the cops as well. Where they and Marisol might be strangers in life, but with issues of persecution and circumstance, they aren’t strangers. So I thought that lended itself to a very interesting element within the film. And I know you had brought up the female cop, but was this element also influencing your casting decisions and where you went?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah, that was also intentional. I feel like we just wanted to capture New York, and New York is a very diverse city, from authority to whoever walking around. I live in New York and I feel like fifty percent of the time, if not more, I’m speaking in Spanish, not in English. So that says something, and the same goes for all sorts of ethnicities that are here. So it was important for us to cast diversity in all the other roles. And I think it does make Frederick’s character, just more interesting in the sense that if you line up the cast, he is the minority. He acts and talks like he can get away with anything and actually he’s out numbered here. Yet, he’s in control of the situation the entire time.

Even his image seems to fit a stereotype on, like if you look at Trump supporters or at a typical elitist view of the white man, which I thought was very impactful, especially when you came to that scene with the division.

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yeah. Except we wanted to, for me it was important that Frederick’s character, who is played by Tim Eliot, and Tim was the one who wrote the screenplay, it was important for me that the character felt justified. I know he reads like a stereotype, but there are real people that think like that and they really, in their mind they are fully justified. Like either they know somebody who has gone through immigration the correct legal way, gone through the entire process and therefore they just can’t understand how people, other people don’t go about the same process. But it was very important for me that Frederick that when he played that character, he did feel justified because if not he is just going to read like a full blown stereotype.

Yeah, and I’m really glad that you made a point. Well, that’s all the questions I have today. It was such a pleasure speaking with you. I know your film is premiered at the San Diego Latino Film Festival at the end of March. Congratulations. Are there any other festivals that you are showing the film at?

Zoé Salicrup Junco: Yup, we have a few. We can’t release anything, but we are planning on screening it at other festivals and just screening opportunities that have started to come our way, so we’re very excited about that. I can’t wait for a lot of people to just see the film and react to it and hopefully get the conversation started because that’s the whole point behind the project. To just talk about this subject a little bit more and hopefully get more understanding through this super specific story about a mother and a daughter. I always say when you can present someone with a very specific example that they can understand I feel like they connect with it way quicker. Everybody has a family, everybody’s dealt with either having their family or a family members threatened or separated at some point in their life. You don’t have to be Latino or an immigrant to understand those emotions. So when you’re able to really tap in there, I just feel like everybody just lowers their defenses, or their views, and there’s a common understanding of what it’s like to be a human and live in a cruel world and how we should come together and try to figure stuff out a little bit with more kindness and with more empathy.

Well, thank you very, very much for giving me opportunities to be with you and see your film. It was a real pleasure.

Film Inquiry thanks Zoé Salicrup Junco for speaking with us!