Lourdes Portillo

A documentary filmmaking master class was held in front of a full house at the FUNGLODE installations. The class had the largest participation of students and professionals in the entire series of master classes, which formed part of the II Dominican Global Film Festival.

The master class was held under the professional guidance of Lourdes Portillo, the Mexican documentary film director of numerous award-winning movies, among them the 1985 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary, The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

Lourdes told the students that she opted for the documentary genre because when she began her career, it was very difficult for a Mexican woman to make a feature film in Hollywood. She realized that she had more possibilities with documentaries and at the same time she figured it was an audiovisual genre that she was going to like.

"To make a documentary you have to have passion as a filmmaker. To be prepared to live with the story you´re developing. The main thing is to have a good idea, develop it as a story or fable, research it and in the end to film and edit it as well as you can to make a good documentary.

Portillo, who has put her life on the line more than once when making films such as one about drug trafficking, is currently working on a new film. She said she was delighted to have been able to come to the Dominican Republic to help aspiring documentary makers to develop their stories.

"I think the Dominican Republic must have some very interesting stories to tell.
You have a lot of material here."

At the end of the class, Lourdes Portillo kindly left a copy of all her documentaries at the FUNGLODE office as a way of sharing her work with all the Dominican students and aspiring documentary makers.