Writer-director Sánchez’s debut feature is a fascinating fusion between fiction and reality, featuring the real siblings upon whom this moving story is based. Facing a death threat after their activist grandmother has been shot, brother and sister Jade and Kaleb flee Juarez with Martha, a journalist who has lost her young son in a car accident. As the road trip progresses these two parallel stories of loss and trauma are gradually revealed and developed through an interesting combination of fact, fiction and flashbacks, ultimately leaving you with an uplifting sense of hope for the future in spite of the tragic past.
We are pleased to welcome Alejandra Sánchez for a Q&A following the screening on Sun 21 Jun.
To celebrate the UK premiere of Seguir viviendo we are delighted to welcome writer and director Alejandra Sánchez. Already an experienced and talented documentary filmmaker, Sánchez’s first feature film is an extension of the story told in her 2006 documentary Bajo Juárez, the City Devouring Its Daughters. Having become close to the family after the murder of the mother, Lilia García, in 2001, she decided to tell their tragic story after the attack on the activist grandmother, Norma Andrade, in 2012. A screen test of the orphaned siblings Jade and Kaleb produced excellent results and Sánchez made the bold and unusual choice to cast them in the movie, alongside a fictional third protagonist, Martha. “I wrote a story with real-life parts and parts of fiction,” says Sánchez. “This film exposes some of the social issues in a country that hurts its people. The format of a road movie allows the audience to glimpse inside a very intimate story.”