Mala Mala, the beautiful documentary by Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, is an intimate journey into the complicated and vibrant lives of a group of transgender individuals, and drag queens in Puerto Rico. The well-rounded cast includes trans activist and spokesperson, Ivana Fred, and star of season six of RuPaul‘s Drag Race, April Carrión. We talked to Santini and Sickles about the three-year long process of making the film, inclusiveness and diversity within the trans community and among the crew, and the growing concern regarding the media’s fascination with Caitlyn Jenner.
Mala Mala explores themes of identity and authenticity within the trans and drag communities, but it’s also a film that transcends these specific groups and feels relatable to anyone. Can you talk about what makes the film universal?
Dan Sickles: Before even talking about aesthetics and the camera language that we developed throughout the course of the shoot, we had a certain set of politics and ethics in mind for how we were going to approach the film. From the onset, it was to create a space that was very inclusive, establishing empathy with the subjects and the people we were meeting along the way. Instead of meeting people and thinking, here are all the differences between us, we were really working on building ideological relationships with them. We’re after the same thing, and we can use all these identifiers that we probably employ differently. But ultimately, I like you as a person. I respect your complexity and your journey and your spirit much more than how much melanin there is in your skin, your age, whatever words you’re throwing around that speaks to your identity.
Antonio Santini: The process and the team also really defined the tone of the film. We were really lucky to have the four of us come from diverse backgrounds. Dan coming from Philly and (turns to Dan)-- Can I say “queer”?
Dan Sickles: Yeah.
Antonio Santini: Our cinematographer [Adam Uhl] being heterosexual from Minnesota, our editor [Sofía Subercaseaux] being a heterosexual woman from Chile, and me growing up in Puerto Rico. So, we were all these filters coming up against the reality that we were filming. We went through lots of processes of questioning each other when we wanted to do something. Kind of always checking on each other like, “Why do you want to do that?” We would say to each other [for example], “It’s 6:00 AM. Is it worth spending three hours going to the other side of the island to shoot this person? Is it worth spending whatever little money we have right now and coming back on a second trip?” All these constant questions really made us think, if we’re going to do it, lets do it right. It was never about shooting “whatever.” It was about shooting the essence of what mattered in the moment. This made [the film] more relatable because we were connecting to [the subjects].
Did you ever feel completely taken out of your comfort zone while shooting?
Dan Sickles: There were definitely moments where I felt very much out of my comfort zone, more so than in any other project I’ve worked on. I remember the first night that we started talking to the sex workers in Santurce [Puerto Rico]. My Spanish isn’t really good at all. Antonio was parking the car. Me and Adam got into Ivana’s car, and I didn’t really know that we were just going to start. She’s driving around and all these girls are getting in the car, and I’m asking them questions. Before all of this, I didn’t know anything about sex work or ever met a sex worker. [I thought,] oh my God. What does this mean about me? (Laughs) What will my parents think?! [One girl] looked at me dead in the face and said, “You’re very handsome.” It was so kind and simple. Immediately at that moment, it was like, oh right. We’re just people driving around in a car. We can chalk it up to all these stereotypes we have about each other. That’s how we could be speaking, but that’s not what we’re after.
Did you become close to the cast during the process of filming?
Antonio Santini: We had to become friends and family with them. Naturally because we were interested and wanted to, but also because it was important in the process. Otherwise, it would’ve been too formal. Otherwise, it would be “define transgender.” That’s not what we wanted because that doesn’t say anything about them. That says something about the words we’re using to talk about these things. Instead, lets see what it actually means to be transgender. Let’s actually look at their lives as opposed to imposing ideas about their lives. Lets just participate with them. Go to the supermarket. What is that experience like? Stay in their bedroom with them. What is that like? Go to a show with them. Go to the streets with them.
Dan Sickles: All of us wake up in bed every morning. Some of us wake up with our partners. [We worked] to create imagery that represents that, but the subjects just happen to be transgender. It’s really about aligning things that we see all the time. The shot of Paxx [Moll, the sole trans man in the documentary] and [his girlfriend] Audrey in bed is not a new shot. We didn’t invent the wheel, but the fact that they are who they are and in bed, there’s an expression of intimacy. It means something completely different. But to audiences who might be cisgender, it’s like, “Oh right. That’s like me and my boyfriend.” Or, “Me and my girlfriend.” Everyone does the same things no matter how you identify.
Antonio Santini: I think at that moment, especially in 2011, when we started [shooting] and the whole Caitlyn Jenner conversation hadn’t started, we really felt like there was a vacuum in the conversation. We felt that we were observing something that was happening that people weren’t really talking about. I mean, I wish maybe now we’d explored even more, but we felt it was important to talk about being trans on film because it was not being talked about. But there were a lot of moments, in which we really expressed what it was that we were trying to get to. Again, the bedroom scene with Paxx and Audrey. Ivana talking about being hot. How relatable. Some people aspire to be hot. How human is that?
Dan Sickles: She wants to feel good. It’s that simple.
Antonio Santini: There is nothing specifically trans about that. It’s a human experience. Sandy [Alvarado] talking about love and meeting the love of her life. Her fears of being rejected, and how courage allowed her to have him and this relationship. That’s not a trans experience. It’s a human experience.
Dan Sickles: This film is born out of moments of feeling that it’s not relatable. [Specifically] what are these impulses to get invasive surgeries to feel more in-line with yourself. I don’t know what that is. More than anything, I think we got an education. We can relate to many more things than we initially perceived. We can develop ideological relationships that transcend all these limitations that we impose on ourselves.
Can you speak more about the media storm surrounding Caitlyn Jenner, and its possible implications on the trans community?
Dan Sickles: The worry is that this burgeoning culture and community-- and communities-- of transgender [people] especially in the United States, can be co-opted right away and be reduced as something very essentialist. That’s where we are right now [culturally]. I’m glad that the politics we initially set up when we were developing the film have withstood that test. We worked to create something that was a wide view of the community. Where the boundaries were still permeable, but not really existent. It’s not a Trans 101 film. Whereas, I feel that someone like Caitlyn Jenner can very easily be co-opted and distilled into, “This is what this word means. If you don’t fit this criteria, then you cannot be that.” This is all coming from the top down, when the community is very much born from the bottom up. That’s the worry.
Antonio Santini: In terms of being inclusive, the film also reflects that. The reason Ivana was the most cooperative of all the subjects wasn’t because we were giving her money or really because she wanted more exposure. She drove us to Soraya [Santiago Solla]’s salon after a year of calling, and the phone being disconnected. She took us to Sandy. Ivana said she would talk and do her role in the film, but we also had to cover the other perspectives in the film because Soraya is a completely different human being than Sandy, and she’s friends with both of them. [Ivana] said, “You can cover the drag queens and talk about that experience because it is a reality, but you also have to make sure you cover all the other angles.” I think that is something that really helped us because she literally gave us the power to access other people. A lot of people, I think, weren’t necessarily willing to open the door to us until Ivana put her stamp of approval.
Dan Sickles: The diversity of the crew also really contributes to the inclusiveness of the film. It’s almost as if the audience is implicated in this experience of, “We don’t really know what all of this is, but we’re going to find a way to sit with it for an hour and a half.” (Laughs) We don’t have to be so terrified of each other all the time. We can have open discussions very comfortably, that aren’t insinuating horrible things about how I am, and who you may be.
What were your ideas concerning the use of music in the film, especially the song “Métele” by Puerto Rican band Buscabulla, which adds an extra element of sensuality?
Antonio Santini: We didn’t want the music to be like in many Puerto Rican films that just use salsa. We made maybe more of a New York film, with a cool, hip soundtrack. Flavian [Berger], the composer of the film, he’s French. [Because the crew is multicultural,] he really took all of us into consideration. He would also study Latin music and think about how to integrate these sounds, and make it a little more soulful. Not make it too this or too that.
Dan Sickles: We wanted to make an alluring film. Not a purely sexy film, but something that would start and people would lean into. We knew that if we were going to talk about transsexuality and sex work and all these really terrifying things for the typical population, we needed to create a mood and a tone that people could allow themselves to feel attracted to. I think that comes a lot from the colors of Puerto Rico and that night drive that we see all the time. It’s very cruisy, but it also feels communal. It feels a little dangerous, but it also feels like somewhere you want to be.
Mala Mala opens in theaters on July 1.
