About me
Rebecca María
I am a filmmaker, living and working in
Jerez de la Frontera, Andalusia, Spain. I make experimental shorts, run a political choir, and work as a professional writer. I am making headway on a novel that straddles the genres of gothic, surreal and autobiography.
If you're interested...
I became fascinated with the life and culture of Jerez, and the province of Cádiz in particular when I came to do a residency with my art school in 2015. I was doing a Masters in Performance, Practice & Design at London's Central Saint Martins.
During the Masters, I spent five wonderful months in Jerez de la Frontera, researching, studying flamenco and experimenting with film. Jerez is called "la cuña" (the crib) of flamenco. It is a town awash with music, traditional flamenco as well as a fusion of experimental music, spanning jazz and Arabic styles originating from Al-Andalus (Andalusia's previous name under Arab rule).
Jerez is a traditional city, and families are still committed to old ways of life and to the church. Yet at its heart and in the surrounding towns, lies a strong community of activists, anarchists, and artists, opposed to the residue of Francoism that still lingers throughout Spain.
These communities are paving the way to preserve the origins of this part of Spain's rich and complex history, continuing to transgress and challenge the status quo.
Throughout my journey, I am learning through the people I know here, their ways of life, quite different from the rampantly capitalistic and individualist culture of my hometown of London. I observe here a commitment to radical community, and that this does not always come from modernisation.
Through my work, I want to discover if we can progress on this earth, or whatever time we have left of it, outside the hands of corporations, without eradicating its history or origins.