Slow Baja - Filmmaker Trudi Angell On La Recua Her Intimate Documentary About One Old Rancher's Dream To Run A Traditional Mule Train

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

In our second conversation with Trudi Angell, we discuss La Recua, her tribute to a fading history and documentary film about the old-time mule-packers in Baja California Sur. The film follows Darío Higuera Meza, a traditional saddle-maker in Baja California Sur, Mexico, as he lives his dream of riding La Recua. Overcoming a life-threatening health scare, rattlesnakes, scorching days on dusty trails, Higuera and his family carried goat cheese, dates, traditional sugarcane candy, and mountain wine. The party of thirteen ran a string of 25 donkeys and traveled 200 miles in 20 days to La Paz. Watch a trailer for La Recua here. Follow Bell-Mare Productions here. Follow La Recua Film on Facebook Follow La Recua Film on Instagram

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at Benchmarkmaps.com.

Okay. Is that three or are you on four? Do you really not get those background noises of a car going by over there or something? I'm sitting here with filmmaker Trudey Angel discussing sound design. Yeah, you know, we're working in the real world. It's a one-man show at Slow Baja. I haven't gotten to 25 animals and 13 people. Okay.

Hey, Trudy. Buenos Aires. Good to see you again. Bienvenito at Calistoga. Dang, it's like you're an old friend and I haven't seen you for a long time. Yeah, we've met one year ago and I've followed some of your other podcasts like with Eve E viewing and Paul Ganster. Those were fun. Yeah, well, I have to thank you for putting me on to a few folks.

You know, Eve is, again, every time I go to San Diego, I went. want to sit down with her. Right. Yeah, me too. In the kindest sense of the word, she's just a nut and a beautiful nut. Exactly. I think that's the general observation about e-viewing from all of her friends everywhere. But a really lovely nut who's done amazing, amazing things. Exactly. But we're here to talk about you. And I'm delighted. So Trudy, hello. Slow Baja. I'm in Calistoga today about a year since I first spoke to Trudy at your sisters. Was it your sister's place where we met? Which sadly perished in the fire a year ago, your sister's place, not your sister or your mother. Right. And I was dwelling on that a little bit last night as I was watching your

film, your beautiful film La Reque, about resiliency in Baja and the people of those mountains. and how resilient you have to be to just be there and survive. And so how do you, how do you, I don't know, we're going to take a deep dive into your soul right now. Right. You're going to tell me about film screenings and all that stuff later. How do you deal with your own family stuff and your own resiliency to keep doing what you're doing and getting the film done and out and all that?

Yeah. So last year, I had just finished taking a course online called Supercharge Your Distribution, just learning along the way. And it was in my sister's home, and pretty soon about a month later or a couple of weeks later, we had to evacuate that home, and we lost that home on Silver Auto Trail that my sister had been living in and running her business out of for almost 40 years. And a 90-year-old home or something. Yeah, over 100 years, I think that home had been there.

And it was beautiful, and it's a great loss. And my mother's home up a few hundred yards away, up on the knoll above where Heidi's place is, was, also was lost in that fire. and I would have to say my 97-year-old mother was amazingly resilient. There's definitely repercussions from all of us, of course, with the changes and everything. But I can say, you know, I didn't lose my home. My home in Baja is still there, so all I can do is act as a support, somewhat of a support, to the family here in order to get us onto the next stage.

And we're in a lovely spot right now, which, might be our next stage. Yeah. No, it's beautiful downtown in Calistoga. I was behind the school kids as they were leaving, and it was just amazing to see a bunch of kids just pouring out of a school and walking home. Yes. Like, I haven't seen that more than a year.

A year and a half. Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of fun. And the lovely thing about Calistoga, if we want to look on the bright side of everything, is this is a lovely, quiet neighborhood, and it's a home that my mom with her walker can get in and out of very easily and the streets are quiet so she can actually get out and walk and move and so adelante onward all right well let's get on to the task at hand yeah you've made a spectacular film really is a spectacular spectacular film i've watched a couple times

i watched it twice last night and it's just it's just amazing fact i realize it i have my notes behind me here, which I should grab. I'm curious. Why twice last night? What was it that made you want to watch twice? Oh, dear. The Dodgers and the Padres went into extra innings, and that game didn't end until almost 1 a.m.

So my wife was watching that, and I just decided to see your film. And, you know, I was stopping it, and I was making notes, and I was watching it. and it's truly enthralling. And then I just decided I just wanted to watch it again to see it and be in it. And not break it apart and write down quotes and notes and what have you. Just feel the flow.

Feel the flow. And so getting onto that, we said it and went over in our last podcast. You know, you just didn't decide to make a YouTube video of this old dude's, you know, idea of like, hey, let's get some mules together and walk them down to La Paz. I mean, this is a serious undertaking. He took it quite seriously. You had the previous relationship with Dario from, I'm going to muff the name, the film Corazon. Corazon Vacero. So that was, he was a part of that film.

So you had a relationship. Through Saddling South, you've continued this relationship. And he tells you he has this dream. And he's getting old. He's running out of time. I mean, still a vigorous guy who's going to make saddles and do all this leather work while he's telling you he's getting old. But you said, yeah, I'll go with you and I'll make a film of it. And you didn't make just like a home movie is what I'm trying to say.

Right. You made a flipping epic. Yeah. It is. No real serious. I mean, you have a producing credit on Corazon, but no real serious movie making experiences before. for this? No, basically just kind of knowing the logistics and helping a few different filmmaking teams who would come to Loretto to film something about cultural food or the tourism of Loretto or

where the whales are or what is it to ride a mule or, you know, just small little productions. small but important productions about the area of Baja California, that we live in and those spectacular mountains and spectacular coastline. So just by working with those teams, I got a very good sense over the years of that you need a really good team in order to pull something off like this. it was no small feat to actually gather the key people who were going to work on that film. It took a little prior planning.

Yeah, which is your strong suit. You're a planner. Yeah. And luckily, because of our trip to Elko, Nevada, with our vaqueros, and having them be kind of the focus of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering of 2015, I had seen some photographs that a young woman from La Paz had taken, and it is part of her soul to be able to express lifestyle of the Sureno rancheros through her art, and I fell in love with her photographs and immediately thought she must be a key person in this production. Turns out she had already ridden on a long ride with some of the local vackeros photographing them

in one of the traditional rides that happens to the main festival in San Javier, which is just west of Loretto up in the Sierras. So in Mexico, for a Saint-Day festival, depending on the village or the town or the city, there might be some big, beautiful events, very much cultural. events going on. And so she had taken it upon herself to go along with the ride of 11 or 12 days of riding on mules from the city of La Paz up El Camino Real and some of the other parts that are being used right now as travel for those mules and people on horseback to get to this traditional festival. So I knew that she had it in her to be able to sit on a mule. And she was

she would love it, you know, for days on end. And her husband actually is just of the same sentiment. He absolutely adores the culture, the history, the backgrounds of the rural people, fishermen, many fishermen, and also ranchers. And so we kind of did a, when we wanted to put together a teaser for the film back in 2017, We did that by going out to Dadio's ranch. And I specifically took the two of them and my friend Eric, who's also an amazing videographer, we went to Dadio's ranch just to do a trial meet and greet and see if the energy was going to click, the chemistry was going to click between Dario and the film team or the other way around.

And it did. Yeah. Everybody loved each other, and they did a great job filming him for 24 hours straight, practically, to pull together a six-minute teaser that we used then for promotional advancement on gathering funds for making the big film. Which began in 2018? Yeah. When in 28. Set the timeline from Dario saying to you, let's do this. Yeah.

And you saying, yes, I'm going to do this. And then you getting to work on your end and him getting to work on his end of, you know, making the deer skin dusters and the chaps and the this and the bags, all of that. So let's talk about how long things took before you saddled up and, you know, lit that campfire. Basically a year and three months from the time Dadillo said, hey, I want to do this thing. And I said, hey, I'll help. That was in January 2017, and I happened to be riding through his ranch, which I have done many times over the last 25 years, taking a small group of guests.

It was very small, a couple women. And we went into his saddle shop on his ranch, which is built out of palm logs and palm thatch, and he has all this beautiful old equipment, some of which his father made, some of the old pack saddles, the apparejos, that would go on the backs of the donkeys for packing gear, the saddles that he has made over the years for his family, his sons, who are amazing bakeros and people. And so, Dario was in there, and he was explaining some of the traditional gear to my two guests,

and I translate for them. And then he looked at me, and he suddenly, got this look in his eye and he said Trudy, I'm getting old. And I've always wanted to do this thing. I've always wanted to make an old requa and take gear down to La Paz, like my grandfather used to do. And like the old famous aryeros of the day, Don Chamo. Don Chameau? No, let's see. the person who we actually say. Anyway, like the old packers of the day. And Trudy, I want it on film. Do you think I can do it? And I said, yes, quicker than you can flip a tortilla. And I thought later, oh my gosh, what did I say? What did I do? Little did I know what a huge production it was going to be. And, but, but, but, But I had faith that we would carry it out to the end and onward. And so it's really been a learning experience. It's really been what I call a 90-degree straight-up learning curve for me.

Well, I'm going to say just deep and heartfelt congratulations on the product from somebody who's saying basically, yeah, I've never made a film and I'm going to make a film. And, you know, again, I found it touchingly beautiful, intimate. It's a deep, I think it's a deeply intimate look at one old rancher's dream to connect with his history and a history that is long gone. And just to see the interfamily, you've used the word a lot, respect, the respect that the children have for their elders, the respect for the elders, the respect the elders have for the children and how centered those children are. Ramoncito and what's this Asusena, the 10-year-old girl.

The 10-year-old girl. And so, again, you know, what are we three or three or so years past that? So tell me about that. I just want to know what she's like as a 13-year-old. Did she stay on the ranch? Did she go? It's like, I want to see the sequel. Where did Ramon go away to school?

And, you know, is he tending animals on the weekend? And so I got invested in this family, in this dream. I was on that ride, and that's why I watched it twice last night in a row, just the first time to pick it apart, and then the second time to just, I was on that saddle. And so you mentioned San Javier, it was jarring for me to see that ride get to San Javier, and I've driven that road in my old land cruiser and gone right up to the mission, and to see the jarring juxtaposition of modern-day.

cars after I've been on that ride with you and you just see, you know, a scene that could be a hundred years old. You have no reference because it's just you're on the mules. You see the traditional dress. You see Baja looks the same. And then all of a sudden it's cars and people taking videos with their cell phones. Yeah, right. Wait, wait, you're supposed to have an advanced team clear the whole thing and make it look old,

but it's not old. Yeah. It's today. It's today. It's today. That we discussed Elizabeth Moreno and her husband, Alej Rivas in La Paz, before we even went out to Dario's ranch, what is going to be the focus of this film? Are we going to try to be a film that takes you back into another era, or what is it?

And we all decided, no, you know what? Let's just say the reality here is, here's Dario, wants to do this thing, wants to honor, but we are here in the 21st century. Right. Yeah. Exactly. And that, and again, but man, I was right there on the saddle with everybody else. And so seeing those cars just jarred me. Did you cry during the film at all? I did. Good, good. That's what we want. I may just cry talking about it. So I just want to jump into a couple of moments that just really stuck out to me. Intimate is the word I've written over and over and over again. And Romancito's little brother is digging roots because Ramon has chicken pox and he has a fever and he's not feeling well.

And he's lying there and you can see that he's not feeling well. And the most touching scene of his younger brother crawling into his mother's arms and then putting his fingers on his older brother, who's only, what, eight or something, right? Yeah. You know, he's putting his fingers on his older brother's forehead and touching his, letting him know that he cares. and he's digging roots and telling him to take these roots, you know, and that'll make him feel better. It's profoundly beautiful. And those are the things that lovingly the editors pulled out of the hours, hundreds, more hours of film, and the things that we all together as we all kind of went over the raw material, yeah, this is key.

and the reason is none of it is acting. Right. That's the amazing thing. None of it is acting. Anything you see in that film, it's a Verite documentary, which means we turn the cameras on and watched and filmed, you know, what was going on. And cut was when the batteries died or the filmmaker had just had enough for that day. Or the mule stumbled on her up.

or whatever, yeah. So I think it was Dario's son, whose name is escaping me. Luis. Luis. I think it was Luis who said, in the old days there was lots of patience. That was actually Ricardo, as he's saddling up his mule in Komondu as about the time that we're just about to head out of the village and up into the back country. That's so meta and so slow off.

Yeah, I mean, I can relate to that so deep. In the old days, there was lots of patience. Yeah. And the other part of that, he leads into it by saying, they're just all running around in cars these days. Exactly. They're all running around in cars. Yeah.

And, you know, I don't know. All right. We're going to get on to another Dario moment here. There's plenty of time, not enough life. Let's get going. Yeah. Break that down for me. He's like, there's plenty of time.

but there's not enough life. I'm an old man. Right. Okay. In actuality, who said that was Chee, who is a key person. Okay, I missed two quotes now. Okay. And I watched it twice.

All right, Chey says, there's plenty of time, not enough life. Let's get going. Yeah. Break that down. So along the way, one of the tension points that was for us that we wanted to bring out in the film, of 15 minutes or so into the film is that as we were riding out through the middle of nowhere between San Javier, Camus deo in San Javier, Dario almost dies. And so the reason for that is he's had a bronchitis issue over the past few months

that has now recurred just as we're about to start the Requa. His family really would prefer if he would not go. they're afraid for him. We are, I almost, I mean, I did say to him, hey, I'm the director. You have to do what I say. And not go on this trip. We're afraid we're going to lose you.

This is going to be too difficult. But Dario being Dario said, no, I'm going. I need to go. I need to be there. But on the top of the mesa, the next day, he loses his breath. He's unable to breathe. And we can't really show in. the film the whole sequence of events right there but the background information is we all jump in

and try to get him to breathe again he's sitting on his mule and i've got some homeopathic stuff and i have included a friend of mine on the trip anyway stepney white who is a medical person she has done EMT work before and she's also a veterinarian so here she's multitasking as she's with us and a cook and a camper and everything. So she says give him strong dark black coffee. We happen to have some in a thermos. So he's drinking his coffee, datio is, on top of his mule. And he says, okay, let's go, I'm good again. And Che are wise and calm and knowledgeable, uh, truce. trail guide, whom I work with for actually many years in Baja, says to Dario, hey, calm down, slow down, you need to take it easy, you need to take a rest.

And the next scene you see is, Dario saying, Fero, let's go, let's put the pedal to the metal, let's get on the trail. And Che says to him, eh? There's a lot of life, not enough time, eh? And it was the perfect little sequence that our editor could make into a cut that for me, it doesn't really express as much of stress and difficulty of that 20-minute moment there on the trail. But that's where it is. And that's why I'm enjoying sharing all this background information.

So, you know, I don't want to see you danced around his health issues. but his health issues are a constant in the film. And the respect that the rest of the people show to him as the, I don't want to say the leader. He's the reason that this is happening. Yeah. But they don't want him to die. Right.

And they certainly don't. He may seem like this is a great way to go out, but, you know, they don't. And they show him such great deference and respect. Yeah. But also, you know, a little. bit strong-handed, like, sit down, dad. Yeah. Yeah. Just rest here for a minute. Yeah. And it's

his granddaughter telling him what time it is. It's time to take your medicine. You're two minutes past. Yeah. Yeah. It's 642. You're supposed to take your medicine. Yeah. Yeah. Those kinds of moments that were captured and put together in the editing room were definitely how it really was.

As you noticed, yeah, Ricardo tells him, hey, you sit there for a little while and he he's probably just going crazy himself because he's such a hands-on guy and he's been doing this all his life but he knows he has to take care of himself we had so many scenes and sequences that we could have added to make to even make that more profound in the in the whole film like that same evening where Asusena says to him hey you've it's 642, you need to take your pill. That evening, he was coughing and coughing and coughing and kind of really having, struggling

in his tent. He was one of the few people who slept in a tent because we didn't want the dampness to affect him. And so Ricardo goes and puts a little teapot on the coals and makes some Bougainviya tea for him. That was going to be a whole sequence in our film, but there were just so many of these lovely traditional cultural things that we had to cut out because of lack of time. Well, there's going to be a director's cut coming someday.

For all those who contribute to the funding of the film, we'll get the loving four-hour directors cut. Yeah, right. So in the film, I thought another touching moment, and you just said that Dario did sleep in a tent, but he stretches out on his son. saddle blankets. And he says, how many nights I slept on my saddle blankets wrapped up in my dear skin dusters?

How comfortable. What more can I ask of God? Nothing. This is a beautiful thing. Yeah, because he's in his environment. He absolutely adores living in the outdoors. It's something he's done all of his life. I just added to the website, La Requad.

So that's L-A-R-E-C-U-A-com. I just added a blog page, and one of the blogs in there gives a little background on his life, his young life, and how he and his family lived in a cave like indigenous families did, 200 years before the vaquero culture on the peninsula. There are cave paintings up on the walls around the cave. And so it's in his bones

and as well in Ricardo and Luis's and Asucena's who's 10 years old and Ramoncitos. It's in their bones and their background and their love for the outdoors and their comfort level in the outdoors. You might have seen Ramoncito and Asusena gathering wood. Not very many people, not adults, campers who I have taken out on trips over the years,

know how to gather wood correctly in the Baja outback, but the kids do, because they know that you need a piece of choya to be the fire starter and you need a piece of mesquite or vinarama to be the coal maker so that you can cook on the coals. They know that stuff. And so they are full of wisdom along the trail. We're hoping to make a trailer that will express that a little bit more about the children so that there's a little more understanding.

When you see a couple of the trailers coming up for La Requa, we have one right now, the official one, official first one. We hope to have another one that, that brings a little bit more of the children's wisdom into light as well. Well, another part of Dario's poetic waxings or open thoughts, said, now the trails are, they're almost gone, forgotten, and all the ranches are abandoned.

Trade goods on donkeys? Where would they take it? Nowhere. The requas are finished, and now I'm trying to get to La Paz with this one. And it kind of made me think, you know, I'm a fan of Francis Ford Coppola, and there was the documentary of making of Apocalypse now, and he has this reflection that, you know, he's making the worst movie in history and going broke doing it. And, you know, I was just wondering if there's a parallel in Dario's mind, like, I've obsessed about this recua thing, and now I'm on it. What the hell am I doing? Right. Did you sense any of that? Like, in the middle of this thing?

Is he just wondering, like, what? I'm going to die on this? trip. I've got my family out here. I've got all these people involved. What am I doing? Yeah. Or do I have a totally wrong? You know, I think he never lost that spirit and that feeling himself that this history needs to be shared. So I think there were probably moments where he might have, he might have felt like, oh my gosh, are we really capturing? We're not we're not romanticizing this too much. I don't I think those would have been his words, but we're not faking this. This is the real thing.

This is like the real thing. It's not quite the real thing because here we have, you know, support with the vehicles. We did have a support team with vehicles. We had to recharge the batteries for the cameras. We had to. I have one really fun behind the scene shot of Goal Zero battery charger, loading getting loaded on top of a donkey so there are things about La Requea that were not the absolute traditional thing but there is enough in the edited material that can give you that sense hopefully

you had that sense last night that you were witnessing something that is worth preserving oh absolutely Yeah. Absolutely. No, and that's, and, and preserved so well is, I think, something that I want to keep coming back to, preserved so well. I mean, it's preserved beautifully. It's, it's a blue ribbon. It's really, really amazing.

So I think one thing about that, just to, just to cover that preservation of history, there are actually so many pieces of that history that had to, be left out because the thread of the storyline was also going towards his concern for his children and their education and where ranch life was going. And without saying it actually, climate change and everything, without saying it directly, it was obvious that the ranching is getting more difficult because of dryness, whatever. It's not like the old days now. When it was just merely, nearly impossible.

Yeah, right. And there's a lot of information that we feel like we need to put together in a sequence. Like you said, and smaller bits of sequence. I believe that there's an educational cut, maybe a small series of educational cuts about each aspect of what La Requa is. and La Reque, meaning the way the cowboys and the families and everyone in old Baja used to live when burros and mules and on foot were the way that you traveled before the roads, not too long ago.

You know, we can't wait to drive our old land cruiser down to Baja, and when we go, we go with Baja-bound insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, Baja Bound Insurance, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Hey, do you have a 4x4? You love off-road racing. You've got to join Slow Baja in the Nora 500. It's Ensenada to Ensenada three great days, October 7th through 10th.

Kurt LaDuke, Offroad Hall of Famer, leads the class. If we can do it in our old truck, you can do it. Get your street legal 4x4, get into the safari class, and I'll see you in Ensenada. More info at nora.com. That's www. or on Slobaha. Right, so let's dive into that a little bit and get away from the aspect of this magnificent

film that you made of this magnificent reenactment of the way that life used to be. You've been involving yourself in the ranch life world. You've said to me that you wish you were born 40 years earlier, which I just always love. You know, everybody wishes they were born. And I think Woody Allen did that midnight in Paris where everybody wanted to be born, you know, 50 years before so they could see just what they just missed. In the 20s, yeah. Exactly. But you've touched that.

You've seen it. You've developed a business. I hate to say a business around it, but you guide people into this world. You're a link. You're a cultural link. You're a, you know, a means for people to experience this. And to some degree, you're healthy. helping to keep it alive through that, that transaction of bringing, caring, interested people

who can afford to come and see this, to see it and help these people, because they're not in a, they're not in the world that they once were where everything was trade. Their world involves money these days. Yeah. And so you're a part of that world. And what are your thoughts on where, like, where, ran? ranch life is now what you've seen in the arc of the 20, 30 years you've been experienced since you first started riding with Tim Means, right?

How many years ago was that? Yeah, back in 1980, 85 or something like that. Okay, so a good long time ago. Yeah. 36 years ago or 2021. To now until, you know, can you see it 30 years in the future? Um, not 30 years probably. I wouldn't have that vision for it.

There's still a handful of people living in the Sierra San Francisco, where the World Heritage Rock Art sites are. And so that is exactly why we chose Ricardo Arce and Asusena Arce because of their upbringing on roadless ranches. And their complete comfort in the outdoors because they do have to pack up a donkey in order to go for groceries. They don't particularly right now. Let that sink in for a minute. Yeah, let that sink in. They do have to pack up. They first have to gather their donkeys from the outback where the donkeys roam to eat so that they can survive.

And then they have to have all the appropriate equipment. And then they have to put the pack stuff on their donkeys, the pack gear. And then ride for four hours to go to the grocery store when they're living in the outback. ranches like San Gregorio, which is one of the World Heritage INA, Department of History and Anthropology in Mexico, I-N-A-H, designated destinations for tourism, for World Heritage Rock Art. So when people sign up to go on a tour with me or with Ku Jima, which is based in San Ignacio, or a few other companies who run specific rock art and cultural,

because it all becomes cultural anyway. It's not just rock art. You really come out with a big giant sense of who these people are who are still living remotely and way out in the wilderness. That is just so normal to get on a donkey and go ride or a mule and pack your donkey and take off for several. days. To go visit your neighbors or to go visit your family on another remote ranch a few days away or a few hours away. It's just a lifestyle that you cannot find in very many places anymore.

And here it is, right in Baja California, Sur, just a few hours drive south of the border at San Diego. You can get there. describes that somewhat. And, you know, also you can kind of look online at some of these organization companies who run those tours. Well, back to Dario and his ranch. Yeah. Okay. So his ranch is special. Uh-huh.

And I think you saw that early on, and he's special. Not really a ham, not a performer, but somebody who doesn't mind being in a, in the spotlight. Charismatic. Charismatic is a beautiful way of stating it. He is charismatic. Yeah. And a teacher, a natural-born teacher.

He's really amazing that way. A couple of things that as a photographer still scenes live in my mind from watching the film. The picture of his hands kind of above the tooling of some leather that he had done. And it's just you see that you see. both the weathered hand and the beautiful work that that hand has done. And then he's in somebody else's home, and he's running his hands over the workbench that that person's father had made or grandfather had made.

And you could sense that he could sense the work that had been done and the beauty of a humble workbench. And he, and it's a, it's a lovingly shot longish, You know, seen, you know, of him just being in the presence of a workbench. Yeah. And that says so much. Yeah. I mean, you know.

I thought it was a little longish, too. But when you think about it about what it means to him like you're expressing right now, it's obvious that he, it was longer. I mean, he was really there. He was digging that bench. Yeah. You know, doing kind of. like this to the making. So let me just say this because it's another takeaway for me about his profound wisdom.

Only the guy who carries the sack knows what's inside. He knows what's inside of that bench. Yeah. Or what happened on that bench. He can sense it. Yeah. So you're the guy, and I hate to use that since you're a woman, but you're the guy who carried the sack on this thing. So back to the film.

how has it been since you've released it? Festivals and fundraisings and this is and that's and Zoom and a pandemic and a catastrophic wildfire. And like what, you know, how's it going? Yeah. You're carrying the sack. Tell me about it. Yeah, exactly. The film is doing well.

And it's not doing well monetarily yet because it's not quite ready to be on that part of the trajectory just yet. As you know, because you helped us being the monitor of a Zoom meeting back in January. Thank you very much. That was really fun to put on that. It was terrific. Yeah. Happy to have been a small, teeny part. Yeah.

This little thing. And to have Dario be part of that at that time and be able to communicate with people for the first time ever on Zoom with people in Alaska who adore him and people in Canada and people in wherever they were. from a little papillaria. Yeah, from a little papillaria in the middle of a tiny, tiny little town on a nondescript little road in Baja. Amazing. And so that was very fun. But so since then, right about that time, that was about middle of January that we did that. And when I knew that the film was 99.9% finished, about to call it a wrap, a full wrap.

and ready to go to festivals. I punched the button for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. And hit the button to submit it via Film Freeway, which is an amazing platform to be able to do that kind of stuff. And then I hit another button to send it off to Houston World Fest, a film festival that's been in operation for 54 years, 55 now. And so I thought, well, you know, actually, these are two very appropriate film festivals that we should probably try to get into. So I hit those buttons. And then subsequently over the months, I have hit a few more buttons, a dozen or so, to try to get it into what seem to be compatible styles of film festivals. And, like, And lo and behold, in April, in March, they announce at Santa Barbara, the film festival programmer, gets in contact with me and says,

hey, Trudy, is this still a world premiere? We'd be very excited to show your film. And I'm like, cool. That is so cool because my focus on choosing them as my first choice was that they're on El Camino Real too. we have some connections here. And with World Fest in Houston, I thought, well, Cowboy Country, maybe there'd be some interest here. We're very thrilled to have received a Remy Award, which stands for Frederick Remington. So the connections there were, I think, what was key in the choices of where we were going to try to first get our film out

into the world and on the track of the festivals. The subsequent film festivals are now, we've just been accepted at Maui, the Maui Film Festival. We were invited to go there, so I thought, oh, nice, this means that somebody's paying attention, and they like what we've done. This is really great. We'll be starting to promote that online, Facebook, and on the website pretty soon too and get the word out. Can you get the Paniolos? Yeah. There's little cowboy culture in Hawaii still, right?

Yeah. I don't know if it's on Maui, but... You have your tequila there still, don't you? Yeah, I should take a drink of tequila here. Trudy's drinking some mountain tequila. She's telling me it's water, but I'm not believing it. So the great thing about Maui, and I wrote this to them in my acceptance email to,

yes, we would love to be in your festival. The reason, one of the main reasons that Maui suddenly seemed like, oh, yeah, that would be a perfect one, or Waima, had I thought about that, is there is the Paniolo culture, cowboy culture there that's been there for a couple hundred years now. And that cowboy culture started in Baja California, Sur. Really? Yeah. because I went to the Paniolo Museum, or they call it some preservation museum, in Waiamaya on the Big Island, and discovered that the old Baja-style saddles were very similar. Turns out that Gary McClintock, who was the director, the producer of Corazon Vacero,

and a traditional saddle maker whose interest in Baja, California Sureña, saddles was the key reason for him making the film Corazon Bakero and meeting Darillo. That was a part of the Baja culture that was taken to Hawaii. On the old trade ships. Yeah, on the trade ships.

When they first got the cattle over there and nobody knew what to do with them, they imported a cowboy from Sankintin, I believe he was. And so there is that history, that connection. That guy never went back. I don't think so. Man, I found it. So I need to do a little more research into that.

There are a great couple of people in Santa Barbara. And all I can think of is their business name right now, J and S Films. and I'm sorry I can't tell you who they are, but amazing people who have captured on film a whole series of California culture. Their whole series is called Tapadero films. Tapadero means the type of covering on the stirrup, which is very traditional to the California Cowboys, Old Spain, Old Spanish. Slow Baja readers will note that Eve Ewing discuss this in detail back in our first podcast. Okay. And so the Tapadero Films and J&S films is worth looking up for a little background if you're into Cowboys and Western. And so they had produced a film that I saw for the first time in, in Yamaea.

Hawaii and it was called Paniolo. Holo Holo Holo Holo Panyolo is the name of the film. And it was, there was a little bit of information in either in the museum or in that film. I haven't looked at it for a long time about this Baja connection to the Hawaiian Panyolo culture. So I expect to do a little research coming up here in the next month in order to do some press releases in Hawaii and other places to get people interested in watching our film at the next upcoming festival in Maui. And when is the Maui festival? Middle of October.

Middle of October. And we're recording now just at the end of August. So after that, do you have dates lined up? Will people see it in general release someday? How does that happen? Yeah. And before that, one of our main focuses is to try to get it get excitement worked up in Mexico, as it already, it will be very easily on the Baja California Peninsula, but we had this amazing luck that within days after getting the information about Maui requesting our presence in their festival, we also got accepted at DoxMex, M-X, so Do-C-S-M-X, and that is a great jumping off point for documentary films in Mexico to get noticed. And so we're very excited about that as well.

So we actually have a cut that is going to be out soon being presented to Doc's Mex because some of people in mainland Mexico can't understand those darn cowboys who talk so fast. So our subtitled version in English will have also a subtitled version in Spanish so that people in Gualajara can figure out what they're talking about. So they can understand some regional vernacular. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, Trudy, it's been a delight.

What's the best way for people to keep up with what's happening on La Requa? Yeah. Okay. So you just asked about when would the release be. We do need to run through the festival. before we can actually go public. And so they can write to me either via the website, and we'll have actually more of a contact sheet set up in the next little bit here.

But you can also just write to me at Trudeau at La Requeua.com. T-R-U-D-I at La Requea, L-A-R-E-C-U-A-com. and ask me to get onto the Facebook at La Requee Movie. You can look and see what is on our website, and as we get more information about the screenings and data about the screenings, we'll be sharing it that way, and on Facebook a whole lot. We're about to do a social media blast again,

starting in September and October, to get our information out there. And when do you head back to Loretto? Well, I'm not sure if it's going to be in October or if I'll be heading to Hawaii in October for a few days. And then later on here in Napa County, we have the Napa Valley Film Festival. And I think in a few, I think late September,

we get the notification of whether we've been accepted in that one. I'm not sure if I'll go back to Baja or stay up here and be touring around, flying around to different film festivals carefully if we can do that, or if it might just be more virtual and I'll be able to do that from wherever and hopefully from my desk in Loretto. And Saddling South? Saddling South is still going to go on. September is also a good time for me to start promoting that.

We have a few organizations like California Rock Art Foundation, C-R-A-F. They plan a trip in March with us, and they're wonderful to work in because they do have so many people join up who really are more focused rock art junkies. and if you're into rock art and culture, indigenous rock art and culture, then any of the saddling south.com. You'll see I have some listings up now for trips. And you had previously said,

if you don't see a date that works for you, contact me, we'll figure something out. Yeah, exactly, because it doesn't make sense for me to put up some dates and then, people can't get there or so what I prefer to do actually is you tell me when you're ready and when I can do that I'll leave weeks sections open in each month of my schedule that runs between middle of October to middle of May for instance that's your season yeah so that's the season over the winter it's cooler and in and out of Loretto yeah people are flying in and out

of Loretto. Easy for Canadians, easy through LAX. You're two days a week still, something like that. Yeah, in fact, Calgary, there's a direct flight off into Loretto and Calgary a couple of days a week. So that makes things simple for Canadians to fly down. Welcome, snowbirds. Yeah.

All right. Well, terrific. Trudy, it's been a delight seeing you again. Saddle me up and walk me out. Tell me, you know, close it up for me. What's your takeaway of being part of this amazing intimate journey into one man's family and one man's dream and then bringing it to life? How do you process that? Yeah.

Let me think about that for a second. Let me read this while you're thinking about it. Dario realized his dream. And I did more than I did more than I. ever wanted what more can I ask of God here is my end my day's end here so you tell me how what more can you ask of God right he is satisfied he is totally satisfied with what we were able to do were you able to watch that little nine-minute video clip that we put together yeah I suspect you did okay any interview in Totosant yeah the whole thing

I click through a little bit. There's some exciting moments in the Dodgers' projects game that I wasn't interested in watching. Okay. Yeah. Well, there's a great little nine-minute video clip on the website, Latarekwa.com, in the blog section that you can click on to get some of the background stories and the sense of who our film team was and how much they appreciated their, um, their ability to be part of this group and part of what we called Dario's dream of putting this whole thing together. And they are some heartfelt moments in that little nine-minute video clip of our team, the scriptwriter, the sound guy who grew up in La Paz and in Tos Santos,

and was just totally thrilled to be able to have their culture, their background. And so if these 30-something guys who are professional filmmakers are so excited about this, think about how their grandparents are going to feel. And I think that's one of the biggest things to round out that idea of who this is for. It's for those people we met along the trail. And if I might mention one more thing, it is well worth it to sit through the credits, because the credits are really fun on our film. And then the final shots of all those what I call trail angels, who just added spark and sparkle to our film and made it so easy for us to carry on down the trail,

gave us coffee, gave us little bits and vignettes of their lifestyles. and then at the end, the very end in the last few seconds, you get the answer to the riddle, which comes up early on in the film. Yes. The riddles here seems to be, though, you have not answered the question about you. Oh, me.

Okay. You know, you've been very deferential, and you've talked about your great team and depth. What was your takeaway? I mean, you're, you're, this must have moved your soul. and you moved mountains to make this happen. Yeah.

And begged and cajoled. And I don't know how many calls you must have made to people who had means and had, you know, more means than more means to beg them for the money to make this happen. You're not a woman of vast wealth that can just wave your magic wand and have, you know, 25 animals and 13 people and make a professional film about it and not have to worry about how it gets paid for. You've busted your booty to make this happen. So what's your takeaway? Where is it in your soul?

Yeah. The magic of that was believing that the film was going to be made. And it's something early on when I was trying to figure out, how do I do this? I need a guardian angel here. And immediately within a few days, somebody here in Sebastopol, a friend who's a filmmaker and works with filmmakers said to me, you need to contact Carol Dean of From the Heart publications, productions, and because they are a fiscal sponsor, and they can really help give support to young, newbie, or old newbie like me, filmmakers who needs some handholding along the way and direction.

And what my takeaway from their presentations, their general demeanor, what they share with filmmakers is just believe in that it's going to happen. And I also had a friend who came, who's been running an NGO for years and years and years, 30 years. And she said the same thing to me. When I queried her, I said, I don't know how I'm going to get to the end of this, I'm going to get, you know, the rest of the money. I said that to her in probably 2019. And she said, Trudy, do you see the film being finished?

And I said, well, yeah. And she said, there you have it. Just believe in that, you know, keep that in your head. And one really fun thing, our technical guy, my technical guru, who lives in La Paz, Leo Simoes, he has said to me more than once, Trudy, you are so brave. That took a lot of bravery to say yes to Darillo because I can't imagine anybody not having the information that's really needed to put together with a film and then to grab it and just

run with it and do it. So. So. Yeah. That's my takeaway is that just believe in it. What you believe you can achieve. Yeah, I guess so. I guess that's it. And so that was kind of the magic of it all. And contacting people who, like Christy Walton, who has lived in Bahas for so many years. And I met her in 1980 as we were, I was kayaking. She was sailing. She came on my first all-women's kayak tour in 1980. She has organized so many NGOs and done so much good for the peninsula and working with. Yeah, and so she, you know, she was just like, oh, yeah, this is important.

Awesome. And I'm going to help. Awesome. One more time, La Requa, where are people going to find out the information? It's going to be in the show notes, but you know how funky those show notes can be. So one more time. Where can people find you and find out about the film? Okay.

You can write to me at Trudy at La Requela. L-A-R-E-C-U-A dot com. La Requeca.com. T-R-U-D-I. T-R-U-D-I. Thank you. Yes, not the Y. Traditional Y. T-R-U-D-I.

And you can also go to Facebook, La Requee movie. I guess we have Instagram as well, but I know nothing of those things, but... You come to Slowbaha.com and we'll direct you there. Trudy, you've been terrific. Thank you so much. I really appreciate taking some time to share this, magnificent film that you've made, and I can't wait for the Slow Baja community to be able to attend a virtual or in-person screening somewhere down the road.

Yeah, and I can't wait to share the Slow Baja link of this conversation with all of our social media and followers who hopefully will start to pile up again. All right, well, thanks, Judy. Slow Baja's wardrobe is provided by Taylor Starris. Stich. Responsibly built for the long haul, Taylor Stitch makes clothes that wear in, not out. Wherever your adventure takes you, Taylor Stitch has you covered. Check them out at tailorstitch.com. Hey, you guys know what to do. Please help us by subscribing, sharing, rating, all that stuff. And if you missed anything, you can find the links in the show notes at slowbaha.com.

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