9 May, 2025

From the beginning I knew it would be impossible to capture everything I wanted to. Reality is much broader and more complex than the frame allows. In addition, I had to be very sensitive, since the project was not only a response to my personal concerns or an individual quest, but was part of the work of a non-profit organization - La Maraña Corp. - which was also funding the project. Any misunderstanding or ethical line crossed was also the responsibility of the institution. However, the community leaders identified for the film were, for the most part, generous and understanding of the nature of the process, although at times they rightly wondered, “Why do you film so much?” The exhaustion was real. At the end of the day, the documentary was not only a reflection of their communities, but also an exercise in responsibility for how those stories should be told and the care with which that story should be constructed. Because, ultimately, the final product was not simply a film: it was a portrait of a relationship.

The documentary is a kind of record, but also a space for dialogue between the observer and the observed. In Desde adentro [From the Inside], this relationship was central, not only to the content we captured, but also to the decisions we had to make in narrating the story of these communities in Puerto Rico. Autogestion, or community self-management, is a complex process, a form of resistance in the face of the imposition of external models of development, and filming it with honesty implied a series of ethical and narrative dilemmas that marked the course of the project.

One of the dilemmas I faced - and which was also perceived by community leaders - revolved around the use of the material. In the story of Nitzayra, for example, and the occupation of the school in Carolina, I felt a constant tension. I, a “white” and mestizo man, filming an Afro-Caribbean community, asked myself: am I the right person to portray these processes of neighbourhood reconstruction? From what position am I doing it? However, through the trust gained with Nitzayra and other leaders, a certain space for work opened up that allowed me to respectfully enter the community dynamic. This possibility was built with time, sensitivity and listening. These are qualities that you also refine in the process and that force you to constantly reconcile the story you want to tell with the limits that should not be crossed. In many ways, it is a seductive dance between the narrative and the intimate possibilities of telling it.

The relationship between directing and participating was a living dialectic throughout the process. Entering and withdrawing from the story, getting involved without appropriating the narrative. During the filming, I was torn between the role of observer and that of companion. At moments like when I had to mix cement in the rain to continue a community construction project, the line between documenting and helping blurred. Should I continue filming or join the effort? I realized that the documentary could not be an external observation. Its very creation, and my participation in those processes, were an essential part of the experience I wanted to document. To portray it, I also had to live it.

Documentary filmmaking has that paradox: sometimes, the truest things are not the most visible. Moments of discomfort, internal disagreements between community leaders, hours of travel from one neighbourhood to another, changing positions in front of the camera, all of this was also part of community life. Each community had its own rhythm, its own internal tensions, and its progress was not always in sync. Community life is neither linear nor fixed; it is a space where even political and social convictions are in permanent transformation. Narrating this movement without falling into judgment or simplification was one of the greatest challenges.

The concept of autogestion, or self-management portrayed in the documentary is not limited to the communities. It is also expressed in the way the project was conceived and carried out. Filming, editing, the search for funding, narrative decisions and the distribution process demanded a parallel exercise in resistance, autonomy and adaptability. It was necessary to maintain an editorial independence that sometimes clashed with institutional frameworks. For example, during editing, there were times when certain scenes - though powerful - could not be included out of respect for privacy agreements or in order to avoid reinforcing stigmatizing representations. In other cases, the lack of time to return to a community and record a follow-up forced us to rethink the narrative on the basis of what we had already captured. Self-management, then, also became the mode of filmmaking.

Desde adentro is not only a documentary about community self-management in Puerto Rico. It is also a reflection on how film can be part of that process without betraying its essence. It is a reminder that filming is an act of care, of responsibility, and that each frame implies an ethical decision. It is not always possible to film everything you would like to, but the important thing is how, with what you have, you can tell a deep and honest truth. That is why the documentary deliberately moves away from the more conventional forms of institutional communication common in many videos produced by non-profit organizations. Instead of on-camera interviews or explanatory voiceovers, we opted for a more intimate approach, where the camera becomes a companion that inhabits the same space as the protagonists of the story. Following an aesthetic close to cinema verité, we were interested in capturing the moments as they happened, trusting that life itself offered a more powerful narrative than any pre-established script. This decision sought to generate a sense of closeness, of real and organic presence at the entrance to these worlds. We wanted the viewer to feel that he or she is not being informed, but invited to accompany, to witness, to feel with those who, day after day, sustain the resistance from within their own territories.

In the editing, we also became aware of everything that could not be filmed. There, cinematographic language played a fundamental role: shots that evoked more than what they showed, sequences built with pauses, with silences, and decisions that sought to transmit a sense of humanity without accentuating it. With Marian, for example, we filmed the installation of solar lights in her community of Comerío, but in the editing we decided to tell that process through its impact: the transformation of the space, the street that is illuminated, the change in the security of the neighbourhood. There was no need to explain everything. The image spoke for itself. Thus, we wove the story from the visible and the suggested, from the concrete community projects and the poetics that inhabited those spaces.

Ultimately, Desde adentro proposes a double vision: of the communities and their processes of transformation, but also of the very act of documenting. Autogestion is not only a tool for social transformation; it is also a way of understanding cinema, of approaching reality. Desde adentro tries to be faithful to that shifting reality that does not fit into fixed frames, that keeps transforming as it is lived. And if it aspires to leave something, it is the sensation of having entered, if only for an instant, into the intimacy of a collective struggle. A struggle that does not need great speeches, because it is expressed in gestures, in decisions, in silences and in the images that the camera was able to accompany. Autogestion is not only a political strategy or a model of organization: it is also a way of looking, of narrating, of being with others.

Desde adentro is just that: a way of accompanying, and of believing that another way of building -and of filming- is still possible. The camera is only a medium; recognizing that the real engine of the documentary is the story that transcends the screen: in the streets illuminated by collective organizing, in the water wells that are built, in the recovery of a school closed due to austerity policies. In short, the daily resistance of its inhabitants.

In the end, what remains of this experience is a shared portrait. A living memory. A testament to affection and struggle that, I hope, will serve as an inspiration to continue building, from within and towards the future.