There are documentaries that take us on a journey into the unexpected. There are documentaries that take us on a journey where we come to know the lives of others. Who Is Dayani Cristal? stands out as the latter. As you can read from the film’s website, this film “tells the story of a migrant who found himself in the deadly stretch of desert known as the corridor of death and shows how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration. As the real-life drama unfolds we see this John Doe, denied an identity at his point of death, become a living and breathing human being with an important life story”.

What appeals to me in this film is the way the story of this John Doe is told. We see actor Gael García Bernal become this John Doe and join other migrants on their trip to El Norte (The North). To some, this hybrid style of documenting the story may not appeal. To others, it will hopefully add a new level of understanding the perils and the risks these migrants take in making such a journey.

I was able to sit down and chat with director Marc Silver and Robin Reineke, an anthropology graduate student, who works at the county medical examiner’s office in Arizona. Both of them talked about the main story in the film, as well as, the importance of giving a voice to others who cannot speak for themselves.

HM: Let’s start by talking about the style of the documentary; its hybrid style.

Marc Silver (MS): Essentially, the traditional documentary part of the film was about, tragically, someone who was dead. We knew we were following the journey of this person, in depth, from North to South as he went home. To re-humanize this person and many others, symbolically, we came up with this idea of Gael retracing the guy’s footsteps. And therefore, from a filming perspective, we could connect these two parts; the journey of North to South. And therefore, have the journey of life connect with the journey of death.

HM: How early did Gael García Bernal become involved?

MS: He was involved right from the beginning, and he is a producer on the project as well. Gael and I made four short films for Amnesty International called The Invisibles, which you can see on YouTube. The four films are about human rights abuses towards migrant workers travelling through Mexico. So these became research, in a way, for the film that we ended up making a year later.

HM: At what point did the team at the Pima county medical examiner’s office in Arizona and Robin (Reineke) become involved in making the film?

MS: Robin and the team were involved in the project on my first visit [to Arizona]. I had done some phone interviews with people at the medical examiner’s office to see what the current situation was… From the very beginning, we were working out what’s the point of making this film, socially and politically. Plus in what way would the medical examiner’s office be involved.

HM: Could you share more about your role in the medical examiner’s office?

Robin Reineke (RR): I’ve been at the office in 2006. I started wanting to do my dissertation research surrounding human identification in the border death crisis. And forensic anthropologist Bruce Anderson (who is in the film) invited me to help him with the missing persons reports because he is doing all the skeletal caseload. He probably has the highest caseload of any forensic anthropologist maybe in the world right now. Because so many of these people are so highly decomposed, they go directly to the forensic anthropologist. I take the missing reports from any family that calls into the office. I also collect them from any foreign consulates, from NGOs, human rights groups domestically and internationally. I take that data and compare it to the data from the dead bodies to try and make matches.

Robin Reineke & Dir. Marc Silver at Hot Docs Image: Heidy M.

HM: How do you see this documentary adding to the already existing dialogue about migrants who died crossing the border?

RR: I think the thing that is confounding to all of those working on this issue is how long it’s gone on without significant attention and concern. I’m still flabbergasted that there is no public outrage that this is happening. And it’s been happening for so long; not just the deaths but the entire repression of undocumented people and people of colour in the US. The film, by telling one man’s story, very closely… it’s a very intimate portrayal of one man’s story all the way from home, his journey through Mexico, and his ultimate death in the desert outside of Tucson. Maybe that way people will start to be bothered by what’s happening; to feel they’re getting to know someone, and that they can relate to that person.

HM: What has been the response to the film thus far?

MS: It’s been really fascinating. I think we’ve made something that people either love or hate. The people that love it have recognised the kind of connection or perhaps a sense of empathy. And maybe they’ve gone as far as to ask themselves, “what would I have done in that situation?” This is why we made it about one person’s intimate story; because everyone has a family, and I think people who can see it like that have really appreciated the film. And I think there is another opinion, which is “How dare you tell a story from the other side of the wall? How dare you empower these people?” Unfortunately, it is a kind of institutionally racist response to the issue of immigration, the use of language, like ilegal, alien… that type of reaction is almost why we have to make the film in the first place because that’s exactly why there is a problem… why there is invisibility around that issue in the first place. We are proud of the fact that we’ve made something that empowers people who normally don’t have a voice, and certainly in death don’t have a voice.

I could not have summarised the film better myself. One of my favourite parts of attending Hot Docs is being able to talk with the filmmakers and others involved in the films. This conversation was much longer but hope you are able to appreciate why I recommended this film. Who Is Dayani Cristal? still has no distribution. If you missed it at Hot Docs but would like to keep up-to-date go to the film’s website or like them on Facebook to keep informed.

Image from Film’s Facebook Page