Film is an art form that brings reflection, broadens the mind, and allows for a direct connection to artistic vision. Working hard and establishing a framework helps me in my role as a filmmaker. But, embracing doubt while respecting my artistic vision is fundamentally crucial in this profession.

Klaudia Reynicke

Klaudia Reynicke grew up in Peru during a time in which there was a lot of turmoil. She left in the late 80s, and would return two times for trips that lasted just a few days in her teens and early twenties. Older now, with children of her own, she had not been in Peru since the 90s. She decided for her third feature film that she wanted to reconnect with her roots and write a film that took place around the time right before she left the country.

“Reinas” is a story about a family in the 1990s in Lima, Peru, during a time of great turmoil in the nation’s government. Elena has accepted a job in Minnesota where she will take her two daughters, Lucia and Aurora, away to live there and be away from the corruption. Her daughters can only come with her if her ex-husband, their father, Carlos, signs a document. He decides that he wants to spend time with his daughters before he signs the paper. Aurora, the older daughter, is hesitant to go. As we follow this family drama, it draws us deeper into the lives of its characters.

Klaudia spoke to me about making this film, and what it meant to her to reconnect with her Peruvian roots and make a new family with her cast and crew. “Reinas” will be premiering at Sundance on January 22nd at the Prospector North Theatre. Learn more here.

Our Sundance 2024 coverage is sponsored by the Gene Siskel Film Center. One of the last arthouse theaters in Chicago, they present a curated collection of international, independent, and classic cinema reflective of Chicago’s diverse community. Learn more.

Can you expand on the following quote I read in your director’s statement: “Film is an art form that brings reflection, broadens the mind, and allows for a direct connection to artistic vision. Working hard and establishing a framework helps me in my role as a filmmaker. But, embracing doubt while respecting my artistic vision is fundamentally crucial in this profession.“

The reason why I do films is to create. I started as a painter, doing fine arts. This changed over time. In college, I ended up studying anthropology and sociology, but I would always go back to art. I was painting a lot during those years. 

Cinema was the connecting piece from my studies in anthropology and sociology, and my fine arts side. When you are doing a film, so many people get involved, right? And it’s normal. To make a film is expensive, so you can’t just do it by yourself. It’s actually good to listen to people. 

But it can also be complicated. Complex, I would say, because somehow you have to set up your limits on how you listen to the people involved. The balance can be tricky. I think especially for “Reinas,” it was very tricky because it was a personal film, but at the same time, it was a bigger film than I’ve done before. My other films had smaller budgets. For this one, we had to go to Peru and everything was bigger. So there were a lot more people to involve. 

I think embracing doubt on every single step is good. That embrace is what really, truly helped me stick to my vision. At some point, people would come and be like, “Now this scene, I do not like.” So I’d be like, “you don’t like? Or it doesn’t work?” So the balance is in trying to understand when people say they don’t like something, does it still work? If it works, and it aligns with my vision, I stick with it. That is what is most important.

How did you come to this specific project? You did two features before this one, right?

Yes, I did two features before this one. One is called “The Nest,” and the other one is called “Love Me Tender.” I think as I get older, I realized for my next project that I needed to go back to my roots somehow. These two other films were very European, in a way. They were co-productions with Italy. I left Peru when I was ten. So this was a way for me, when I started writing it, to reconnect with my roots. I left Peru at the end of the 80s. So in a way, I wanted to go back to that period of time, but also reconnect with the people in Peru today. That’s what cinema brings to you, right? Connection.

How was it to recreate a period of your childhood when you were so young, such as finding the locations. Was it cathartic for you?

It was intense. I’m also a mom of two kids. My daughter is seven, my son is twelve. When I started the project, they were a year younger. I realized over a year ago in September that we had the green light, and I was going to do the project. I got very scared. I never thought I was going to get the money, like ever. We always think that as filmmakers. We always try to do so many projects and only a few of them actually see the light of day. 

I was very scared because I hadn’t been back to Peru for a very long time. I left when I was ten, and then I went back for a wedding when I was sixteen. The last time I went there, I was probably twenty-two. When I went back to visit, it was only like for a few days. So I was very afraid to actually go back because I had the feeling that I didn’t belong there anymore. 

So when I went there for the casting process, it was very overwhelming because I was suddenly in this country that seemed so far away, and then I was suddenly there. There was a moment when I was trying to understand why the hell I even came there. But with the location scouting ,it helped a lot. While we were looking for the house of the grandmother, we went to a bunch of houses where real people still live. We were in neighborhoods that I could identify with, and I had these flashbacks when we went to these houses of visiting my uncles, aunts, and friends of my grandmother. And the smells also brought me back.

Many of the houses hadn’t actually changed so much. They were not that different than what they were in the 90s, or even the 70s. It was really beautiful. Older people, I think, get really attached to their things. It was incredible because I was like, ‘I’m back.’ That transition was very important, and once we were ready to come back in January of last year, I was like, ‘OK, I think I have the strength to do the film.’ I met Peru again, and I felt ready.

How did you find your actors for your main roles, especially Jimena Lindo who played Elena?

I’m so in love with my actors. I got so lucky. They’re not only amazing actors, but they are amazing people. That was actually the biggest get. I feel like I really met a new family, and made friends, it was incredible. Jimena is an amazing actress. She is very successful in Peru because she does a lot of TV and theater. She is really in the theater scene. My casting director recommended her with so many others.

I was looking for an actress that could play a mother who has a very loving relationship with her two daughters, but that could also have that distance for her own dreams. I absolutely wanted an entire person, not a half person. Not just the mom. I wanted a person who has a dream, that found a job abroad, and she is going to do it. She’s not really thinking about her kids, because sometimes as an adult, you feel you know what is better for them. She’s amazing doing that because she has both things. Elena’s a very pragmatic person, and Jimena was just perfect for playing that.

Did you want to talk about any of the turmoil that was happening during that time? I thought it was so interesting that we got exposed to that from the family’s point of view. It immediately brought me in.

Yeah, that’s really part of my childhood. This turmoil that was going on in Peru lasted for about twenty years. It started in the 80s and it went on until almost 2000. Somehow, I think those specific years from ’86 to ’92 were really the most intense because [the terrorist group] Sendero Luminoso was very active. And there were other groups that were starting to not get along with them. It was a government that was obviously trying their own thing. And who paid? The people. So my childhood was full of blackouts. It was so common that it was exactly how it was in the film. For me, that was Peru. We would just be doing our own thing, and then it was like, boop, no more light. But it was completely normal, and then we would all just set up the candles and all of those things. 

Would you like to talk about any of your behind the scenes people?

My editor Paola Freddi is my most precious collaborator. Every phase to making a film is obviously difficult. And it’s exciting. You have to be passionate in all of the things. You have an idea, then you have to write it, so it’s complicated because one day you’re like, ‘oh yeah,’ and other times you are like, ‘no.’ And that’s the way it is. 

I think truly in all of these three features that I’ve done–and I did a series for TV, which isn’t exactly the same kind of synergy, but still–every time when you are in the editing room, that’s when you really suffer, because there is nothing else that we can do. The film is written, and the film is shot. And this time it is shot in another country, so you can’t go back. You can never go back. And then you know, like this was an easy film to edit in a way because the story was there, but at the same time, Paula was my editor, she understands my vision.

I think there is nothing more precious than to have your editor by your side, understanding what you want, and going back through the source. Because if you don’t have that, and then let’s say the producers watch one of the cuts that you have and they don’t agree, and they want something else, if you don’t have someone who is going to understand where you want to go, it can ruin the film. It can really ruin the film. So having someone you trust totally with that language–that thing that you can’t say verbally, but it has to be understood–that is actually the most important thing to me. 

What do you hope people see in this film?

I truly hope that most people see themselves. I hope people, whether they like the film or not, actually identify themselves with someone or something. I think the most important thing is to send a message that is not specific, but to make people feel something so that they may leave the film and feel something good or bad. There is nothing worse than to watch a film, and then not even remember what you watched. My desire is to transfer some of these very honest emotions on how complicated it is to leave a country, and how complicated it is to grow up or be a parent in difficult circumstances. I hope all of these things in the film touch people.

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