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These posters are so creepy, and I was like, This is an opportunity to doPleasantvillegone wrong.
I made a short film calledEl Gigantein 2014.
But it felt likeCulture Shockwas the right one.
Not just for its timeliness, but I really related to it in a much more personal way.
As an immigrant myself, I understand the struggle for anybody that emigrates to another country.
And Mexico has an incredible tradition of horror cinema.We have so much in our folklore, our legends.
Were very spiritual people, and its something I never want to lose.
Youre in your own little Mexico.
Maybe in a more twisted, crazy way!
Okay, Im a Tex-Mex grindhouse chica!
Im gonna go crazy!
Heres a really fun border-crossing story with Mexican cannibals!
Lets just give fans some fun without making the biggest message.
I really am heartbroken.
I wanted to showcase every inch of what Im feeling.
We are heartbroken and sad every day.
We can barely watch the full hour news.
I was really interested in how the Mexican national anthem is used in this movie.
But later in the film, Marisol uses it as a rallying cry to bring her fellow prisoners together.
In the first draft of the script, I was like, Weve gotta bring this again.
Weve got to unify everybody.
This is a bilingual movie.
This movie I was directing in both languages and it was amazing.
It just felt organic to talk in Spanish with a Mexican dialect, to joke and communicate like that.
Hey, Mexicans dont do that.
We even tried living in L.A. when I was in kindergarten, but we went back to Mexico.
Its gotten worse, sure, but weve been seeing this for a long time.
I really liked the ending of the movie.
When I first read the script, actually nobody goes back.
There was no escape.
It was just, This is the way it is, and it has to be accepted.
As a Mexican, I was like, Fuck no, man!
I brought that choice because I have felt like that sometimes with my family.
When it was so hard in Canada, we were like, Do we go back?
You cant, sometimes, but for Marisol that just felt right.
That ending was the thing I was dreaming about.
Thats the message: Everybody has their right to their own independence.
We cant spoon feed people over and over, because then people are not going to read subtitles.
People are not going to want foreign-language films.
Youre not saying how you feel inside.
ForCulture Shock,I was able to be like, You know what?
Im gonna give you guys 100 percent me.
Why was that important to you to include?
[Marisols attacker] Oscar didnt exist when I first read it.
Marisol was just pregnant.
My grandma would always tell us, The devil walks among us no matter where you go.
I felt, What if Marisol went through that?
So, it felt right to give her a further layer than just, I need a better life.
That was the last stuff we shot.
And oh, honey, I felt like I let it all out!
I need to kill people!The visual of Marisol carrying her baby and killing him was too cool.
