It takes a voice like Eileen Álvarez to truly delve into the challenges of the film industry. As an actress, she has years of experience representing Latina women in Hollywood, and now as a director she is motivated to enrich the screen with authentic and diverse stories.
Álvarez — an award-winning Argentine-American writer/actor/director, who has written for TV shows on HBO Max, Sony, and Netflix, and acted in Presumed Innocent, Lessons in Chemistry, and Grey’s Anatomy — is breaking barriers.
We spoke with her about the inclusion of her short film Mama Retreat in Netflix’s Fresh Perspectives: Short Films initiative and we take a closer look at the representation of women and Latinos in film, the challenges for emerging filmmakers, her passion for acting and directing, and her interest in telling stories that reflect complex and multifaceted women.
How did you get into filmmaking? What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
My first love was, and always has been, acting. I did community theatre growing up in the Bay Area, and I started attending acting classes at the John Kirby Studio in Hollywood while pursuing my undergraduate degree in Philosophy from UCLA. I went on to pursue my MFA in acting at The Actors Studio in NYC, and I always saw acting as the main path forward to express myself creatively.
But that changed when I became enthralled by learning my family’s connection to the Argentinian “Dirty War”, which prompted me to want to make a documentary about it.
I had no formal training behind the camera, but I had a lot of passion, grit, and a community of fellow filmmakers I could learn from. So, over the course of five years, I made my first film, Finding Mabel, which I took from crowdfunding to the finish line on a microbudget. When I made that film, I did not set out to necessarily become a filmmaker, but I was just at a point in my life where I was looking to more meaningfully engage with my art outside of the actor hustle.
I was pulled to engage with my Latinidad, with my family’s unique and powerful history, and with a desire to share that important context. And film was a medium I understood.
I’ve since then made several narrative films in different genres and I have fallen in love with filmmaking, but I would say that telling my family’s history and sharing the legacy of Mabel, the brave Argentinian Guerrilla Revolutionary I was named after, was what inspired me to become a filmmaker in the first place.
What topics are you most interested in as a filmmaker and which directors have influenced you?
As a writer and filmmaker, I find myself gravitating towards stories about people, particularly women, who are often seen as transgressive or unconventional in one way or another. I like exploring identity and class in my work.
I personally love directors like John Cassavetes and Sean Baker – directors who often make “smaller”, more independent films that feel emotionally raw and real. Films that tend to center people living on the margins of society in some way or another, helping audiences connect with folks who might otherwise be overlooked or misunderstood.
I love films of deep personal struggle, in all genres – Darren Aronofsky films like The Wrestler and Black Swan. My film Mama Retreat was influenced by Get Out, Rosemary’s Baby, and Midsommar.
What have been the greatest challenges you have faced as an independent filmmaker, especially as a Latina woman?
Money. Money. And also, money.
There’s no question that filmmaking, even with the smallest budgets, is an expensive endeavor. It’s been challenging for me to secure financing, outside of my own crowdfunding efforts, to make my films.
I did not set out to necessarily become a filmmaker, but I was just at a point in my life where I was looking to more meaningfully engage with my art
I think a big part of that is that funders don’t always understand or value the importance of telling stories from a Latina perspective, and often view certain narratives as too “niche.” Also, on a more systemic level, Latinas are significantly underrepresented as directors, producers, and decision-makers – the data shows us that – and so the barriers to “break in” are greater. That’s why organizations like NALIP [National Association of Latino Independent Producers], and initiatives like the Fresh Perspectives Collection Netflix, which I was lucky enough to be part of, are so valuable.
Tell me about your short film. [Mama Retreat, part of Netflix’s Fresh Perspectives: Short Films]
My film Mama Retreat is a horror-comedy about motherhood within the context of this idea that “it takes a village” to raise children. As a mother myself, raising children in the U.S., I always scoff at the idea that “it takes a village” to raise kids. Not because that’s not a lovely idea, or because it doesn’t exist in other cultures, but because in the U.S., a culture that prioritizes capital over human life, a “village” is generally reserved for those who can afford to pay for one (to hire a nanny, a night nurse, housekeeper, etc.).
So I wrote a film about an expectant mother, a Latina, who attends a bougie all-inclusive glamping retreat in the mountains on a diversity scholarship, in search of community – a “village.”
But she quickly learns that she doesn’t belong there, and that her fellow attendees have nefarious intentions for her and her baby.
How do you think this initiative has impacted your career as a filmmaker and also as an actress?
The Netflix Fresh Perspectives Collection has allowed my work to have a global reach – and there’s no substitute for that. As an emerging writer/director/actress, that’s been really impactful. By prioritizing diverse storytelling and amplifying these short films, Netflix is giving emerging filmmakers like myself a platform to take creative risks and share stories that may have been overlooked or undervalued.
I’ve had a lot of people, all over the world now, reach out and say they’ve watched my film and that it was so refreshing to see these types of films available on such a globally recognized platform.
My film is now in the conversation, and consequently there’s been a lot of interest in a feature-length version, which I’m writing.
How do you think your films contribute to a more authentic representation of Latinos?
I think too often, Latine narratives are limited to a narrow range of genres or archetypes, but we are not a monolith. We are individuals with unique perspectives, histories, and dreams –people from literally 33 different countries. The narratives should reflect that diversity of experience and perspective.
As Latine filmmakers, we should not be relegated only to certain narratives, nor should we have to play within a certain sandbox. I love telling stories that are specific to my Latinidad, and as a writer and filmmaker, I also love to tell stories that aren’t exclusive to it.
I think that by empowering Latine filmmakers to tell new, authentic stories, we can expand the landscape of authentic representation.
How do you see the representation of women in film evolving over the years?
I think film is often a reflection of our collective consciousness, and a reflection of societal views and expectations. So, I think the representation of women in film has shifted, morphed, progressed, and even regressed in certain ways, along with that consciousness.
I think back to Cassavetes’ A Woman under the Influence, which I love, and that film was really groundbreaking at the time because it actually showed a woman as a complex and flawed human being, not just an object of a man’s affection, or a damsel in distress.
Imagine the depth and diversity of narratives about women that could be created if we amplified more female filmmakers, and Latina filmmakers, so that the stories about us could be told by us
There’s obviously still a lot of progress to be made, but narratives about women these days have more female characters taking agency in their own lives, and grappling with themes outside of traditional romantic relationships. Themes about motherhood, about power dynamics, about the unique experience of aging as a woman, about sexuality, about career and identity.
I love films about the female experience, especially ones that are innately feminist. I loved Alex Garland’s Men — it haunted me for days. It was brilliant. And it’s also not lost on me that all these films I am referencing, films which have value and which I love and which inspire me, were exclusively not written by women. So imagine the depth and diversity of narratives about women that could be created if we amplified more female filmmakers, and Latina filmmakers, so that the stories about us could be told by us.
Image credits: D. Lillian Photography and Federico Imperiale