Lenox native’s film wins Venice International Film Festival’s Queer Lion Award
Early on in “Jose,” viewers may find themselves double-checking the film’s genre.
“Some people have asked us, ‘Is it a documentary?'” writer and producer George F. Roberson said at Dottie’s Coffee Lounge on Tuesday morning, exactly one year after the movie’s production began.
When it comes to this particular fictional narrative, that feedback is a compliment. Roberson, a Lenox native, and his artistic partner, director/writer/producer Li Cheng, spent two years living in Guatemala, observing street life and conducting interviews as a means to realistically capture a country rife with political, social and economic turmoil, as well as hope. Strongly influenced by Italian neorealism, the duo hired only nonprofessional Guatemalan actors to tell the story of a young, lower-class gay man finding love and loss in Guatemala City.
This approach resonated at one of the film industry’s most prestigious events: In September, “Jose” took home the Venice International Film Festival’s Queer Lion Award, given annually to the film “deemed most deserving, both for artistic contribution, social impact and civil commitment, among all the LGBT-themed works presented in the Festival’s sidebars and parallel sections,” according to the award’s website. “Jose” beat out, among others, “The Favourite,” which earned the festival’s Grand Jury Prize, and “Suspiria,” which Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me By Your Name”) directed; past Queer Lion-winning directors include Tom Ford and Al Pacino.
“Total shock,” Roberson said of his reaction to “Jose” winning.
Since that triumph, the film has appeared at seven more festivals, earning special jury prizes at the Bratislava International Film Festival and 3 Continents Film Festival. In February, the movie will make its U.S. debut at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival before a showing at the Miami International Film Festival in March. Queer Lion winners typically appear at festivals for more than a year, Roberson said. (He isn’t sure yet if it will be screened at the 2019 Berkshire International Film Festival.)
Roberson is comfortable with all of the travel. He has visited or worked in more than 60 countries as an academic, advocate and filmmaker. And though he currently lives a nomadic existence, researching as he travels — he doesn’t have a home base, he said — he is forever tied to Massachusetts’ westernmost county.
“I’m such a Berkshire person,” he said during his recent visit to celebrate the 80th birthday of his mother, Lynne.
In 1976, Roberson’s family moved to Lenox from the Midwest. His father, David, had landed a job at Schaefer Eaton in Pittsfield. Two years later, Shakespeare & Company was founded. Roberson’s first job was working on the road at The Mount, where the Lenox troupe was based at the time, in his teens. For years, he continued helping with maintenance efforts at Edith Wharton’s old estate. After he graduated from Lenox Memorial High School and Keene State College, his first position was in Shakespeare & Company’s marketing and promotion department.
“Everything I needed to know, I learned at Shakespeare & Company,” Roberson said, noting that he has long considered founder Tina Packer and founding member Dennis Krausnick, whom he visited before the actor’s recent death, as mentors.
At the same time, Roberson was coaching cross-country skiing at Lenox Memorial High School. For about 10 years, the family ran a Lenox ski and tennis shop called Main Street Sports and Leisure, but once his father retired, Roberson decided to leave retail and return to school. At the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Roberson received a master’s in geography and a Ph.D. in geosciences as an urbanist.
“A lot of urbanists are studying things like transportation or sustainability, that sort of thing. But mine was, really, what the movie’s about. It’s really about culture and society problems,” he said.
Roberson met Cheng, a cancer researcher, during graduate school. Roberson had plans of becoming a professor, but the 2008 economic crisis altered his career path.
“I lost all my money, more or less, in the market. I was over in Morocco doing my academic work with Fulbright and the State Department for a year, so I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening back here,” Roberson said.
Upon returning to the U.S., he and Cheng pooled their resources and moved to Denver, working in real estate.
“That’s what got us back on our feet,” Roberson said.
But the experience of losing their money stuck with them.
“We were really hurt and angry by the mismanagement of the country and the direction of things and just seeing how not close people are,” Roberson said.
They decided to make a film about it. Released in 2014, “Joshua Tree” explores a family’s troubles during the crisis.
“We filmed it in Denver and Boulder, but it’s meant to be Heartland struggle,” Roberson said.
For their next film project, Roberson and Cheng visited 20 Latin American cities across 12 countries, including Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Santiago. Roberson was looking for a city dense enough to offer enough visually stimulating elements in one shot. Guatemala City was a fit.
“As soon as we got to Guatemala, I really felt like, wow, we can get a lot in the frame there,” Roberson said.
In the film, Jose (played by Enrique Salanic) is often seen from a distance. For example, as if perched from an apartment window, the camera follows Jose as he flags down cars in the street next to the restaurant where he works.
“I really wanted the camera kind of way back,” Cheng said by phone from his native China, adding that he hopes viewers feel like observers.
When Jose is not working, he is often secretly arranging sexual encounters with a phone app, leading to a number of bedroom scenes. The filmmakers sought to portray sex between men realistically.
“For gay men, it’s never actually shown very honestly, whereas some very classic films show lesbian sex very honestly,” said Roberson, who is gay.
Homophobia is common in Guatemala. The filmmakers were told they wouldn’t be able to find a man willing to kiss another man on screen. (More than 600 people ultimately attended castings for various parts.) So, when Jose falls in love with a migrant worker named Luis (Manolo Herrera), he keeps it from his religious mother (Ana Cecilia Mota). Ultimately, Jose must weigh two powerful affections. During their interviews, Roberson and Cheng asked, “Who is the most important person in your life?”
“In Latin America, for young guys, it’s almost always, ‘My mom,'” Roberson said.
Though Guatemala is known as an extraordinarily violent country, Roberson said that he and Cheng aimed to move stereotypes about the nation to the film’s periphery so that love and intimacy could be at its core. But there is no question that Guatemala is a country with problems that could be exacerbated by soaring population growth; nearly half of the population is under age 19. Nineteen-year-old Jose is thus a character situated at a crossroads.
“To me,” Roberson said, “his journey is a metaphor for the young people of the country and for the struggle of the country.”
As for Roberson, he anticipates working on more films with Cheng. His path to producing?
“It’s sort of improbable,” he said.
By Benjamin Cassidy, The Berkshire Eagle
