Jayro Bustamante talks RITA and the Forgotten Heroes of Guatemala

By Shannon McGrew

In RITA, the latest film from acclaimed filmmaker Jayro Bustamante, while fleeing a neglectful household, thirteen-year-old Rita is placed in an oppressive state-run orphanage. Rita's arrival provides a glimmer of hope to the girls inside, who share a prophecy that an angel will appear to release them. Encouraged by one another, the girls plan an escape to claim their freedom and expose the orphanage's abuses of power.

Based on the true story behind one of Guatemala's most harrowing tragedies, RITA shines a light on the brave orphans whose fight for survival inspired a nationwide outcry for justice and reform.

For the release of RITA, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with writer/director Jayro Bustamante. During their chat, they discussed everything from the real-life tragedy that inspired the film to the powerful symbolism woven throughout its narrative.

I understand that RITA was inspired by true events. Can you share what aspects of the story drew you in and what made you feel it was essential to bring this story to life?

Jayro Bustamante: In 2017, when the tragedy happened in the institution called Hogar Seguro in Guatemala, for us, it was not only a tragedy because of the girls, but it was the fact that we were living in a society with a lot of industries' impunity, and worse than that, I think every one of us understood, in a way, that we were responsible. Responsible for how we take care of kids. So, I had that need and responsibility to talk about that, but it was a big challenge to understand how to invite the audience to watch a film about girls suffering for an hour and a half. 

I started doing deep research about how organizations like that work. I met many girls from that [environment] and had their interviews. After that, I went to other countries in Central America and even Mexico and found one common point. It was the fact that in a moment when the girls were being abused, they said stop, and they asked for help, and they started a revolution. 

At that moment, adults started saying that they were not girls. They were delinquents. They were dangerous. They deserve it. And so, when you are underage, and you're able to organize yourself to escape from an institution that is oppressive and going to look for justice, not to have any shame because you don't want to continue living there, and you don't want to have other girls living that, you are a hero. At that point, we said, that's the story we have to tell. 

Our mission became to put out the stigma about those girls and say, okay, you are saying that they are not girls. We will say they are not just girls. They are fantastic human beings, and the mission [of this film] started like that.

With tackling such difficult themes, when it came to casting, what was your approach in selecting the young girls, and how did you prepare them to navigate these complex subjects?

Jayro Bustamante: The principal thing was being honest from the beginning. We opened up casting. We wanted girls coming from every corner of the country, and 5000 girls went to the casting. We just kept 300 because we only needed 300. 

We have an acting school in Guatemala that we built in 2012 when we started doing Ixcanul, so the girls became part of the school. Of course, we needed to have more than just acting classes. We started having social and anthropologic classes, and a large group of psychologists followed the process. 

It was very nice because, at the beginning, the girls came to the school and wanted to be actresses and be famous. When they understood the theme that the film was going to talk about, they transformed their individual goals into a kind of social goal, and at that moment, they just wanted to be a voice, and they just wanted to talk for the other girls who couldn't. I think we can feel it in the film. We can feel their cooperation. We can feel the kind of friendship that they built during school time.

One of the things that I noticed was that in the beginning, we saw a mural of Medusa. She's usually a figure of protection, female empowerment, and transformation. I love Medusa. I love what she stands for. And then you have these girls wearing angel wings, symbolizing femininity, protection, purity. Can you discuss the symbolism within RITA? Were there other symbolic elements woven throughout the story?

Jayro Bustamante: There is a not-so-nice reason that I started using that at the beginning [of the film]. It is because I found the catalog. There is a catalog; in many institutions, the guys would take care of them and costume them to sell them. And so, when I found it in the catalog, I started using the costumes to tell this story about [that]. 

In each interview, I discovered that the girls, even if they have the courage to tell the truth and share their experiences,…that does happen with boys. It's more complicated to have a boy relay that experience. At the same time, [with the girls], they were trying to protect a small girl living inside them, so they were very rude talking about some topics. But after that, they transformed it into a kind of fairy tale.

I wanted to have the film close to reality, so that was the first step. We put a lot of elements [and symbols] of protection. Rita was that angel who, even if she knew that there was no solution within our parameters, would fight for the girls. There are a lot of mythological characters who are protectors that we put in the film because, in a way, we want to protect. The girls in the school used [them] to build the universe because we work together for the angels, the university, the rabbits, and everyone.

RITA is now available to stream on Shudder.