Lucrecia Martel's North Terminal is exclusively showing on MUBI starting July 20, 2022 in most countries in the series Brief Encounters, as well as Turn It Up: Music on Film.
Musical gatherings are frequent at home. Julieta is a singer, the type of singer who suffers when not singing. We live in the outskirts of Salta, in a place I’ve been coming to since I was ten. It was here that I filmed my first Westerns with my siblings.
In the Argentine North, it’s easier to remember this is an Indigenous continent. Copla singing, with a caja, a small handheld drum, is a fundamental tradition in this area. It is mostly women who sing coplas, while herding animals in the hills, or in gatherings. Coplas can be about sad things, happy things, very sexual things. They are usually sung in the first person. The coplera sings a few lines, which the rest will then repeat as a refrain. It is not about taking the place of the other person and understanding, but about being the other person in their joy, their pain. Mariana Carrizo is a coplera from the Calchaquí Valleys, as is Lorena Carpanchay. It’s an area where Indigenous communities were not brought down. Mariana is a copla star with a sharp tongue. Lorena began her career not too long ago. She is the first trans coplera of the Calchaquí Valleys. She still lives up in the hills, herding her animals and traveling to tell the adventures of other traviarcas like her.
When we moved to La Calderilla, we met Mar and Mac, the Whiskys. They are the girls sitting in the car while one of their songs plays in the background. They make noise music. They like to use machines. The whole process of moving here was easier with them, because they take care of our realm when we are away for work.
And Biyami is another friend we met in the street. She is trap artist from a neighborhood with some issues in terms of the future.
We went for a walk with Julieta, thinking of what we would do when the filmmaking equipment arrived, choosing locations. It’s like stepping out into the garden to see what is growing.
It’s a celebration. When people come together, divinity appears, which is not necessarily a good thing. Divinity can be terrible.