Mexican American filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes was and still is a court interpreter in rural California. It was in that capacity that he met then 19-year-old Mexican migrant Sansón Noé Andrade, who was sentenced to two life sentences without parole.
Reyes is no stranger to creative approaches to nonfictional/fictional hybrid documentaries. His acclaimed 499 explored the brutal legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexico through the eyes of a ghostly version of conquistador Hernán Cortéz. For his documentary Sansón and Me, with his main participant incarcerated and unavailable to directly film, and with no home movies to pull from, Reyes portrays Sansón’s life with dramatic recreations. Taking it one step further, he uses members of Sansón’s own family to act in it.
Here Reyes talks about how they first met in the crimmigration courts, and what Reyes learned from the evolution of their relationship.
How did you get into the court interpreter line of work?
I became an interpreter as a way to survive while trying to become a film director. Although it was a job that came to me out of necessity, I soon realized I’d been preparing to be an interpreter my entire life.
Growing up between Mexico and the USA, my parents never let go of their high expectations around language. We had to be truly bilingual and bicultural. We always had a library at home, and in college I spent time in San Diego, Madrid, and Mexico City. Thanks to [my parents’] push, and without being aware of it, I slowly gathered the experience and knowledge I needed to be an interpreter.
As an interpreter in courtrooms, what did you learn about crimmigration law?
We are a tool for the courts to help facilitate communication. But we are also witnesses. We see the system from an incredible perspective, close-up to two cultures that are often clashing silently within the rigid legal process.
Most of my clients have been immigrants, of course—but not just defendants. In over a decade of work, I’ve assisted witnesses, experts, and victims, too. The one constant is the lack of mutual understanding, and the sense that many of my clients go unseen. Their universe, their background and experiences, are often minimized and ignored. Sansón’s case is an example of the terrible consequences of this blindness.
“That’s the irony of the job: you are so close, yet there is always a line you cannot cross. But I am grateful I did cross the line, and met Sansón early on in my life as an interpreter.”
Why did you connect so closely to Sansón in particular?
I was the other Mexican in the room, the closest person to Sansón there. In spite of our differences of opportunity in life, we shared a universe and I could see him more clearly. I could tell he was respectful and hard-working, I could see his struggles to adapt to the U.S. and make the most of his life here. I could even hear the country boy in him, when he spoke.
Yet, crucially, I could bring none of this knowledge and curiosity into my work as his interpreter.
That’s the irony of the job: you are so close, yet there is always a line you cannot cross. But I am grateful I did cross the line, and met Sansón early on in my life as an interpreter.
Today, after so many other experiences, I am not sure if I would be so open, passionate, and driven to start a journey like the one that underpins this film.
During the entire three weeks of his trial, we had almost no personal interaction. Just hello and goodbye. By the end, I was wondering who this kid really was, what was his story?
Do you feel the finished film accurately captures a portrait of your friendship with Sansón?
Both Sansón and I have mixed feelings about the film in this light. Our friendship has been building over 10 years, and impossible to summarize into a single film. We have gone through so much and shared a lot of ourselves. For example, I write travel diaries for him when I go to festivals or when I am working on other projects, and he loves those—but they are not in the film at all.
But the two of us understand that the act of storytelling is all about crafting a portrait with an essence that rings true.
The film reflects how we built our connection, through joyful moments and tough times. A real friendship needs hardship, especially under the circumstances Sansón finds himself in. We needed to talk about some very serious issues, full of pain and trauma.
That process is messy and challenging, but also full of joy and celebration, and a deepening connection. That’s what our friendship is all about.
Since you were denied permission to talk to Sansón directly on camera for this, how did you decide on such a unique approach that would still work for a film?
It was a painful, long process to find the shape and language for this story, but I feel this film had all the right obstacles. I am grateful for all the barriers that were dropped on us, because that pushed us to try harder and find a creative path.
Trusting our imagination was our best ally in this process. Sansón opened up and began writing his life, page by page, while he was in solitary confinement. The process helped him to break out of that box, at least in spirit, and he inspired me to break the rules of documentary, and find a way to reflect the power of his writing on screen.
As documentarians, sometimes we are trapped by our faithfulness to facts. We are not supposed to borrow from fiction, or craft the frame and work with a writer—so many unspoken rules end up contributing to the erasure of stories like Sansón’s. Luckily, with the support of folks like Su Kim and our partner in Mexico, producer Inti Cordera, as well as the guidance of mentors like playwright Doris Baizley and filmmaker Alan Berliner, I found the strength to try something new.
When the audience learns that Sansón is not allowed to tell his own story, that’s when we begin to understand, in a more nuanced way, what injustice really means: this wall of silence, this willful indifference that does not care why people end up in these circumstances. Slowly, hopefully, we realize this ignorance is the most pernicious part of the system.
How do you think participating in this documentary and the resulting work changed Sansón’s life?
Sansón is a very brave human being. To have the courage to look back at his life and to name the sorrow and the joy in such a public way, in a feature-length film, to share his hopes and dreams, to be open about his tragedies and failures—all of this makes him strong. He is standing up for those who have not been heard, and does it with poetry and beauty.
Today, Sansón has new dreams and plans for his life. He understands this film is part of a new journey of possibility, and is making the most of it, writing articles for prison newspapers, doing interviews and focusing his energies on going to college inside. He has had a chance to be in community with extraordinary people, folks who are fighting to abolish life in prison without parole, who are working everyday to change the system across the country, including our fabulous impact partners at Represent Justice.
And creatively, the journey continues! Sansón and I are now collaborating on a short film about fatherhood in prison, with the support of Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity.
With all this energy in the mix, I feel very excited for Sansón’s future.
Now that Sansón has finally seen the film, I feel we have opened up a new pathway in our partnership. He no longer has to imagine the finished work, or process feedback through the eyes of others who have seen it—now he knows what he has crafted. And that knowledge is power.
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