It wasn't until my dad died that I was finally able to understand his secret
To truly heal from the trauma of her father's alcoholism, Tamara Segura decided she needed to make a film
Cutaways is a personal essay series where Canadian filmmakers tell the story of how their film was made. This Hot Docs 2024 edition by director Tamara Segura focuses on her film Seguridad.
Three days had slipped by since my father's funeral, and I hadn't been able to cry. Something inside me refused to mourn the man whose alcoholism had caused our family so much pain. "He forged his own path," I told myself as I cleaned his house and tried to make sense of the chaos he'd left behind. Then I stumbled upon a family secret that changed this perception forever.
Suddenly, all the pieces of our family's puzzle fell into place: Dad's inexplicable outbursts of violence, though he was kind and charming when sober; my grandfather's disillusionment with Cuba's revolutionary government; the fear in my grandmother's eyes whenever something remotely political was brought up in conversation. The painful realization of who my father truly was came sharply into focus. He was not morally bankrupt — he was deeply traumatized by the same political system he'd once wholeheartedly believed in. It also became clear that the effects of that trauma were still running through my veins. With this awareness came the tears and a monumental responsibility: to heal the best way I knew how — by making a film.
I had never heard about intergenerational trauma until I came to Canada from Cuba in 2010. For my work as a filmmaker, I visited the North several times, learning about the challenges Indigenous people face. And the first time I heard the term in that context, something struck me — something I knew to be true, even though I couldn't quite understand it yet.
Trauma isn't something we discuss in Cuban culture. Many people think Cubans are very expressive by nature, but this, as with any other stereotype, is only part of the story. Displaying joy and positive emotions does come easily to Cubans. However, when it comes to grief, shame and trauma, we often shut down and pretend they don't exist. Even today, it's hard for me to talk about mental health in Spanish. It's simply something I don't have a language for. Because of that, Seguridad is a film that wouldn't exist if I were in any other country besides Canada. There's a very specific set of circumstances and culture in this country that make a film like this possible.
It took me almost five years to muster the courage to pitch the idea to producer Annette Clarke. I consider her to be the other parent of Seguridad. Without her encouragement and unconditional support, I never would have dared to take a leap of faith and expose my deepest wounds on screen.
When I first met Annette in 2012, freshly arrived in Newfoundland, I explained in broken English that I was a filmmaker and that I was completely alone in a strange land. I'm not sure what she saw in me, besides the sheer desperation to connect with another filmmaker, but that day she gave me her business card, and ever since she's been my biggest supporter and mentor.
The first film we made together was Song for Cuba, a hybrid documentary about a Cuban couple coping with the pain of exile. In hindsight, it was a precursor of Seguridad. In both films, I'm in front of the camera, and there is the same love and pain for my homeland.
This film was also my first experience working with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), an institution that has fundamentally shaped me as a filmmaker. As a federal agency, the NFB's production and distribution process isn't focused on profit. This means filmmakers are often given creative freedom to explore their voices and cultivate their personal style without commercial constraints. Currently, the NFB is undergoing job cuts, which are devastating for Canadian arts and culture. Its Quebec and Atlantic Studio, in particular, has faced significant losses in recent weeks. People who were instrumental in the making of not only Seguridad, but also two of my other films, are now jobless. It's been very hard to be cheerful about the release of my film, knowing that these people are facing financial uncertainty after decades of dedication to the NFB.
Another institution that was key in the making of Seguridad is York University, where I did my master's in film production. During that time, I experimented with the language of cinema and was inspired by professors such as Manfred Becker, Philip Hoffman and Brenda Longfellow. I was studying there when the pandemic hit and found myself relying mostly on archival and found footage to complete my assignments. All I had at hand were my family photos, so it was inevitable that I would start to look inward and begin a forensic exploration of my own psyche. My thesis film, called Father Figures, is a 22-minute autobiographical essay film about the significance of "substitute fathers" — my grandfather, my stepfather and my uncle — in my upbringing They stepped in during my father's repeated absences, bringing different sets of values and challenges into my life. Father Figures is Seguridad's little brother. Many of the images used in Seguridad came from this film, paving the way for visual experimentation, voice-over and self-referential essay filmmaking.
Before COVID, my films were fundamentally "realistic," meaning I worked with only professional actors in my fiction films and only real people in my documentaries. During my MFA program, however, I took a more experimental approach. As distressing as it was, the pandemic gifted me a state of mind that allowed me to go deeper into my emotions. I started to embrace passivity and appreciate its value. Perhaps without realizing it, my storytelling became more "feminine" — less concerned with results and more captivated by the processes and sensory experiences.
This is diametrically opposed to how most people perceive Cuban stories. Cuba's culture, tropical landscape and political system have been a recurrent topic of documentaries for decades. From Agnès Varda's Salut les Cubains to the more recent Netflix series The Cuba Libre Story, Cuban stories have been told about the last century. Most of the time, Cuba is addressed from a historical or socio-economic perspective; however, few films explore the psychology of Cubans. This has led me to make documentaries through a more intimate lens rather than through social analysis.
I never would have guessed I'd end up making self-referential films. Ultimately, turning myself into a character has been a natural result of immigrating. Being removed from my own culture, and at times painfully isolated, has forced me to talk about the only thing I know: myself. I have no doubt that if I had never left Cuba, my films would be infinitely more focused on the world around me. For most immigrants, pursuing a career in the arts is almost impossible. Artistic creation is a privilege, and usually immigrants have to find more practical careers to support their families and themselves. Immigrants often don't speak the language and may be dealing with grief and mental health issues. The hurdles we face compared to native Canadian filmmakers are vastly different and rarely acknowledged. The way I see it, making Seguridad is not just a personal achievement, but also a beacon of hope for any immigrant artist who feels like giving up on their career.
Seguridad screens at Hot Docs 2024 on April 29th and 30th. More information is available by clicking here.
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