No Llores A Tu Funeral is a way to cope with the reality of the world we live in: a never-ending cycle of life-death-life in which no one’s excluded.
I was born in the north of Italy, always surrounded by nature—a lake, the mountains, the woods, and near a waterfall. I’ve always gone to seek guidance and advice from the trees, the water, the moon, or the wind. However, my spiritual journey started on the other side of the world, in Chile.
My favourite place in the whole world is still my grandparents’ home in Isla Negra, Chile, a small town in the central region near the ocean. ‘Isla Negra’ translates as ‘Black Island’ in English. From the sea, one could see the distinctive, immense black rocks that stand out from the ocean waves.
My grandmother was an acclaimed Chilean textile artist who studied Pre-Colombian art in order to recreate abstract tapestries, and she always encouraged me. In her little blue wooden house in Isla Negra, she had me host my first exhibition when I was five years old. She invited her friends from Santiago and presented me and my sister to the crowd as fellow artists.
My grandmother passed away last year. I came home to accompany her during her last months of life. Her death was followed by a cold winter that seemed to have fallen only on my heart. I questioned myself about the meaning of living without those I hold dear, and I matured a real fear of death.
I knew what I had to do again—I had to die. To have my funeral. I had to have my funeral in Isla Negra so that a piece of me could stay in those lands forever, near my grandmother, my favourite rocks, and colours.
That’s when I started filming with an old Super 8—my mother, my performances, my sister, and Isla Negra’s cliffs. It was my way to talk with Mother Nature and ask her, How can I live? How can I leave this planet one day, being proud of what I left behind?
The forces of nature answered where the Chilean waves took away my fears. Through art and nature, we shall live; in order to find the balance, we look upon the sky.
Film and Words by Milena Grigolo
