Treinta Años en un Tren is a short film created virtually by Natalia and Jeannelle as a visual and audio exchange during the 2020 Pandemic. The short film combines sounds and visuals created during live Instagram and Facebook sessions, rescored every time using elements of water, trains, and Caribbean drums. The surrealist visuals are paired with our contrastingly different experiences and memories of Latin America, imagining trains going through islands and floating fish in the sky. Collaboratively, Jeannelle and Natalia work as Las Raras, an experimental synthesis collective aiming to awaken a transcendent consciousness.
We were able to ask Natalia a couple questions after the festival.
COTFG –
What were your musical or general artistic influences for your NMASS piece or any of your recent work?
Natalia Rocafuerte –
Hanging out with my collaborator Jeanelle (virtually) really opened my ears to ambient music and her flair of adding drums from Latin America, it’s like nature and industrial sounds. She is so used to city life having studied in New York and when I went to New York two summers ago I had a panic attack (ha!) if that says anything about how energized I get in cities. But having a guide has opened me up to the sort of stimulation living in a city brings, I also just really love the Ramones so I want to understand. I read Andrés Ladero ( a famous Cumbia composer and pioneer) describe the way he learned to write music was going to the hills in Colombia and listening to nature, the birds and the gusts of wind, that’s pretty rock n roll. I think that’s my approach to music [rocknroll] but I liked working with Jeanelle who is finishing her PhD in ethnomusicology, her approach is very different and much more studied! I suggest for some water sounds, textures like walking in the grass, and Jeanelle just knew exactly what the film needed. Our process would be kind of reworking a video or sound from the week before, it took us about three months. I also spent a good portion of the summer obsessively watching videos of trains, I think it’s because it’s kind of terrifying but also because I watched the movie Stand By Me, and they ended up in the film. I think of our project as a sort of rock-N-Roll, Caribbean train ride.
COTFG –What have you been listening to lately?
Natalia Rocafuerte – Recently, my coworker had a baby and he said the first song he played for his newborn was Vashti Bunyan’s “Just Another Diamond Day“. He played the whole album but I’ve had that song stuck in my head, I love everything kind of twee and tender at the moment. I just moved to Michigan, so I’ve also been nerding out and listening to old techno songs and driving around Detroit, Juan Atkins is a favorite so far. Some days I listen to the Marfa Public Radio Station Mixcloud, I like my friend Gabriela’s show Border Beats and Babes. Working hard on my Latin tributes to Kraftwerk playlist like this one by Senor Coconut and Afrodita.
You can see more work by Natalia and Jeannelle’s at the site for their group project, Las Raras.