Interview: Jayro Bustamante on 'Temblores'
In this followup to his debut Ixcanul (2015), Jayro Bustamante shifts his focus from rural Guatemala to Guatemala City and both its vibrant queer subculture and strict evangelical institutions that believe in a type of gay conversion therapy. Temblores is about Pablo a seemingly straight father and husband who tries to balance both his life as an out man and his responsibilities to his children and family and does not find an easy compromise. The film won the grand jury prize recently at NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ film festival, I was a member of that jury.
I recently spoke to Bustamnate about the film and how he based it on research and interviews with many men - he called them his Pablos which is the main character’s name - who were forced to come out and some faced rituals of conversion therapy to reconcile with their religous beliefs and with their Christian families...