“I can’t give you class, I am missing 43. I don’t want that tomorrow I miss you”, read the poster who was presiding in 2014 the strike silent of several university professors in Mexico. They were protesting as well for the students of Ayotzinapa disappeared during the night of 26 of September of that year in the municipality of Iguala, in the south of the country, after a strong confrontation with the police.

the image of The professor Rafael Reygadas, with his mouth censored with electrical tape and accompanied by the photos of the 43 that took the also teacher Araceli Mondragon, it became a symbol of the that is one of the greatest tragedies in Mexico in recent years.

“I was deeply moved by everything he represented; in particular, the emotional and often-overlooked complicity that a teacher engages with their students,” says the mexican filmmaker Pedro González Rubio (Brussels, 1976), who wanted to immediately make a documentary film around that idea.

Antigone records the long process of trials of a group of students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to represent the Greek tragedy of Sophocles, about a young man sentenced to death for disobeying the law. The shadow inevitably of those who disappeared just a few months before, accompanied them on the road.

The initial intent of the director was to shoot the professor Reygadas along to their students. “Although it is a very interesting man, and also what is the material that he teaches, social psychology, the result was too academic for the narrative rhythm that you need a movie,” explains the Casinoslot director during the screening of the film at the Film Festival of Montreal RIDM.

González Rubio turned then to the theatre and to a childhood friend, Emilio Savinni, who teaches that subject in the which is the largest public university in Latin America. “The UNAM is a city in itself, full of youth, vibrant and passionate”, says González Rubio. It is home to 150,000 inhabitants, between academic staff and students. But the majority of students who appear in the documentary live in the suburbs of the mexican capital, of monstrous dimensions, and spend every day two hours there and two other of turned to go to class.

The theatrical production of Sophocles ‘ tragedy, is in reality a pretext to reflect the vital state of a group of twentysomethings who are on the verge of blooming. “The fear and fragility coexist with a enormous famine for expressing themselves and go out into the world,” says the film director, who lived with them for several academic courses. Ended up developing a complicity similar to that of the teacher Reygadas and his students that inspired him to create this documentary.

In his case, gave rise to a relationship that helped him to become an apprentice: “I noticed that the adults now, especially those of us dedicated to the world of culture, we do not abandon all that phase in which they live. Despite having 20 years more than them, I feel that I am extremely imperfect and that I still live in uncertainty, as the rest of my generation.”

Antigone commits suicide after being condemned to death for disobeying the law

The Antigone of González Rubio also questioned the role of culture in front of the political and social events. For that same reason it was decided to retain in the final assembly a situation that he was caught by surprise.

At a given time, the drama teacher qualifies for their students to Antigone, who unlike the 43 of Ayotzinapa causes consciously of his own death, as “irresponsible” for not staying alive to keep fighting for what you believe. “This is an opinion that I was not expecting and that is politically incorrect, because no one questions to a Greek myth. But the art must be based on the certainty that everything is subjective. Otherwise, it stops being art and becomes propaganda,” argues the mexican.

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