Montclair filmmaker brings iconic artist Frida Kahlo to life in new documentary

Carla Gutierrez started working on her documentary about famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo three years ago when she noticed that although there are other documentaries about Kahlo, she wanted to make one that would "focus on her voice."

"Sometimes they quoted her, but in this film, it's her words that really carry the story," Guiterrez said. "I felt like there was a way that I personally wanted to hear from Frida."

Three years later, the Montclair-based filmmaker's directorial debut, "Frida," is showing on Amazon Prime (available with subscription).

The 87-minute documentary, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January and won the festival's U.S. Documentary Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award, uses the painter's own words (narrated in Spanish) from archived writings and interviews, along with animation of her paintings and footage of Kahlo at her home in Mexico City, to bring her to life for the viewer.

The documentary captures pivotal moments of Kahlo's life, such as the three years she spent in the United States in the 1930s with her husband, noted muralist Diego Rivera, their difficult marriage, and the physical pain she suffered as a result of a bus accident. And it shows her body of work, including her many self-portraits that reflected her interests in the folk art of her native Mexico as well as surrealism, Renaissance artists and European avant-gardists.

Crafting her debut film meant intensive research by Gutierrez. She did so by seeking out transcripts and other writing as well as film elements from various sources, including Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera and Stanford University's Hoover Institution Library and Archives.

Gutierrez, 48, is a veteran documentary editor whose credits include the 2018 Oscar-nominated documentary "RBG," about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and the 2021 documentary "Julia," about the famed chef and TV personality Julia Child. She also co-edited "Frida" with David Teague.

Gutierrez, in an interview with NorthJersey.com, said seeing her first film as a director come to fruition has been "amazing," since she created a visual work about not just an artistic icon but also a Latina role model.

"As a Latina woman, it's been extra-special for me because the film is very much about Frida Kahlo, but it's also a love letter to the universe that created her, which is Mexico and Latin America," said Gutierrez, a native of Peru.

First time with Frida

Her interest in the subject of her debut work stemmed from a chance encounter nearly 30 years ago.

Gutierrez was a sophomore sitting in the library at Williams College in Massachusetts passing the time and looking through art books when she came across a painting that stayed in her memory.

The work that captured Gutierrez's attention was "Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and the United States." The subject in the 1932 painting was its creator: Frida Kahlo, who died in 1954 at the age of 47.

"I saw her painting of the borderline where she's standing in between the United States and Mexico. And she had some strong feelings about being in the United States, didn't always feel at home," Gutierrez said. "She really didn't feel at home here and was missing Mexico."

Documentary has Montclair roots

When Gutierrez was interviewed for this story, she was leaving California, where “Frida” was screened at the San Diego Latino Film Festival and was on her way to Copenhagen, Denmark, where her film is showing at the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival on Wednesday and Saturday.

But when she's not on the road, Montclair is home, as it has been for the past 13 years. It is where she raises her two teenage sons, one a junior at Montclair High School and the other a middle school student. And it is a special place for her latest work, with an upcoming public screening at Montclair State University on Tuesday, March 26.

"We actually played at the Clairidge, where we had a Q&A, and it was there for a week [March 7 to 14], which was very special," Gutierrez said of the theater on Bloomfield Avenue. "That's where I live, and that's where a lot of the documentary was actually made and put together."

Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration, and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com

Twitter: @ricardokaul

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Frida Kahlo documentary by Montclair filmmaker airing on Prime