Director Jonah Malak trains his lens on the selfless work of a non-profit organization that searches for the remains of migrants along the U.S./Mexico border in Spare My Bones, Coyote! We posed our Qs à la mode to Jonah, and here’s what he shared!
If I had to describe my film using only three adjectives, they would be: Heartbreaking, timely, ongoing.
I wanted to make this film because: In 2019, I read two lines, in a newspaper, about a group who go out to the desert, every other weekend, to scout for the bodies of undocumented migrants. The film came to me immediately: the people, the story, the landscapes, the metaphors in the mise en scene, the timeliness of the story to tell. It was obvious this would be my next documentary. The collaboration with Ely, Marisela and the Águilas, and their heartfelt warmth made the film possible.
The thing that surprised me most while making my film was: How relentless and unwavering Ely, Marisela, and the Águilas are in their commitment, throughout the years,
My favorite moment/scene/sequence in my film is: The scene where Ely receives a phone call while preparing the ceviche with Marisela. Without spoiling the film, every phone call we see and hear becomes a window — a glimpse into — one of the harshest ongoing humanitarian disasters on the planet right now.
My most invaluable piece of doc-making equipment was/is: My tent, my hammock, my 12 pounds of freshwater per mission on top of all the equipment in my backpack.
My must-have snack to get me through hours in the editing room is: Two Cs, one of which stands for “coffee.”
One piece of documentary-filmmaking advice I’d like to share with aspiring documentarians is: Listen to your participants — listen to their words and their stories; listen to their emotions beyond the words; listen to them before filming, while filming, after filming and while editing. They entrust us with their lives and stories, the least we could do is to listen to them and keep listening.
Want to check out Jonah’s film, or just learn more about it?
Get the scoop, and your tickets, here!
