Roma, the black-and-white Spanish-language drama from Mexico, won over the South — or at least Savannah, Georgia — on Saturday night when a gala screening of Alfonso Cuaron‘s film, followed by a THR-moderated Q&A with its stars Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira and producer Gabriela Rodriguez, kicked off the 21st SCAD Savannah Film Festival.
Indeed, while Cuaron, the best-known person associated with the film (and its writer, producer, director, cinematographer and co-film editor), was not in attendance, the trio who were received a standing ovation when they were introduced on the stage of the 1,105-seat Trustees Theater.
Venezuela-born Rodriguez, who has collaborated with Cuaron in one capacity or another for the last 14 years, spoke about Roma‘s unusual 108-day shoot — the longest of Cuaron’s career — during which the filmmaker sought to recreate the Mexico City of his early-1970s childhood (the black-and-white evokes nostalgia) where it actually took place (though much of the area was destroyed in a 1985 earthquake), with a trained actress (de Tavira) playing his mother and a novice (Aparicio) playing the maid who also raised him.
