Up the ladder the filmmakers climbed.
Theres a lot of dramatic teenage stuff in it…
I got to see those letters from Fridas boyfriend.
Artist Frida KahloAmazon MGM Studios
She told us the story of meeting him, that she was surprised he was carrying all those letters.
Thats really when she started gaining momentum as this feminist icon.
And, so, we just set out to find them.
Hayden Herrera’s attic in Cape Cod, Mass.Courtesy of Carla Gutiérrez
They were really welcoming, Maguire recalls.
They had been approached by different academics and people who study Frida over the years.
But no one had ever asked them if they had the original tapes.
And so they told us, Yeah, we still have em, but theyre in these old formats.
Im not sure if youre going to have the equipment to be able to listen to them.
And we were like, We can take care of that.
We were able to get digital copies of all of the archives…
So, theyre really, really careful with that stuff.
There, too, rigorous research was key.
The filmmakers assembled an unprecedented data base of Kahlos writings, collected from sources around the globe.
Spearheaded research at Mexican archives at institutions, built photo and footage database, the filmmakers note.
Gabriel Rivera archival producer.
Main researcher at U.S. and international based archives and institutions.
Laura Pilloni senior associate producer.
Oversaw all databases, built database for Fridas writings, organized all writings thematically.
Paula Ospina assistant editor.
Organized all photos and conducted additional internet research for photos.
Fridapremiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award for U.S. All the recognition results from that intensive investigation into Frida Kahlos life and work.
