The film isn't simply an indictment of the homophobia Ivan and Gerardo faced but also a nuanced portrait of what drives people to leave home and family at great personal cost. Then working backwards from that documentary footage, she scripted their backstory, and found actors to play them in their early 20s, and also in childhood when they dealt with fathers who were differently oppressive. Over the course of several years, Ewing filmed Iván and Gerardo going about their lives. It's an innovative blend of Iván and Gerardo's real-life story told through documentary footage and a swooning fictionalized drama with actors. I Carry You with Me is the first narrative feature from documentary filmmaker Heidi Ewing.
border where things may be better and they can begin again. It's only when Iván (Armando Espitia) meets and falls in love with Gerardo (Christian Vázquez), that his story takes a fateful turn. Waiting for a relationship that could work in a Mexican society that forces gay men underground. Waiting to cook, rather than wash dishes at the restaurant where his boss was forever urging him to be patient. He'd been waiting for the mother of his 5-year-old to let him take his son Ricky for a playdate. It's a past he remembers as filled with waiting. He looks to be in his early 50s, and is musing about a time some 30 years earlier in Mexico that the film is about to recreate. When we meet Iván on a New York subway platform at the outset of I Carry You with Me, he's lost in thought. Christian Vázquez as Gerardo and Armando Espitia as Iván in I Carry You with Me.Īlejandro Lopez Pineda/Sony Pictures Classics