Jayson McNamara Dives Deep On ‘Norita’ Documentary (Interview)

Ansh Dubey sat down with Jayson McNamara, the filmmaker and one part of the duo behind the powerful documentary, Norita. Find our full-length Jayson McNamara interview below.

Originating from Australia, Jayson McNamara is a documentarian and filmmaker best known for his debut documentary Messenger on a White Horse. Now, he’s back with a second film, Norita, about the inner workings of Argentina alongside co-director Andrea Tortonese. The documentary premiered at Dances With Films Film Festival earlier this year and soon will have a screening at the Austin Film Festival. Norita is a poignant portrait of Nora Cortiñas and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group of mothers who protested the military dictatorship in Argentina.

The documentary film dives into the nuanced history of Argentina and a mother’s journey for justice for the death of her son, and the way she inspired a whole new generation of activists across the planet. The synopsis for the film reads as follows:

Norita takes viewers on a gripping journey through Argentina’s tumultuous history, where Norita’s personal tragedy becomes a catalyst for change. As a mother seeking justice for her disappeared son during the dark days of Argentina’s dictatorship, Norita’s unwavering determination and fearless activism led her to co-found the renowned Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a pivotal human rights organization. The film chronicles her journey to seek justice for the past while inspiring the next generation of women’s rights activists. Norita has been held up as a symbol by the women’s movement, dating back to the 1980s, and is seen as a fundamental fixture in the movement’s success during Argentina’s 2020 vote to legalize abortion.

You can watch the trailer for the upcoming film below:

I had the pleasure and opportunity to sit down with Jayson (JM) and speak to him about the beautiful and brilliantly topical film as well as his journey as a journalist turned filmmaker. 

Thanks to the Austin Film Festival for making this interview possible. The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jayson McNamara On His Transition From Journalist To Filmmaker

Norita is the story of these women who weren’t initially tied to human rights movements, and your own journey began as a newspaper journalist and you’re now transitioning to film and documentary. Do you think that your transformation was a conscious decision into the political sphere and social movements or was it more like a gradual shift that you didn’t realize until you were there?

JM: I think I’ve always been very interested in ordinary people and their involvement in politics. I come from a working-class rural background. So, you know, when you grow up in a small town, you tend to know people, you understand the intricacies of social bonds and how things are done. And yeah, I lived in Argentina for several years working as a newspaper reporter. And I was able to meet a lot of really interesting people, especially in the human rights movement there. Because of the mothers of Plaza de Mayo and the things that they’ve achieved in Argentina, Argentina has a very big reputation, a strong reputation outside of the country for being sort of pioneers in the field of human rights. It was the first country to ever use its own penal code to try and jail perpetrators of human rights crimes. So I feel like it was very much, moving from journalism to film and also from just reporting the daily news into really deep complex themes about… what it means to be a human, basically, I guess it’s the human condition. For me, it’s sort of just been a natural progression and very much based on the types of personal relationships that I’ve built along the way.

And what was that like, your transition, how have the two mediums kind of allowed you to tell stories differently?

JM: I think what journalism helps you do as a filmmaker is you are able to understand structures and systems of power in a way that can be very useful if you’re trying to say something, how to send a strong message through cinema. I think cinema is innately more powerful because there’s more of a space for emotion. When you start musicalizing things, for example, you’re immediately asking the viewer to feel, as opposed to just taking the information and inform themselves of something. So, yeah, it’s tricky. You have to strike the right balance, I think.

The way I approach stories initially is always from a journalistic perspective, is this in the public interest? Is this a universal story? Does it say something about the structures and systems of power of our societies? And from there, I switch more into filmmaker mode and start feeling things. And that’s very much about the relationships that you build with the people around you, the people that you’re profiling. For example in Norita, I always felt very moved by Nora as a person and obviously by her story. So a lot of decisions were made about how can I pay homage to this woman who is just incredible. It’s a very emotional experience.

‘Norita’ As A Statement On Politics Today

Norita addresses the military dictatorship and broader human rights issues. Are you also trying to make a statement about the growing rise of fascism globally? And how do you view these issues in relation to the political situation, particularly in Argentina with Javier Milei?

JM: I think the film is like a historical document, I would call it. We spent the last years of Nora’s life filming her and she died recently at the start of this year. I think it’s an end of an era in terms of the kind of activism that made Argentina renowned in the human rights sphere. So the film was an opportunity to document that for one last time with first-person accounts and the lived experience of the victims of the dictatorship. And I think in that sense, that decision to document Nora’s life innately is an attempt by us, the filmmakers, to preserve or help preserve a legacy. And that’s very much related to what’s happening in the world today.

There was an urgency in doing the film because throughout the six or seven years that it took us to do it, we saw so many things that we’d grown accustomed to start to crumble, like this sense of security that our democratic systems were there to protect us, and they were solid and that our institutions would serve as a barrier to some of these hyper-personal styles of leadership, which are increasingly showing themselves to be quite authoritarian, very divisive, accusatory, inflammatory. All of that is very much related to the history of the dictatorship in Argentina. And I think telling the story as it was and documenting Nora’s story for its value, its legacy, is an important way of telling audiences, this is what can happen. This is where we’re headed.

What do you think is the role of these narrative features and documentaries right now considering the political climate? And do you think that there’s a reason that so many are coming out right now? We had Argentina, 1985 a couple of years ago, and there was a documentary from last year, The Trial. And Norita was filmed throughout the course of several years, but is its release right now meant to coincide with global issues or what’s going on in Argentina?

The release of the film is more the product of just the time that it took us to finish it. I think it’s interesting that some of these features and documentaries about Argentina or about dictatorships in Latin America, I think it’s interesting that some of them have come out in the last few years because it’s actually become a lot harder to do political films. I was reading the other day, some of the streamers, they made a lot of money off some really quality political films, but now there’s kind of a resistance and a hesitance to upset or to engage in political debate and so they’re shying away from financing and supporting political films.

So the fact that some of them have come out recently is a huge achievement and a testament to the storytelling of some of these amazing films like Argentina, 1985. And I’ve always worried that the film would come out at a time and maybe things in society and the culture have moved on. But it just seems like as more time passes and the more we wade into this kind of breakdown of our society, our democracies, the film becomes more and more relevant. So I hope that it has a long life and that it’s interpreted and used in ways that are relevant for local communities, because I also think there’s that aspect of it as well. It shows how ordinary people can organize in a collective for a greater good. It’s about collective action as opposed to singular heroic behavior. Even though Nora is a heroine, she does it with other people. And so I think it can be a tool for grassroots activists and for communities wanting to find ways through these problems.

You mentioned that it’s harder to make political cinema like this. And I cited in my review that the current government tries to downplay the horrors of the dictatorship. So did you face any issues while trying to make Norita or screen it anywhere, but specifically in Argentina, if it’s had its premiere there, did you face any issues?

JM: The film has screened at three festivals in Argentina, and then it will have its theatrical release from November 7th. And Argentina is a unique country. It has a very heated political climate, but it’s ironically, despite having a really brutal military dictatorship, it doesn’t have a culture of political violence. And very rare are the cases of people being threatened and things like that. And so I don’t expect that anything negative will happen in Argentina.

But I will say that I do think the current government’s use of the dictatorship and the denying of the crimes of the military in the 70s is very much a smoke and mirrors tactic to provoke people and upset people and distract them from some of the things that are happening in Argentina at the moment in terms of austerity and a really hostile political climate in the Congress. So I don’t think the Milei government actually believes in what it says about the dictatorship or that they really care. It’s just used as a party political tool. And for that reason, again, I don’t suspect anything’s going to go wrong.

You’ve had a pretty long standing relationship with Norita and with Argentina and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. How has making the film impacted you personally? What was the experience of making it? 

JM: I think when you come into contact with people who have gone through horrific experiences, like in Nora’s case, losing her son and never finding his body, she died not knowing whatever happened to him. I think that you take on a responsibility that transcends the individual relationships that you build with people, like you have to become kind of committed to the cause. And on a personal level, that feels like an existential change. It’s not a matter of posting things on social media or getting a tattoo of Nora’s head scarf or a face or whatever.

It’s actually something that I know that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. It’s that intolerance for injustice. It’s that needing to listen to people who are really having a bad time. So for me on a personal level, it’s been very important. And at the same time, I’ve often described it as when you come into contact with these stories and these people, initially it was like the loss of innocence, the loss of my innocence, like I felt like I was living in this really happy world and then all of a sudden, you hear stories about people being taken and babies being stolen and given to military families, or prisoners being thrown out of airplanes into the ocean to get rid of their bodies. You can’t turn away from that. You can’t live your life the same way when you come into contact with those things. 

As you said, you’ve become more aware of these things. And Norita is a historical film, but have you seen parallels between the history of Argentina and current global struggles?

JM: Yeah, I have, I think the resurgence of war, the situation in Gaza, the situation in Ukraine. I think maybe something that defines the experience of people roughly of my generation is that we, who are from Western countries like the U.S. or Australia, we grew up with this idea that the world was getting better, that we were progressing, like these fantastic ideas that we had to open up the economy, the global economy and let trade flourish apparently on equal terms, has really not come to fruition.

And in fact, It’s failed in many ways. And the consequence of that has been a return to this sort of what seems to be like a primal instinct to do damage to other people. And I think that there’s a huge parallel with what happened in Argentina with what’s happening in the world. It’s like a loss of humanity. We don’t see each other as equals. We see each other as enemies again. Who knows how bad it can get, but I think Argentina’s experience shows that absolutely, it can get very bad very quickly, even in societies that are sort of “civilized”. Things can go wrong and I think we should all be on alert at the moment for sure.  

Cinema Influences On McNamara’s Career And ‘Norita’

Have there been any documentaries or narrative films that particularly influenced your career and Norita?

Yeah, there are a couple of films in Argentina that were produced 10 years ago that really showcase the nature of life in the 1970s, which was very unusual. One of them is called El Futuro es Nuestro, which is The Future is Ours. And it’s some fantastic filmmakers in Argentina that have done a lot of work on these themes, Ernesto Ardito and Virna Molina. But in a more commercial sense, I guess the films that helped me understand that in order to tell the broader story of Argentina, the broader story of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, we had to focus in on just one person. There’s so many examples like RBG, I’ve always thought that was a great example of what Norita could be, and we kind of work towards celebrating that really quirky but powerful, quirky and tiny and very loving woman who does extraordinarily mighty things.

And any sort of hard-hitting political content. I really like the film The Edge of Democracy. I think it’s one of the most interesting documentaries that came out in recent years about the political coup against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. And so bits and pieces, I think you can’t be overly influenced by other films or the suggestions or advice that people give you about how to tell a story. I really think that as directors, we need to let our feelings and our emotions guide us when we’re telling stories. I think we can really get caught up in these formulas that are becoming more and more prominent as a result of the way that streamers produce and also buy certain content. And I think that’s a trap for directors making cinema. You really should not get caught up in formulas and just try and stay true to your emotional self as much as possible.

What’s Next For Jayson McNamara?

Both of your documentaries have dealt with the military dictatorship in Argentina, and that’s clearly a subject that’s very close to your heart. But you’re currently in the early phases of two new documentaries about the United States and Australia. Could you share any details about either of them? 

JM: I’m working on two projects of two totally different scales. One is a much bigger project, which has more commercial ambitions than the smaller one. Both are about people, real people facing up to big injustices. I think that’s probably the theme that carries through my work and will potentially always be present. Specifically, though, the film that I’m doing, the smaller one that I’m doing, is about my hometown in Australia. And it’s a really broad look, but involves real people on the ground coming to terms with the history of the town and looking at colonization and some of the harder things happening in smaller towns, like illicit drug use and suicide among young men. It’s like a postcard and a snapshot of what rural Australia is in 2024. I’m experimenting with some new styles and new ways of working. I’m really confident on the back of finishing a second film about what my voice is and how I want to tell stories and why. I think the process of finishing Norita over so many years, you’re constantly having to assess why am I doing this? Documentaries take so long to make, they’re really expensive, and you’re constantly asking yourself, why am I doing this, why am I doing this? What’s next? Can I make this sustainable as a career? And I think in that process of asking yourself questions, you come to know yourself quite well, and start to understand these things, your voice, your style, your political position, your philosophy as a human, those sorts of things. 

Norita was co-directed by Jayson McNamara and Andrea Tortonese and produced and distributed by Tidetivity Studios. The film is executive produced by Jane Fonda and Gustavo Santaolalla The film has an upcoming screening at the 31st Austin Film Festival. Find our video of the interview below:

Thank you for reading this interview with Jayson McNamara. For more, feel free to check out some of our other stuff here at Feature First.