Jean Chapiro finds the message beyond La Mar

Can you tell us a little about your journey into directing?

I've been making films and playing around with cameras since I was about six years old. Long before I understood cinema as an art form, I was fascinated by the idea that a camera could preserve a moment that would otherwise disappear. I saw film as a passion and a dream I could never chase, but after COVID, I decided to go after it. That eventually led me to study documentary journalism and filmmaking, where I became interested in the space between observation and cinematic storytelling.

Most of my work explores absence: what remains after someone, somewhere, or something is gone. Whether I'm filming families searching for disappeared loved ones or communities forced to leave their homes, I'm interested in how cinema can make invisible experiences emotionally tangible. For me, directing is less about explaining reality than about creating an experience that allows audiences to inhabit it.

How did you first discover the story of El Bosque and Guadalupe Cobos, and what convinced you that it was a story you needed to spend time documenting?

I first heard about El Bosque through reports that it had become one of the first communities in Mexico officially recognised as displaced by climate change. Initially, I thought I was making a film about erosion. But once I arrived, I realised the real story wasn't the sea.

Most of my work explores absence: what remains after someone, somewhere, or something is gone.

What stayed with me was the emotional contradiction of a community fighting for relocation while simultaneously mourning the place they were trying to leave. Lupe embodied that contradiction. She wasn't only advocating for her community's future; she was also trying to preserve its memory. I became interested in documenting that impossible process of saying goodbye to a place that still existed, but that would inevitably disappear.

You hold back the reason the community can no longer remain in El Bosque, allowing the film to begin almost as a mystery before revealing the wider climate story. What appealed to you about structuring it that way, and how conscious were you of finding a narrative hook for such a complex subject?

It was very intentional. Climate change is often communicated through data, forecasts or catastrophe, but that's rarely how people experience it. For the residents of El Bosque, it wasn't an abstract environmental issue. It unfolded gradually, one missing house, one collapsed street, one difficult decision at a time.

I wanted audiences to enter the film the same way I entered the town: noticing that something felt deeply wrong before fully understanding why. By delaying the explanation, the audience first experiences uncertainty and loss emotionally rather than intellectually. Once the larger context is revealed, the climate story becomes personal instead of theoretical.

Above: An excerpt from La Mar, Jean Chapiro’s YDA Gold-winning portrait of a community confronting climate displacement.

The archival footage doesn't just show us what El Bosque once looked like; it feels as though it captures an entirely different texture of life. How did you source and select that material, and how did you use the contrast between past and present to tell the story of what had been lost?

The first cuts of the film contained almost no archival material beyond news footage. As we edited, I realised something was missing. We could see what El Bosque had become, but we couldn't truly understand what had been lost without seeing what it once was.

As Lupe and I got to know each other, she began sharing the photos and videos she had saved on her phone. Many of the printed photographs the community still had had already been damaged by the sea. That became deeply meaningful to me. Just like the houses, their memories were quite literally being eroded by the ocean.

To communicate what the community had lost, I first had to show what they once had.

During the edit, I realised the archival footage wasn't simply illustrating the past. It allowed the audience to experience the contrast between a place full of life and the silence that remained. In the end, I understood that to communicate what the community had lost, I first had to show what they once had.

There are many possible ways to tell the story of a community becoming one of Mexico's first officially recognised groups of climate-displaced people. Why did Lupe become the film's central point of view?

Lupe was actually the first person from the community I ever spoke to. I found El Bosque through a Facebook group, reached out with questions, and she was the one who replied. We started talking over WhatsApp, and as I kept asking questions to better understand what had happened, she eventually invited me to come and see the community for myself.

From the moment we met, I was struck by her ability to hold two seemingly contradictory truths at once. She fought tirelessly for her community's relocation because she knew it was the only way they could survive, but she never stopped mourning the home they were leaving behind. Through Lupe, the film became less about climate change as an abstract issue and more about the emotional complexity of letting go.

Over the course of making the film, our relationship grew into a friendship, and I'm incredibly grateful for the trust she placed in me by allowing me to tell her story.

Above: Jean Chapiro [left] on set with La Mar’s central protagonist, Guadalupe “Lupe” Cobos.

The images of the devastated village filmed on Christmas Day feel especially poignant, placing a day associated with home and togetherness against a place that can no longer safely be inhabited. Was that contrast intentional?

It wasn't intentional at first. Those were videos that Lupe and her family had filmed themselves and later shared with us. Sadly, many of the strongest storms hit El Bosque around major holidays, so those moments became part of the family's own archive.

Watching those videos, I realised the community wasn't only losing houses. They were losing the traditions and rituals that gave those places meaning. The footage carries both celebration and grief at the same time.

This past Christmas was actually the first time in four years that the community was able to celebrate together again after relocating. It was a very different Christmas, far from the ocean that had defined their lives, but there was also relief. They had finally reached a place where celebrating felt possible again.

The community's relocation is a victory, but an unmistakably bittersweet one: they gain safety while losing their home, and much of Lupe's fight depends on accepting that some damage cannot be reversed. How did you approach an ending that had to hold both achievement and inevitability at once?

I always knew I didn't want the ending to feel either triumphant or tragic because neither would have been truthful. The relocation was a victory. It meant the community was finally safe after years of fighting. But it also marked the end of a way of life that could never be recovered.

I always knew I didn't want the ending to feel either triumphant or tragic because neither would have been truthful. 

During editing, I realised the film wasn't really asking whether the relocation was the right decision. It was asking what happens after you've accepted that there is no way back. That became the emotional destination of the film. Sometimes healing isn't about restoring what was lost; it's about finding a way to carry it with you.

I hope the ending leaves audiences holding both emotions at once: relief for what has been saved, and grief for everything that couldn't be.

What did making this film teach you that you'll take into your next project?

It reminded me that documentaries rarely become the films you expect them to be. I arrived thinking I understood the story, but the film only began once I let go of that certainty.

It also reinforced my belief that patience is one of a filmmaker's most important tools. Some of the most meaningful moments happened not because we were looking for them, but because we stayed long enough for them to unfold on their own.