The Absence of Eden marks Marco Perego’s feature film debut as writer and director, with Zoe Saldaña leading as Esmee and executive producing. The movie will be released exclusively in theaters tomorrow, April 12.
The Absence of Eden takes place at the border between the United States and Mexico – a hellish landscape inhabited by coyotes, armed officers, desperate immigrants, and refugees. When Esmee (Saldaña), a young woman working as a private dancer in Mexico, is forced to commit a violent act of self-defense that results in the death of a cartel member, she flees her homeland for sanctuary in the United States. Guided by a ruthless Coyote and a group of undocumented immigrants, she befriends a young mother and her daughter along the way. Before crossing the border, the mother is taken from the group, and Esmee promises to protect her daughter and help them reunite again in America, touching off an interlocking story about people struggling to survive on America’s border with Mexico.
“What I wanted to focus on was how decent of a human being she was, that if a child was thirsty, she gave her her water. If a mother would tell her, ‘Take care of my daughter,’ she kept her word. If a man offered her to participate and be complicit in an illegal activity, her stance was to not participate, even though she was being forced to do it,” the actress explained. “So everything about Esmeralda felt to me like, well, this is the kind of woman that I was raised to be, so she would be nothing but an asset to any nation that she decides to enter and why can’t she be provided safe harbor? Why can’t she be heard? Why can’t she be seen?”
The filmmaker shared, “For me, it was about, I really love to be on set and I love to create my own world and surround myself with people that are much better than me, and I’m really going to listen [to] everybody and keep trying to find this purity, this truth.”
While speaking with the duo, they opened up to me about remembering personal stories of immigration, the importance of focusing on humanity, and the most fascinating part of the movie-making process.
Watch my interview below:
