The actress born in a small town in Belize on the shores of the Caribbean has made her debut at the Venice Film Festival with the film Tragic Jungle
Indira Andrewin has become the new celebrity who has conquered the Venice Film Festival. The Latina has won everyone’s hearts for her beauty and talent.
Indira Andrewin grew up in a small town in Belize on the shores of the Caribbean . Now, without waiting for it, she has made her debut as an actress and has done so neither more nor less than at the Venice Film Festival, where she has arrived with the film "Tragic jungle".
"I feel like, wow, it’s real (…) I’ve discovered that these types of festivals exist, I’ve never been to one as big as this one, it’s incredible," he explains laughing in a meeting with Efe in Venice, one of the most important competitions on the planet.
Andrewin is the protagonist of "Tragic Forest", the film with which the Mexican director Yulene Olaizola competes in the Horizons section, the second in relevance and dedicated to the new avant-gardes.
In the film she plays Agnes, an enigmatic young black woman who crosses the Hondo River, which separates her country with Mexico, and joins a group of tough men who work to extract gum from the ancient trees of the jungle in La 1920s.
The newcomer does not speak Spanish and her presence unleashes her most hidden fantasies and desires of men, who do not even suspect that she hides within her the very soul of Xtabay, the legendary woman who seduced the ancient Mayans until she dragged them to their perdition.
"Interpreting it was something great because it is a story from Belize and I had to take it to the world," he says.
The filming of Olaizola was hard, for weeks recording in the middle of the jungle, with the dangers that this entails, but she naturally downplays it: "I grew up in the jungle," she points out, always smiling.
In fact, the director explained to this agency that for the recording they relied heavily on her experience and that of the residents of the area, aware of the risks of the place.
His signing in the Olaizola project has given a new episode to his life. She is a 23-year-old from the municipality of Punta Gorda, in southern Belize, an area where English is spoken, and when she finished high school she began a stage as an esthetician entrepreneur.
"About my career, it’s complicated. After high school I decided that I didn’t want to go to university so I became an entrepreneur and opened a massage, spa and therapy center for two years. Then I sold for the body," she recalls.
They started filming in 2018 and when it was finished he decided to close his business and travel. And now, like everyone else, he has run into the coronavirus pandemic, which, however, has not prevented him from reaching Venice, where he is with his director.
The experience of playing Agnes was "incredible", although she didn’t know what to expect from the project she was embarking on.
But it was not difficult for him since the story of the mythical Xtabay is more than familiar to him: "It has not been told for generations in the family and among friends, it is something that everyone tells" in Belize, he says.
And in fact he found something almost personal in the character of Agnes: "It was very natural for me because she is reserved and calm, qualities that I see in myself," she says.
Now she walks through the Lido of Venice, tall and proud, although a little tired from the trip, while dreaming of pursuing a career that has just started: the cinema.
"Of course I would continue working in the cinema, it would be impressive and great but we really don’t have an industry in Belize. But if I had the opportunity I would take it," he promises.
Given the absence of a film industry in this small Central American state, he does not rule out traveling to other places.
Mexico, maybe? He does not know, but he does not rule it out either. Although he remembers that he does not speak Spanish.