I met René, “Trenecito” as I called him, in the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC – Filmmaking Training Center) in 1994. We were both in our twenties and shared the same passion for filmmaking, the same desire to tell stories through images, words and sounds, and a particular taste for puns. René had a stingy and extraordinary sense of humor, he made me laugh so much… I smile widely just by remembering him. We were both bilingual: English and Spanish, so these puns could be in either of both languages, or a combination of both. During our 15 years of friendship, besides the long hours of sharing the “dolce far niente”, this is, doing nothing but sharing each other´s company in front of a tasty food or listening to one of the albums in his collection or walking without any certain destination, we worked on many short films, one videoclip and the curatorship of a public art space. Thanks to René I discovered Korean food, the green tea mochi, breakfast at the Konditori, bubble tea, Moondog, Belle and Sebastian, Wilko, F for fake by Orson Welles, 21 short films about Glen Gould, just to mention the first things that pop in my mind, because the list is long. We shared and talked about our not so fine love relationships of those times and we cheered each other. We dreamed together of making many films in an effort to decipher the deepest of human emotions. With René I learned a lot about films, on the third year of the studies at the Filmmaking Training Center, René left to live in Austin, Texas where he took the degree in Filmmaking. When he came back, he integrated to our generation again and shared with me his new filmmaking and cultural baggage. We both worked on each other’s thesis; René was my co-writer for the script Fragmentos (Pieces) and I was his assistant director in Una aventura (An adventure).
Upon finishing our studies at the Filmmaking Training Center, we started the El Mirador project together, a public art space in a snack stall which appealed to the voyeurism of people strolling in the Glorieta de los Insurgentes. A year from that, René left to live in New York. In total, we cured and organized 8 exhibitions and 4 events. I recall that his mother, Lupita, was with us at every opening, very enthusiastic, and I met Beto, his father, later on. And I would like to say that today I have a close friendship with both and I am deeply thankful for their generosity. After René left to New York, we saw each other in few occasions, but we kept in touch through email and I went to visit him once. I recall that we ate at Chinatown and went to a clothing store. René told me that he had eyed a shirt and proposed: “why don´t you give me the shirt as a present and I give you something”. This spirit of sharing and enjoying together was very characteristic of René, certainly inherited from Beto and Lupita, his parents. An so I acquired one of my favorite skirts and another lovely reminiscence of my friend.
Today, 10 years from René’s death, I remember his smile, I close my eyes and feel him at my side. I am very happy that, at last and thanks to the generosity of his parents, his huge collection of books, films and albums has been integrated to the Filmmaking Training Center as: The René Peñaloza Galván Collection and will be soon available to all of his students. They, as I did many times, may enter René’s marvelous universe and I assure you that he will be there, by their side, also enjoying his collection.
Paulina del Paso
