Director Arianna Ortiz
The Birthday Gift is based on the play “The Abuelas,” written by Stephanie Alison Walker. Adapted for the screen by Stephanie Alison Walker and Paula Pizzi, and directed by Arianna Ortiz.
Director’s Note
(Arianna Ortiz)
Welcome to Soledad’s birthday dinner. The characters in this film are meant to entertain and invite the audience in. The only hint of the destination ahead is the opening image of the frozen, shattered surface of the Chicago river in winter. Only after a guest shares what we think will be an entertaining tale, do we understand we have entered a crucible.
When we started developing this project in the summer of 2024, never did I imagine how painfully timely it would become. Is it simply a story about something that happened in Argentina a long ago or is this film a harbinger of what is possible in any country facing down authoritarianism? I believe it is the latter. We ignore the warnings at our peril.
As an actor, I’ve been a part of the development of three plays by Stephanie Alison Walker, including the source material for this film. Stephanie has an extraordinary gift for taking a very large political subject matter and creating deeply intimate and entertaining stories. Her work proves over and over that “politics is personal.”
You don’t even realize you’re watching a social impact story until it suddenly knocks the wind out of you. I’ve been urging her to adapt her work to the screen for years. I was thrilled when Stephanie asked me to consult on this adaptation of her play, The Abuelas. These characters were already a part of me. I’d been directing music videos for a few years to explore visual language as a filmmaker. I’ve also been honing my screenwriting in multiple fellowships. So as the script came together, I pitched myself to direct it.
I was excited by the challenge of an intimate movie set in a Chicago winter. (We shot in Spring.) Visually, I wanted The Birthday Gift to contrast the frigid weather outside with the warm, inviting interior of this family home. I wanted the cello, an instrument I played in my youth, to feel tangible on screen, to become a visceral element of the storytelling. All the cello was played live on set — missed notes and all. The missed notes thrill me the most. We get to know the birthday girl, Soledad, and her “famous” daughter, son-in-law, a handsome new friend, and a stranger. But the family soon reckons with an insidious past.
Subtle stylized touches bring into the present how the historic events that took place during the brutal regime in 1970s Argentina continue to affect lives today. From Carolina’s head scarf that alludes to the “uniform” of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, to production design and cinematography that are meant to create a subtle timelessness that harkens back to the era.
Make no mistake, the audience should be entertained. They should be having such a good time, in fact, that the final moments of the film take their breath away, right alongside the characters on screen, whose lives are shattered in an instant.
Writer’s Note
(Playwright, Screenwriter Stephanie Alison Walker)
I was f5 years old the first time I was in Argentina to visit my dad in Buenos Aires. It was 1980, during the height of “The Dirty War.” As a child, I didn’t understand the presence of the military men with their scary guns, but the image of watching them walk the streets of Buenos Aires stayed with me my whole life. I would return to my stepmom’s home country many times throughout my childhood but it wasn’t until 1998, when I was living and working there, that I learned what those military men with their big guns did at the behest of their dictator.
A friend making a documentary about the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Disappeared invited me to join her one Thursday to march with them in the Plaza de Mayo where they have been marching since 1977. Witnessing their steps, full of strength and a resolve for justice for their Disappeared children and grandchildren, was incredibly powerful.
The source material for The Birthday Gift is the second play I wrote about this time period, The Abuelas, which explores the long and devastating repercussions of fascism through character-driven storytelling. Like its source material, The Birthday Gift asks how one goes on after discovering their life is a lie. Does the restoration of truth bring freedom or suffering? Working with my co-writer, Paula Pizzi, to translate this story to film was a joy. Our hope is that after viewing the short, audiences will want to lean in and learn more about this time period in Argentina and the work of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo whose search for their grandchildren, guided by the principle that one’s identity is a right, continues.
Writer’s Note
(From Dramaturg and Screenwriter Paula Pizzi)
When Stephanie invited me to collaborate with her I was terrified, so I said yes. After all, I was there, growing up in the chaos that led to the coup, which then led to the unimaginable, now well documented horrors under the Military Junta. I could have been one of the women in this powerful story. And the fact that it all happened, hiding in plain sight, in the middle of a bustling city, in unmarked Ford
Falcons and night raids, while we all went about our days, still haunts me, decades later. The Birthday Gift is a cautionary tale and a stark reminder that silence becomes complicity, and it only takes one lapse in good judgment to make a decision you may regret forever. It’s been great to explore, through the story, the complexities of what drives those types of decisions.
Film Credits – Cast
“Gabriela” – Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel (she/her)
“Soledad” – Paula Pizzi (she/her)
“César” – Ignacio Serricchio (he/him)
“Marty” – Nate Santana (he/him)
“Carolina” – Margarita Lamas (she/her)
“Juan” – Marcelo Tubert (he/him)
Film Credits – Key Crew
Production Company – A Season of Rain in association with Teatro Vista Productions
Director – Arianna Ortiz
Writers – Stephanie Alison Walker & Paula Pizzi
Producer – Rachel Stander
Executive Producers – Stephanie Alison Walker & Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel
Director of Photography – Christopher Rejano
Production Designer – Lalo Ayala
Cello & Original Music Arrangements – Jean Hatmaker
Editor – Jonathan Cuartas
Sound Designer – Bryan Parker
Colorist – Natasha Leonnet
**Critique Summary**
“The Birthday Gift” is a sophisticated exploration of the ties that bind. It’s a film that lingers long after the credits roll, leaving the audience to contemplate the “gifts” they carry within their own family histories.
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