Oro Rojo

Director’s Statement

I have always been drawn to the edges of maps — places where landscape, culture, and identity are shaped by the sea. The Pacifico Norte of Baja California Sur is one of those places.

But I did not approach this film as an outside observer. I came to it as someone shaped by the same winds. My grandmother was born in this region of Baja California, and my grandfather was a tuna fisherman. Stories of the ocean were never abstractions in my childhood — they were family memory. When we began filming Oro Rojo, I understood that this was not simply a surf film. It was a responsibility.

In this remote stretch of coast, lobster is often called oro rojo — red gold. Yet the value of this fishery goes far beyond the market. What struck me most was the deep sense of collective responsibility that the fishing cooperatives maintain toward the ocean. Their livelihood depends not on extracting as much as possible, but on sustaining a balance with the ecosystem that supports them.

Over five years we followed a generation of sons — Axel and Héctor — who grew up within the lobster fishery of the Pacifico Norte. What they inherited was more than a livelihood. They inherited a way of reading the ocean. Surfing, for them, is not spectacle. It is continuity. Another expression of belonging.

From the beginning we made a deliberate choice: this story had to be told from within. Not as tourists. Not as extractors of images. But as participants in a shared story. In a context where documenting fishing practices in Mexico can carry real risks, we chose care over exposure. There are things we deliberately do not show. Absence, for us, is also an ethical position.

Cinematically, I was interested in a hybrid language — both contemplative and direct. The camera observes, but it also breathes with the water. Silence is never empty; the melodies of the flute carry the emotion of the desert and the sea. I wanted the audience to feel the rhythm of the territory before receiving an explanation of it.

This project also became a personal transformation. At some point I understood that the film was not about displaying talent or claiming authorship. It was about letting go of ego and opening a dialogue — with the community, with the next generation, and with the land itself. That realization changed me. I cannot imagine doing anything else.

Oro Rojo is ultimately a story about the people who live where the desert meets the Pacific, and about the quiet, persistent bond they maintain with the sea. The film is dedicated to those who came before — the custodians of the ocean and the land — and to those who will inherit it.

If the film achieves anything, I hope it deepens the viewer’s connection to this fragile and extraordinary territory, and reminds us that protection begins with a sense of belonging.

The real “red gold” is not the lobster.

It is the relationship.