Bold, defiant Ana Torres feels a need to tell her life story through film
Matamoros, Mexico, is a city familiar to many Texans. Located just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville and close to the spring break destination of South Padre Island, the town was once overrun by college kids in search of cheap beer, no-I.D.-necessary laxity and others seeking a laid-back, touristy day in this manufacturing town of about half a million. Sadly, of late, Matamoros makes the news more for the intense violence that sparks up there as the Mexican drug wars rage on.
That’s how Texans know Matamoros — in broad terms that border on caricature. But what’s it like to be born there, to grow up in Mexico and then suddenly move to Texas? And what’s it like when you do all this and you’re a lesbian?
Ana Torres was born in Matamoros in 1987 and moved to Dallas at 17. Her experience has been one of challenge after challenge; and yet, in the end she’s found her home — and her purpose — here. That purpose is to tell her story … and to do so through the movies. Torres is currently in the process of making a film based on her life.
Titled Gloria, it’s being supported in conjunction with the Movie Institute of Dallas, Media Tech Institute and the Dallas Film Commission.
“I’ve always wanted to do Gloria,” Torres says. “Last year I just got up in the morning one day and was like, ‘I’m gonna do it.’”
That kind of determination is very on-brand for Torres. She relocated to Dallas by herself, as a teenager, hoping for some help from a family member who lived here. “I thought I could rely on him,” she says. “I couldn’t.” So she finished up high school, living alone and figuring out life quickly — and sometimes the hard way, “It was a lot of fun in the beginning,” she says with a laugh. “I was the cool kid. Everybody was flabbergasted I lived by myself. But they didn’t know my personal struggle.”
In addition to adjusting to an entirely new culture (and language), Torres had to figure out the practicalities of the world; she once spent two weeks without electricity because she didn’t know anything about paying bills. But her inner strengths also began to blossom. Torres is a quick study, talented in many areas, and has an undeniable charm. “I’ve always been able to rely on myself,” she says. “If I needed a job, I’d talk my way in.”
One job she landed was at a staging company, where she spent hours shoving around giant, heavy cases and pulling miles of cable. She loved it.
It’s no coincidence she landed there. Growing up, Torres was an obsessive reader — gobbling up issues of Popular Mechanics and Reader’s Digest, along with the stories of Don Quixote — and also excelled at music. She studied at the Mexican Music Conservatory, San Juan Siglo XIX, where she followed her passion for music, studying violin, cello and other instruments.
But it was movies that emerged as her true love. Torres realized that telling stories from behind the camera, from her perspective, was her dream.
“I’ve been obsessed with films since I was a kid,” she says. Torres recalls that one singular moment stands out to her. After watching the bittersweet movie Life Is Beautiful, “I thought no matter what life would bring your way, you can have hope.”
Torres put in her time learning the business. In addition to her staging job, she studied video production and computer graphics at local community colleges and trained at a top lighting company, Syncrolite of Dallas. Between school and work, there were times when Torres only got three hours of sleep at night.
Her world seemed to be coming together. Yet two major challenges loomed.
The first, in fact, threatened her very life. At 19, Torres was in a car accident that shattered her spine. “I’m still trying to recover,” she says. “It’s been 10 years. My bones didn’t heal properly, so it’s still a struggle” The pain, she says, “is bearable only because I’ve gotten used to it.”
The second challenge was realizing she was lesbian and the effect that had on her relationships. Torres no longer speaks with her family. It’s something that makes her sad, she says, but she doesn’t regret who she is.
In 10 years, Torres still struggles with her physical pain, but in many ways she has become whole. One can’t help but wonder: What if all these things had happened to someone of lesser intelligence or lesser determination? Or someone with less belief in life itself?
That, Torres says, is why she wants to make Gloria.
“I’ve always been a fighter no matter what life throws my way,” she says. “I want to tell people, ‘Stay true to yourself. It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down.’ I just want to give people hope.”
— Jonanna Widner
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 15, 2017.