Ruth is a Spanish filmmaker, curator, and researcher based in New York and has been working in non-fiction for the past 20 years as the founder and director of Horns and Tails Productions. Her feature and short films have been shown in theaters, festivals and museums internationally, including Zumzeig Cinema, Verdi Cinemas and Contemporary Art Center Matadero de Madrid, San Sebastian International Film Festival, Cinema du Réel (Paris), ADFF (NY), L'Alternativa (Barcelona), Documentamadrid, MOMA PS1 (Expo1) and at the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam. Ruth’s latest films are constructed around taboos of the female body, gender-specific illnesses and patriarchal structures in the medical establishment, narrative medicine and the economy of death, human remains, and experiences of loss. She often collaborates with other artists and filmmakers as a creative producer, cinematographer, and editor; notably, she is a Seventh Annual Television Academy Honoree as a producer for the Web series Screw You Cancer directed by Cathryne Czubek. She works as Senior Programmer at DOC NYC and The Architecture and Design Film Festival and as an independent curator, she is interested in the Poetics of Fragility and has curated programs for Union Docs and Anthology Film Archives, amongst other institutions. She is also writing her Ph.D. dissertation and often works as a guest lecturer and mentor of nonfiction projects. She serves as the President of The Flaherty Board of Trustees.
www.ruthsomalo.com- Feature Documentary Consulta 32
This documentary journeys into the biographies of 4 women affected by FMS and the narratives they have constructed around the development of their illness. Theirs is the crisis of everyone who has to redefine themselves against productivity or something other than the roles our society value. An alternative portrait of Spanish women in the 21th century.
The roles traditionally fulfilled by women: daughter, wife, mother, care taker, house keeper; and the new ones defined by sex, beauty, happiness, education and workplace are impacted directly by the symptoms of fibromyalgia leaving this women to wonder were their value lays now. Theirs is the crisis of everyone who has to redefine themselves against productivity or something other than the roles our society values.
FMS (fibromyalgia syndrome) is a widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder for which the cause is still unknown. Fibromyalgia means pain in the fibrous tissues in the body. Narrative medicine is defined as "medicine practiced with the skills of recognizing, absorbing, interpreting, and being moved by the stories of illness”. Living with chronic pain and with the impediments of the associated symptoms of fibromyalgia (FMS) is nothing compared to living in shame. Woman affected by FMS (90% of those diagnosed) are often distrusted, misdiagnosed or not at all diagnosed. In a general context of suspicion they live overmedicated and accused of exaggerating, faking their illness, or of somatization. The roles traditionally fulfilled by women: daughter, wife, mother, care taker, house keeper; and the new ones defined by sex, beauty, happiness, education and workplace are impacted directly by the symptoms of fibromyalgia leaving this women to wonder were their value lays now. Theirs is the crisis of everyone who has to redefine themselves against productivity or something other than the roles our society values.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/consulta32