Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren's documentary The Broken R (Spanish: Rotacismo), which screens on Saturday as part of BFI Flare, was made with the backing of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam's Bertha Fund (IBF). The IBF should not be confused with IFF Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), even though both schemes serve much the same purpose: to support emerging filmmakers in territories—such as parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America—where local film infrastructure is lacking. Receiving IBF funding precludes a project from benefitting from the HBF's support, and vice versa.
The Broken R is an intimate self-portrait of its Ecuadorian director, who, like his father, was born with Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS). TCS is a rare genetic condition that affects the development of the bones and soft tissues of the face, often causing underdeveloped cheekbones, a small jaw and chin, downward‑slanting eyes, and abnormalities of the ears, sometimes with cleft palate and dental issues. It commonly leads to conductive hearing loss, although intelligence is usually normal and life expectancy is typically not reduced. Diagnosis is based on characteristic facial features, imaging, and sometimes genetic testing.
Treatment is tailored to the individual, which in Ricardo’s case has meant undergoing a number of gruelling surgeries, including complex dental procedures. The film’s title refers to Ricardo’s longstanding difficulty in pronouncing the “r” sound (the blunter original title translates as “rhotacism”), which led him to avoid using words containing that letter and often resulted in others not catching his name correctly. Speech therapy eventually resolved this issue for Ricardo, who notes that his father—also called Ricardo—is serenely accepting of life with TCS in a way that contrasts sharply with the filmmaker's outlook.
Which is not to say that TCS has got the better of Ricardo: he graduated from university in Ecuador before heading to Spain to undertake a master’s degree. He's an honest, engaging narrator, and he is refreshingly open about his own perceived hang‑ups in the face of his parents’ pragmatism. The Broken R highlights a generational divide, detailing the differing worldviews of Ricardo and his equally likeable father—a man who refuses to overthink life's problems. Via a mix of film, digital, and VHS, Ricardo Ruales Eguiguren has created a deeply personal work, one whose impact is truly felt in the hours and days after viewing.
