THIRTEEN THOUSAND FOURTEEN

Mysticism, drugs, madness, art, religion, Seville. 13.014 is born out of the combination of all these elements, as a story, as the story of a group of friends. This project is a bet on simplicity, on concentrating the society I have been sensing the last 24 years in just two people, forcing the viewer to take sides. An approach based on the abovementioned ideas, but with subtle nuances. The film vacillates somewhere between passion and apathy, things that we all inherit and assume.

That is the key point, why not question the unquestionable? Simply because it is incredibly hard to question what has been inherited. A false sense of necessity surrounds us, giving importance to banality. We try to make sense of things that are truly madness. If your one certainty in life is that you are going to die, why the hell is anything else important anymore?

The film is all black and white, and there are no halfhearted decisions, no changes of mind. Each party focuses only on their own circumstances. And for this very reason, the film is indeed hectic and intense. The two main characters have to face a dilemma, which leaves no room for impartiality. When a huge rock is thrown from the edge of a cliff, the rock will roll downhill faster and faster and end up smashed to bits. That is the feeling the film will convey: a Communion wafer dipped into private-label whisky.

The film presents an existentialist perspective from a Western view of religion. The religion which has certainly triumphed when it comes to silence all these human vital questions. At first, ideas were imposed, and yet the Earth moved. At this point, more sophisticated ideas were developed, delegating the propaganda to the greatest artists of the time. Art is breathtaking. Breathtaking and distressing. Reason is blind and you do not know how to identify the emotions overwhelming you. The individual facing immensity. Helplessly they surrendered to the absolute, not even thinking about their own self.

The denial of God existence is now a common practice, but nonsense is always nonsense. Although atheism is built upon reason, it still needs to explain its reason for being. We need to see all this from another angle, from an outside perspective of this battle. Don’t you find it beautiful?

BEAUTIFUL WHAT

Cosme, Juan, Simón, María and Benito are classmates at university. As Art students their comings and goings are anything but ordinary. Their future lives as artists in an unexpected present take place in a maelstrom of alcohol, drugs, group sex, vandalism, and, of course, art. They themselves label this chaos as ** “selective Diogenes syndrome”.**

One Friday morning, while they were drinking coffee and remembering last night frivolities, Cosme, Juan and Simón decided to pay a visit to the nearest vermouth bar. Getting wasted swiftly was the only possible way to avoid the forthcoming hangover. After spending the entire morning and half the afternoon in the bar, and seeing that María and Benito showed no signs of life, the two of them alone started their night out. What happens next will tragically set the course of our protagonists. They will little by little embrace the madness and chaos caused by an unexpected visit.

WHERE THE FILM WILL TAKE PLACE

The film takes place in Seville. Explaining Seville is not easy. In my hometown traditions rule. I find it necessary to present Seville’s Holy Week, since it is used all over the film to illustrate the situation. Although the film does not happen during this week, somehow everything in Seville has something to do with it.

Holy Week in Seville is the city’s greatest artistic expression: Gothic, Baroque, and Mannerist Art walk the streets. It is all this together with the musical compositions, the atmosphere and the scene, that achieves exactly the aforementioned facts about religious propaganda. To such an extent that** in Seville there is no one God anymore, but several**. On the one hand, people who inherit tradition and do not bother to understand. On the other hand, protestors who throw a tantrum one week a year, and nothing more.

One week paralyzing a city of one million inhabitants. Roads are closed, schedules are changed, and decisions are made by a chapter. Streets are overcrowded and nothing exists beyond that.

I do not seek to underestimate one or the other attitude, but only those which the individual has not thought through. I have long been of the opinion that in Seville *Holy Week, Real Betis and Sevilla FC are in control of the city, and after them maybe the city council. *

What may seem just as complete madness everywhere else in the world, here is simply routine.

MEMBERS OF THIS MADNESS

RAFAEL GARCÍA, EL DIRECTOR

*A good summary of my career would be that the education system finished me off. Or that I finished it off. *

I started an engineering degree, a horrible time. Two weeks later I was already at home. The following year I began Fine Arts, much more fun, but just from the outside. Once I made the most of everything this degree could offer to me, I decided to try film studies in Buenos Aires. But all I got was being blindly drunk for a long holiday in another continent. An epic journey, in truth. After that, I started to do the most odd jobs I was finding, until I just got tired of this. I have given up work, I have asked for a bank credit, I have asked for help, I have asked for money, and I am making *a fucking film. *

LOS CHAVALES, EL EQUIPO.

Some of them have been in my life since we were 5 years old, some others, only a few months. Anyhow, all of them have something crucial in common: ** they put up with all my crap**. And I put up with theirs. One could fairly say that all film characters are inspired by them, by our stories.

For the moment, Eladio Aguilera is in charge of the cinematography. He will make it big, what else is there to say. Juan Manuel Benítez y Sara Romera are going to manage the production. Juan Miguel Fernández is doing the film promotion, Javier Lozano, the legal responsibilities, Andrés Hidalgo, the conceptual art, Álvaro Acal, the philosophy behind it all, and María Reyes del Junco, is managing the project.

Broadly speaking what we have done is to turn a crazy idea into something real: 13.014

ABSURDISM, THE VITAL MOMENT

What do you know when you do not know what the hell to do with your life? Nothing. That’s why all you do is to fuck, smoke, take drugs, drink and try not to get the fucking AIDS on the way. Although AIDS is no longer what is was.

In this moment when all this seems to be too much, unless you are Keith Richards, you question your own existence. Exactly on that point is when the film was born. It is not enough to escape reality, you need something else. Once a good friend of mine showed me the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It is all wrong, except for breathing. In the past if you lived 30 years, and gave up by 18, it was not bad, but what the hell are you going to do 60 years fooling around? Black or white, maybe light grey or dark grey. Life is intense, cruel and hard. You may choose to take opium to ease it, but the booze fades away and hangover is agonizing.

We have taken the first step, we have got off the ground, and now we have to either land safely or crash.

SAFE LANDING: THE CASH

Funds for the film have been provided through three different ways. The Director’s personal savings and family contributions, and those really nice people from Santander Bank who have lend us some money at a very generous interest rate. And this one, which we hope will cover the expenses for the third and last part.

Every step moves us a little bit closer to *Steven Spielberg. *

The first level covers the costs, but we are left tighter than a hangman's knot. The other levels will help us to in the best possible way, *the only way the film deserves. *

BUT WHEN

This project has been running since February 2018. But it was not until December that we sped up.

From then on everything went smoothly and *we hope to be filming by March 25th. *

Following the post-production stage, we will premiere the movie in Seville, we will send you all your rewards, and we will screen it at film festivals. And that’s all.

JESUS PONCE
Ficha de IMDB
Director de cine español, autor de películas como "15 días contigo" (Una nominación a los goya), "Déjate caer" o "la primera cita".

Nos ha asesorado en materia de producción de este primer largometraje con escasos medios.

THE STORM

Pioneros del Hard Rock Sevillano en los 70, llamados los Deep Purple españoles.

Colaboran con parte de la banda sonora de la película.

PRISMA SEVILLA.

Lugar de encuentro cultural en la ciudad de Sevilla, nos ceden espacios para la realización de casting y eventos.

Lugar donde se celebrará el preestreno de la película.

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