Story about hopes and dreams. A father loses his daughter and waits for her during many years in the place he believes he first lost sight of her. In the end they’re reunited, not in absolute reality, but in a kind of intermingling between fiction and reality. Though sometimes we don’t realise it, we spend our lives dreaming. Hopes and dreams are the vital matter of our lives.

Motivation

Nowadays we resolve our problems by running away from or simply ignoring them, but I’m proposing something new; the hope and freshness of childhood against any obstacle.

The film deals with life’s ambiguity; though fire and snow are enemies they interact with each other the same as pleasure and pain, life and death are opponents but also a product of each other. This explains why one of my main characters is a statue; a being who is immobile, rigid and seemingly fragile, but who transmits much more than any being blessed with movement. He symbolizes the snow and its austere nostalgia.

The element of fire is represented by a doll; a little girl who, despite her vulnerability, is full of life’s sonorous and impetuous laughter.

Description of the project

A fictitious short film set in a fantastic world, a parable of life. A short about a statue who acts as a street light; he produces artificial light whilst his doll daughter spends her time playing with natural light, representing the loss of hope. A project that mixes reality and dreams through different aesthetics with a marked emphasis on art direction.

My first reference is the artistic work of the Cirque du Soleil, specifically its act SALTIMBANQUI in which the the main personage is a clown paradoxically sad. It’s visually very suggestive as the lack of dialogue means all emotions are expressed visually. This inspired me to choose a statue as my main character who intertextually represents the same sense of nostalgia through his immobility.

In the construction of my second character I took inspiration from the traditional russian story The Little Girl who Sold Matches, known all over the world and brought to the screen in various interpretations, and Memoirs of a Geisha: both stories deal with the difficulties faced by a little girl on her own and how her very suffering helps her to develop her dreams. My character is a doll symbolizing fragility and utopia as well as a kind of emptiness.

Photographically I’m inspired by the opening sequence of the Argentinian film The Secret in their Eyes for its lyricism.

In the art direction we make the scenery with recycled materials connoting the recycling of happiness and sadness and how the two are often mixed together and confused.

Why a CrowdFunding campaign

Once I have the funding I’ll go straight into pre-production with the help of national institutions such as the University of Art, ISA. A meeting with the technical and artistic teams for preparation and mise-en-scene of the locations such as their construction in the ISA, in the Ciervo Encantado theatre and in the labyrinth of the faculty of scenic arts. I already have the permission and approval of the university.

The Crew

The crew will be made up of a team of young technicians and artists from the cuba’s audiovisual world. They are all specialists graduated from the univeristy of art ISA and work in the audiovisual and artistic world. The young photographer Yuniel Mentado, winner on various occasions of the ICAIC prize for photographic direction, will be a member of the crew. The protagonists will be played by the young actress Karla Rodriguez and an actor from la casa de la comedia. A group of stand-ins and extras will be provided by various theatre groups and students at the faculty of scenic arts from the University of Art.

Reward for your cooperation

Ilustration from the plastic artis Renier Ker

Art-Graduate Course Conduct Superior Institute of Art and the Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro in the art of engraving.

He performed numerous solo and group exhibitions among which are: To break the walls. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. Cuban Art Building. The scheme of the innocent. Factory Havana. A smell coming through my window. Collateral Eleventh Biennial Exhibition of Havana. Museo del Ron. Artist House, 8th Festival of New Filmmakers. ICAIC Film Cultural Center. Havana. "The Bitch Auction". Laboratory-Aglutinador. 10 Havana Biennial. "Strong is the Morro. Who I am? ". Aglutinador space. Havana. Cuba. "II International Video Art Festival Camagüey" Camaguey Cuba "States of Exchange: Artists from Cuba".... Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA) .Londres Circus Project Performance International Charity and Audiovisuales.5taEdición House... Poetry. Havana. "Porlovisto 2008" .Certamen of audiovisual expression. Ayuntamiento de Leganés. Madrid.

Script and Direction: Naty Gabriela González Calderón. (5th year student at the Faculty of Media and Audiovisual Communication of the University of Art, Havana). Currently working as assistant director and editor.

Production:Jorge Nhils(graduated in production at the Faculty of Audiovisual and Communicative Arts of the University of Art, Havana ISA). Currently producer of the different audiovisual production at the Havana.

Photography:Yuniel Mentado (graduated in photography at the Faculty of Audiovisual and Communicative Arts of the University of Art, Havana ISA). Currently director of photography and professor in the same faculty.

Soundtrack:Gustavo Duchesne (audio engineer). Currently creator of the soundtracks of the different audiovisual production.

Art Direction: Rafael Triana (Graduated in stenographic Design at the ISA in Havana.) Young art director from the different theatre groups. Member to the group of mapping IMG in Cuba.

Costume: Celia ledón (Graduated in History of Art at the Faculty of Art and Literature of the University of Havana).

Costume designer of the famous theatre group El Público and important audiovisual productions in Cuba.

What will donations be used for?

Donations from Crowd Funding will be put towards

Construction of scenery in to the ISA

Manufacture of all elements of costume

Utilities

Transportation of technical and artistic teams during the 15 days of shooting

Catering for technical and artistic teams during the 15 days of shooting

Salary for technical team and artistic team

Material costs of post-production

Printing of posters and promotional materials

Chronogram

Pre-production: January 2015

Filming: Second and third weeks of May 2015

Post-production:August 2015

Return of compensation:From the completion of the project

Premiere: December 2015Festival of Havana and simultaneously on the web