I'VE COME TO TAKE YOU HOME.

(Trigger Warning some images and content can be distressing).

What we want to do

Our campaign is aimed at producing of a teaser (a short piece of what will then be our future film) in which we present the narrative and aesthetic ideas through which we want to tell the story.

This teaser will be part of our strategy to raise funds to finance the future film.

We are currently asking for a modest amount. If we exceed that amount, we could consider starting to shoot the full production, which is initially planned as a medium-length film.

How we want to do it

Our film tells the story of what was called the 'The Black (man) of Banyoles' a dissected body of a young African person who was publicly exhibited in different cities of France and Catalonia for more than 180 years (we give you the details of this story later on in the text). We want to tell the story of this body - from the moment it was stolen in colonial Africa to its repatriation to its original land - through a fable, a story that allows us to go beyond the cruelty of the facts. This format will allow us to fit together the main facts of the story and unfold its imaginary through images, archives and testimonies.

In Catalonia the tradition of the Capgrossos (cabezudos in Spanish) is well known. They are masks that are worn on the whole head and represent popular characters that parade and dance through the streets in major festivals of each town.

At the beginning of the 90's the stuffed body of the young African man remained exposed in a museum in the Catalan town of Banyoles. He had been there for more than 70 years and had become a popular character in the village. A local theater group made a Capgros representing the Negro of Banyoles to incorporate him in the local parade. It was around this time that, thanks to the official complaint made by the Haitian Dr. Alfonse Arcelin, a great controversy unleashed around the exhibition of these human remains. It was then decided to remove this Capgros from the parade and to keep it in the City Hall warehouses.

Our idea is to reconstruct this mask to re-signify it and give it life as the main character of this fable. The Capgros turned into our protagonist, will guide us through some of the milestones of the story, journeying across unsettling fantasy landscapes on his way back to an imaginary origin.

What will we dedicate your contributions to?

We will use the funds raised to build the mask and to shoot passages of the film in Andalusia and Catalonia: specifically, in a workshop of artisans of Capgrossos in the vicinity of Banyoles and locations in both regions.

With your contributions we also want to continue interviewing the people who were involved in the story, especially those who were close to Dr. Arcelín in his struggle for the repatriation of the remains (we tell you more about it later in the text). In this way we will be able to continue enriching the script, providing it with the added value of listening to people close to the story, as well as to continue researching and compiling the existing documentation on the subject. Depending on the success of this collection we may also purchase the rights to some archival materials to include them in this first phase of the production.

Rewards

It is true that this is not a very usual crowdfunding campain, as we are not asking for your contributions for a finished product, but to give a boost to a project that due to its theme and other circumstances is having a lot of difficulties getting off the ground.

In exchange for your contributions we can offer you screenings of some of the materials we have edited so far, we will keep you informed of the development of the project and of course** you will appear in the final credits** when our film becomes a reality. The idea is to give you access to a platform where you can be the first to stay up to date on how the production is progressing. We will also organize an On Line meeting for the presentation of the project. You can see the different options to make a contribution and the rewards on the side.

The story of our film

Perhaps some of you remember the controversy that arose in 1991, a year before the organization of the Olympics and Expo 92 in Seville. A Haitian doctor, Alfonse Arcelin, who had been living in Catalonia for many years, complained to international organizations about the exhibition of a stuffed human being in a museum of Natural History. Later, when more information began to appear in the media, we learned that it was a young African man from the Cape Region, probably belonging to the Khoisan nation, derogatorily referred to as Bushmen. His grave had been desecrated in 1830 by French taxidermists and his corpse stolen and, using taxidermy techniques, put on display in various exhibitions in France and England.

In 1880, coinciding with the Universal Exhibition, the stuffed body was brought to Barcelona by Dr. Darder, who added it to the collection of his personal museum, located at the time in Passeig de Grácia. Later, in 1916, his entire collection was donated by Darder himself to the town of Banyoles, where the remains of the young African man would remain on public display for the next 80 years. The grotesque figure was enclosed in an urn, dressed with a shield and a spear, and was frequently visited by schools and colleges.

Dr. Alfonse Arcelin gave his life in the effort to repatriate the remains of this young man to his homeland in Africa: he was able to get the support of UNESCO, what was then the Organization of African Unity (OAU, now The African Union) and Kofi Annan himself. He also came close to getting some athletes to boycott the Olympic Games in Barcelona. Despite this he still had a very difficult time. On the one hand, his demands would not be understood by Spanish society, who refused to see the exhibition as a brutal display of racism. On the other hand, Banyoles closed its doors to any withdrawal from the museum and turned to defending what they considered to be "their black man", showing a level of insensitivity and racism that is difficult to understand.

In 2000, Alfonse Arcelin managed to repatriate the remains to Botswana where they received a state funeral. This was the first repatriation of human remains usurped during colonialism to the African continent, even prior to Sara Baartman. Alas Arcelin's victory was bitter sweet and he had to pay a heavy price for it.

The case of the Black man from Banyoles served to confront Spaniards with their own racism and to take a necessary path that led to a reflection on our own history and our future as a diverse society. Arcelín's entire struggle, from 1991 until 2000, when the body was repatriated to Botswana, coincided with the arrival of the first racialised migrants from Latin America and Africa to neighbourhoods of Spanish cities. It coincided with the organisation of the country's first anti-racism movements and growing discourse around the defence of migrants' rights. It also coincides with the first racially motivated murder recognised by a court in Spain: that of the Dominican citizen Lucrecia Pérez.

El equipo

● Miguel Ángel Rosales: Direction

He has written and directed several short films such as Luz en los Márgenes (2013), Atrapados al Vuelo (2012) and La Maroma (2010). His first feature film Gurumbé. Canciones de tu Memoria Negra has been presented at numerous national and international Festivals and won awards at Sao Paulo Fest, SEMINCI, Fest. Cine Latino de Minneapolis and Film Africa UK, among others.

Four years ago I started researching the story of the man known as the Negro of Banyoles for a documentary film. The idea came as a consequence of my first film Gurumbé. Canciones de tu Memoria Negra, where I dealt with the Afro-descendant presence in Spain and its unknown legacy in Spanish and Andalusian culture. Revisiting these historical events has meant my work also tries to face the racism that underlies Spanish history and society.

So far we have collected a lot of archival material on this story and have recorded part of what will be our future film.

● David G. López de la Osa: Edition

Editing is one of his most persistent passions -so far, 20 years of craft. He has worked on documentary films related to the migratory experience: Bolingo. El bosque del amor (2016), La espera de los olvidados: Barzaj *(2019), or modern forms of slavery: *Las Alturas (2021), all directed by Alejandro Salgado and produced by La Maleta Films.

Injustices happen and -sometimes- are forgotten, but that doesn't mean they are no longer injustices. Episodes like this one of the man from Banyoles speak to us about our colonial past, but also about all the symbolic violence that has permeated our way of decoding reality. When Miguel Ángel began to share with me the documentation of this project, a phrase of Dr. Arcelin's stuck in my brain: “It is a real ignominy that the dissected body of a human being is exhibited in a museum in 1992”.

● Alejandro Salgado: Art Direction

Graduate in Audiovisual Communication and Art History from the University of Seville. He studied art and film scriptwriting in Florence and Barcelona.

Some of his films to date are Barzaj (2019), Las alturas *(2022) or *Claros de bosque in pre-production.

The first time I heard about this story was when I walked into one of David and Miguel Angek's work sessions. The editing screen showed a group of schoolchildren in the late 80s or early 90s looking rather naturally at a stuffed black man inside a glass case. From my age, I could have been one of those children...

● Yinka Esi Graves: Dance. Performing.

Graduate in Art History, now a dance maker working in the flamenco and contemporary scene, Yinka's work converses with Flamenco through a unique lens rooted in the African diaspora.

After a long career in flamenco, Clay (2016), with choreographer Asha Thomas, marked the beginning of a more investigative and experimental approach to her creation. Her first solo work, The Disappearing Act (2023), has toured international festivals such as the Nimes Flamenco Festival, El Grec, Festival D'Avignon, La Batie, FIT de Cádiz among others.

Yinka will be in charge of bringing our character to life.

In honour of the person whose body was violently used to satisfy colonial visions of people of African- descent, as well as Dr Arcelin's struggle for justice in relation to this violated body, I am happy to be able to collaborate in this project. It also speaks volumes that to this day it has been so difficult to get funding to make this film. Looking at how a society can continuously normalize the dehumanisation of people of African descent, any human being for that matter, is relevant to us all.

● Natalia de Ancos: Production and Documentation

Graduate in Art History, producer and researcher of documentaries. She has participated in several documentaries such as: La Búsqueda, by Mariano Agudo and Daniel Lagares. Bidasoa and Zuloak and Next Music Station by Fermin Muguruza for Talka Records and Al Jazeera Documentary Channel.

I remember quite clearly the theme of the "negre de Banyoles". I was particularly shocked by the lack of sensitivity of some of the people who turned the body of the bushman into a motif for carnival songs.

● Carli Pérez: Sound

He has been working as a live sound and post-production sound technician since 2003. He has participated in the shooting of fiction productions such as La Isla Mínima, El Hombre De Las Mil Caras and La Peste (Alberto Rodríguez), Elisa y Marcela (Isabel Coixet) or documentaries such as Bolingo (La Maleta Films). He has also worked as sound designer on films such as Las Gentiles and El Cielo De Los Animales (Santi Amodeo) or documentaries such as No Somos Nada (Javier Corcuera) or La Búsqueda (Intermedia Producciones).

This story caught my attention when I was almost a child: how was it possible that in my country the body of a human being was exposed as if it were an animal? Somehow it woke me up from that deceptive part of childhood where the romanticism of an adventure, justified violence and inequality.

● Sergio Caro: Director de fotografía
He began his career as a photographer at the age of 20 with the Spanish news agency EFE. In 2003 he was awarded the European Newspaper Award and in 2006 the Andalusia Journalism Award. He has also taught at CNN Academy and has participated in numerous international exhibitions. In 2023 he signed his first fiction feature film as DOP, Fueron los días.

When I was told the story, I have to confess that I didn't remember it clearly, it completely short-circuited me. I've spent a lot of time travelling and filming the most incredible stories, but this one seems to me to be in the top 3 and I firmly believe it has to be told.