Logline:
A documentary made beside the main character, Arnoldo
Palacios (1924 - 2015), an afrocolombian writer who was born in a town in the
middle of the jungle, travelled around the world until the end of his life
despite a contracted poliomyelitis at the age of two years. Making visible the
African diaspora identity and the fight of the human rights, we travelled with
him in Colombia and France and we will meet him again in Warsaw, Moscow and
Dakar. He was a representation of the world contemporary literature who
described in several languages his time with poetry and joyfulness.
Synopsis (max. 400 words)
Arnoldo Palacios, afrocolombian writer, invites us to a journey along
the path of his life since the day he was born at Cértegui, in the middle of
the jungle, in 1924. Through interviews, conversations between friends, events
and travels, we go on seeing how Arnoldo earlier began to sharp his senses and
sensitivity, to take advantage of the power of imagination and words for fun,
to create, explore and understand the world. Indeed, a poliomyelitis appeared
suddenly when he was two years old, leaving sequels in the mobility of his
legs. This did not prevent him from finding the path that should led him to
discover the world making a frequent traveller, beginning the day he went from
Cértegui to Quibdó, the capital of the Chocó, to start the high school which he
finished at Bogota in 1946.
Arnoldo Palacios build the documentary beside the director in a close
relationship and guides us through his literary work always linked to his
existence and becoming almost a second reading of his life. Thus, we will learn
why "The Stars are black" (novel published in 1948), we will visit
Paris where Arnold arrived on a scholarship to study literature at the Sorbonne.
We will see through his eyes the many important figures in the last sixty years
who were his friends throughout Europe. We will accompany him in Honfleur, on
the French Normandy who received him as one of his sons, and where the director
met him the first time at the beginning of the 90’s.
Finally we rejoice with him for the recognition he began to have in his
country in the last years of his life starting with the Grand Order of the
Colombian Ministry of Culture (1998), and Guachupé Gold Black Colombia Foundation
(2007), the reissue of his first literary work (2010) and the Spanish edition
of “the Jungle and Rain”, published for the first time in Russia (1956). This
documentary is the result of mutual support an accompaniment of the protagonist
and the director since 2009 between France and Colombia. Up today without the
presence in life, of the writer, we keep looking memories of Arnold in
Warsaw,Roma, Moscow and in Senegal to finish what we started with the writer
who died in November of 2016.
Project description ( max. 1100 words. You may choose the subdivisions yourself. (A project description should include: story, background information, main protagonists, access, visual approach, directors note etc. Production proposals should also include a detailed story outline)
The documentary is fifty percent already filmed with scenes of events and interviews with Arnoldo Palacios, from Paris to Honfleur, in France and Bogotá, Quibdó and Certegui, in Colombia. We have digitized five hours of video-record in Chocó, Colombia, in August 2010, as well as two hours recorded in Honfleur, France, in January 2011. We need to visualize even fifteen hours on MiniDV cassette, listen five hours of audio-record and choose the relevant material. So, in this part, what is missing is a professional editing work. Also since the beginning of the project, the situation of the documentary as changed because our main character Arnoldo Palacios died few months ago.
The scenes recorded with a video camera are:
Despite the recent disappearance and the desire to
continue the dialogue directly with the writer, the intention is to finish the
documentary, working in part with the existing material and traveling to places
that we consider relevant to track parts of his personal history.
• Event Homage to the poets of Negritude: Aimé Césaire
and Arnoldo Palacios, Bogotá, August 2009, in the Modern Gymnasium with the
presence of the French Ambassador and the Minister of Culture;
• Two visits to the family home of the author where we
talk about his life and discussed the purpose of the documentary, September and
October 2009; • A meeting with Enrique Santos Molano, a critical and
Colombian writer, in October 2009;
• Launch of the book "Love Poems" by
Saturnino 'Nino' Caicedo Cordoba, an afrocolombian author, at the Museum of
Bogota, in September 2009 where Arnoldo Palacios was the special guest;
• Launch of the book " Searching my Mother of
God” in Cali, the second city of afrocolombian people in the country, October
2009• Launch of the book" Searching my Mother of God " at the Colombo
French Alliance, February 2010;
• Event in the Virgilio Barco library, entitled
"Meet the Author", in the month of Afrocolombian, in Bogotá, May
2010;A meeting at home about his life and relationship with events in the
world, Bogotá, June 2010
• 75th Anniversary of the school Camilo Torres where
Arnoldo Palacios studied and they made him a tribute, Bogotá, October 2014
The places we will
visit:
Warsaw, Poland:
•
Arnoldo lived there three years after he lost the Colombian scholarship to
study in France because there during The World Movement of Peace (1950),
supporting the cause of non-aligned he declared about the Colombian government•
We will film some streets to give illustration of the voice of Arnoldo speaks
about this experience where he met Roman Polanski, the cinema director and
translated the writers Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Slowacki from polish to
Spanish
• We will visit the foundation of the poet Katia
Granoff (1895-1989) who published him.
Roma, Italy:
• We will visit The Carlo Levi Museum which is
dedicated to the Artist with the same name of the museum, an anti fascist
italian painter and writer who painted close friend as the Chilean writer Pablo
Neruda (1951), the Italian actress Anna Magnani (1954), the north American
architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1956), the Italian philosopher Italo Calvino (
1959), the Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros ( 1965) and
also our character Arnoldo Palacios (1960) more info:http://carlolevifondazione.it/
• Also, we will search about the Italian
cinematographic director Piero Vivarelli ( 1927 -2010) who directed movie as
“Django” ( 1966) and also the movie “Il dio Serpente” where our character as a
role as a shaman.
Moscow, Russia:
• In this moment, his youngest son is living there and
it’s who we met in Honfleur, in 2011, in France.
• In this city, his novel “ the Jungle and the Rain”
(1956) was published for the first time, so, we will hear to speak about it
with the videos we will film there.
Senegal-Dakar:• Hadji Amadou Ndoye, (1947- 2013) was a writer and a
teacher of the University Cheik Anta Diop of Dakar. He was specialized in
Hispanic literature and he lectured about Arnoldo Palacios. We will go to his
University to interview his disciples.
