broken doll brochure

Broken Doll Films

Based in Veracruz, Mexico, Broken Doll Films has been producing short films, scripts and content for television and art exhibitions since 1992. Owned by María Berns and Juan Angel Salas, the produced films have been screened in international festivals. At present, we are producing the First International Film Festival of Boca del Río, Veracruz and a multimedia exhibition called The Brides in Nightgown based on the stories of the elederly women living in the port of Veracruz.

The company has worked with top notch profesionals in Mexico including Rafael Santamaría, Executive Producer. He was executive producer of television popular series Mirada de Mujer and several award winning Mexican films. He is one of the parners of Sherpafilms, a production company based in Mexico City. Javier Morón, Director of Photography. He has photographed award winning The Passion of Maria Elena and The Inmortal. He was the Director of Photography of feature films that toured international film festivals including Francisca and Used Parts. Felipe Gómez, editor, worked on feature films including Mordidas by Diego Muñoz, Moto Cross de Salvador cartas, Carlos Cuaron´s Sístole Diástole and Historias del Desencanto which he co directed with Alejandro Valle.

Some Broken Doll films productions include: Madre Patria, The Heroes of the Free Shop, Short Stories around a Bed, Black Ice, Diary of the Private Life, Jamaica in Winter, Splendors Before Death, The Bride/La Novia, A Russian Diary, Spots for television sponsored by Telefonos del Noroeste for the UNICEF International Children's Day for Broadcasting, Regina or the Story of the Bald Princess and Minimal Story of a Seduction.

María Berns Broken Doll Films, Página 1

Short Films


Short Story of a Seduction, México, 1993. A girl tricks a man whom she meets at a street in México City.

The Bride, México, 1997.

A young woman of

Russian Origin has

second thought before

getting married.

A Russian Diary, México, 1998. A n old woman of Russian descendant questions the place of homeland


Splendors, México-US, 2000. An old woman seeks to restore a gone world even against her actors´wishes.

Black Ice, US, 2001.

Magic takes people´s

lives to realize their

wishes at an isolated

town in an icy Winter..

Jamaica in Winter, US, 2000. A family tries to come back together, they succeed but only in the realm of bad thoughts.


Diary of the Private Life, México, 2000. A woman takes it on herself the redemption of four people at a US-Mexican town.

Short StoriesAirport. Good night, ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the delay, now we’re ready to board flight 2721 to New York City. The passengers of First and Business class will board through gate 27.He looks at his watch, 2:05. He waited like the rest of the passengers at terminal 25. He hears the “At last! They said that we should wait for an hour; three hours passed since then! This is the last time I fly by this company!”He smiles. He is a patient passenger, he doesn’t complain; he knows the routines of cancellations, delays and all the little problems of life in transit: the snow storm in the JFK two weeks ago, the s t r i ke o f fl i g h t a t t e n d a n t s i n Montevideo, the dead cow on the runway of Pistarini airport in Buenos Aires. But in the airports he has learned the value of order, the sequence of flights, the terrible difference between 934 and 943, the sudden change of itineraries. Yes, he believes in order (he buys health insurance La Provincial, quote for family group $128), in planning ahead. A four-hour flight, and he’ll arrive at Imperial Hotel (Luxury on 5th Avenue), take a bath (a relaxing bath with Persian salts), put on his suit Franco Uomo, four buttons crossed, neatly ironed by his wi fe (Honey? Don’t you forget anything?), take a taxi (Visit NY and enjoy it) and be at Baldwin Building where he’ll meet the executive board of

Preston advertising agency (It’ a jungle out there. And unless you step with confidence, you could fall prey to your competition) at 10 o’clock. He went over his presentation several times (Our quick, instinctive and disciplined approach assures all your tracks are covered before, any strategy or creative execution begins); he knows that nothing can go wrong.He takes his time to leave his seat by the window, that great looking glass which encloses a machinery of gestures, eyes that makes themselves bigger, the disordered sequence of books being closed, the arms extending upwards, getting lost in void, the hands ensuring the symmetric distribution of the features of the face, the feet obediently following the others towards the line of passengers.We continue boarding passengers of First and Business class, in flight 2721 going to New York.He thinks of his daughter, who is sleeping at this time, of his wife in her beautiful silk night gown (Yes, Victoria’s Secret), a lace holding her long hair falling on the silk blankets. There is no sadness in his recollection, this landscape of sliding floors, mechanic stairs and sliding luggage is part of his life.- Please, have your boarding passes at hand.He looks at the flight attendant, in spite of the time, she is impeccable. She has obviously taken the psychology classes


as she looks for the eyes of the passenger to create some kind of confidence in a passenger who offers no complexity at this time and on this type of flight: business, bills, interest rate, contracts, schedules, inventories, accounts, funds, projections, formalities: “Will you give me a second?”Will you give me a second?” Instantly, he feels the eyes of the impatient passengers nailed on his back, as he watches, in surprise, at the woman who walks to the counter; his hand still in the air. The woman quickly taps on the keyboard. - Miss?- A moment, please!The attendant checks again, and again, and she walks back to the man, avoids his eyes.- I’m sorry, but you’re not in the passengers’ list.What? What do you mean? I’m sorry, but you’ll need to check in another flight.Isn’t this Flight 2721 to New York? This is the flight, but it’s not your flight. But…Please sir; there are other passengers who need to board.There must be a mistake; could you check again?Now, the attendant looks straight into his eyes (he notices that the early hour has affected her, but she has been able to hide the marks under make up) and then at the employee at the counter.- Go and see if he can do anything.

He shakes his head, no way, no way, no way.- Can I have your identification?He takes out his credit card. - Don’t you have a passport? A license driver?He l ooks a t t he emp loyee i n puzzlement. Ok, let’s try with this.The employee slides the card along the scanner.CANNOT FIND CARD NUMBER.I’m sorry sir, but the system doesn’t recognize this card.Slide it again, there must be a mistake. The two men wait for the verdict of the computer screen.CANNOT FIND CARD NUMBER- Why don’t you try calling your bank? (Stopping his attempt to take the phone on the counter) There is a public phone by the restroom.He walks to the phone avoiding the looks from the other passengers who reveal the loser. What would his wife tell him now? “Two pink pills are enough to claim that anxiety”.- What? How is it that that number doesn’t exist? I’m at the airport; I need to go to New York… if there is any other thing that I can do for me? An explanation sir, which is what I need, an explanation. I want to talk with your supervisor… Can't you call your supervisor! I’m going to report you, do you hear me! Hello? Hello?”- That‘s why I don’t have the money in the bank. They are all a bunch of thieves.


He turns and sees an old man wearing muddy boots, a cowboy hat and a sweatshirt. He goes back to the counter; the old man follows him.If I were you, I’d take the money right now. Do you want to listen to my story?I don’t know what you do, but you need to put me on that plane.I’m sorry sir, but there is nothing else that I can do.I buy a new ticket.The flight is full. Please sir, can you move? Or I’ll need to call security. You’re bothering the passengers who have tickets. He turns and sees the boarding pass and the looks of the imbecile who shakes it in front of his face. - Are you my father?A woman wrapped in a shawl pulls the girl away from the man.Sweetie, don’t bother the gentleman.But, you told me that!Shhh, he’s going to get angry. The passengers continue boarding.- Look, I have an appointment in New York, in five hours (he yells so that the flight attendant who repeats her smile to every new passenger can hear him) or is it a crime to have dreams, a future, and a family? Do you have a family? I’m talking to you, lady! Don’t you want what is the best for them? The woman with the girl shrugs her shoulders as she approaches him. There are times when nothing more can be done and we only have to accept the facts.

Yes, it is better to take the money out of the bank; didn’t you see what happened in Singapore two years ago? And in Mexico? That is why I am wear rags. I was sent to the fields, that they were developing the fields! They think that people are stupid.The flight attendant takes the boarding pass from the last passenger in line, as he calculates the distance to the boarding gate. The void prepares the duel and, in an instant, the attendant’s voice is heard:- Security! Security!In black suites (are they Uomo as well?), two officers enter, pushing him into the waiting room. An arm as a V on his chest, the hands hold in a U at his back, the Z trapping his legs. I only want to take that plane!Don’t worry; we’ll solve your problem promptly.Where are you taking me?One of the officials traps his hands in a handcuff.I’m not a criminal.That’s something that we’ll need to talk about.I have nothing to talk with you.You’ll see that you have. So much that you will have not a word left in you.The girl holds the mother’s legs as the woman caresses her head “It’s OK, sweetie, nothing bad will happen to him.” The two and the old man watch as he is pushed to a room to one side of the free shop.

***


“Those men yelled at him; where are you from? What’s your name? And we could only hear him saying that he didn’t know. And it’s the truth; nobody knows where we come from. But those men hit him even harder, and so he talked about a sign of Pepsi Cola, about the square feet of the hallways, about the actress of the Mercury car, that he has a health insurance with a deductible of $ 2,000 so that they could do whatever they wanted, because he was covered. Why didn’t anybody do anything to help him?That is the way the world is, people pass by us and they have no idea of our personal tragedies, the problems, and the anxiet ies . And we have no government to talk for us, because we have no country. Tell me, where am I from? I can be Chinese, Swedish, Irish, and Peruvian; there I go pushed by the desires of the market. Do you know how many times they were about to fire me after ill willed proposals, decisions taken in rush, jealousy among the executives, or should I tell you that time when Grez arrived in a bad mood and he imposed this idea of me having that short cotton dress, in Boston, with 10 Fahrenheit, and everybody, and only to please the big chief, said unanimously, great idea, her legs should be seen. Nobody realized that it was snowing and I was there on the sidewalk with my feet and body frozen to die. At least, he still has some energy left, I have none.”

***

- Don’t dare to play the machito man again, that’s not your role. The only game you’re supposed to play is the one scripted for you. And, now, smile!The plane is no longer on the runway. He pulls his feet along the empty hallway, as the cleaning lady mops the floor. Loneliness is the only one with me,Love, my love, nothing to expect, Not even a dream, gray or blue.The lines of the chorus of this private song mix with the voices coming from the end of the hallway.I want to wait for dad.No, sweetie, it’s time to go to bed.But…Do you want them to come and take you away?He produces a smile (no, no, a real smile, nobody buys a fake smile, come on, do it again, don’t you have another photograph?) He sees the back of the woman who is on bed. If he could only see her face, just once! Or if he could see her daughter who sleeps in the other room. Yes, there are things that have no price, for the rest there is… he still remembers the words, and the illusions that weren’t true. The old man watches him pass from a corner of the hallway.- Honey, please, don’t try it again. It is not a nice spectacle for the kid to watch; we are a family and we love you, even though in a few days we won’t mean anything to you.


He would like to hug her, caress her face, but he can’t, it’s neither in the script nor in the availability of an executive at Preston advertising agency.

Rules. - Is it true that the train ran over a man? - What do you ask for?- To know.- Know what? How much blood did he lose? How many kids did he leave fatherless? Is his widow drowned in debt?-You’re very rude. What was I supposed to tell her? I could make the old woman happy with a story, but I’m not somebody’s clown; my duty is to keep the citizenship safe. Perhaps a nice story could have kept that old woman safe, but I went through the rules and I didn’t find a single line about special services to elderly people or about the storytelling duties of police officers. I found several mistakes, though. For example, I found several inconsistencies in the procedure to profile a criminal. Because it is easy after the crime is committed to create the criminal, but who can say before the deed who is the criminal? Can you point out and say that one is the thief, and that one the one to be robbed, that one, the assassin, and that one the victim? Maybe the victim is guilty of other crimes of the past or the future.

Let me explain it to you. When the railway service was interrupted, I was watching a skinny young man with a folder in his hand; he wore brand pants, a pullover in V, well combed, and he might be seventeen. He had some rulers, and I figured out that he was an Engineering student. Nice profile he had, girls must be crazy about him. It was obvious that he was a family kid, perhaps his father is an engineer too. Of course, the son follows the profession of the father, I thought, but he will be better, yes, he will design the bridge that communicates Buenos Aires with Montevideo. That’s nice, really nice! It will be similar to the one in California, the one you see in the movies! I made my own movie of the kid; I even married him to a girl who was sitting on a bench by the newspaper stand, with blond and plain hair. She looked like a student too, but from high school. Kids? Yes, they will have kids, three.Perhaps you’ll think: this guy doesn’t work, but standing there you play the psychologist with so many people. And psychology was the course I liked best in the academy. I read all the books that the professor gave to us.I always loved books, although I don’t usually say it because the colleagues laugh at me. But books are like people; they reveal you something, a truth. The difference is that you can find it in 1000 words. And with people, you need to live all their lives to know only parts of


it. It was easy with the kid on the platform because he was an open book. Words! Sometimes I think that people are part of a written text, or is it the text which writes the people? As the rules which tell me what to do in this or that situation. But they don’t work sometimes, that same thing happens with words.I feel bad when words betray, when they say something and mean another, and so they take you to a wrong place. And, in this profession, there is no place for an error. There is a perversion in words, an impudence that makes me sick. Because they can commit crimes and they walk on the street with the stamp of innocence on them. The person who mouths them is accused but not them. For that reason, I sometimes do my shooting drill with words.But don’t take me wrong. I love the words; I do, if they are the only things that we have! Times, people, money, all the material things, even hate, are lost. What we were, what we are going to do, see the government plans, are words. Just yesterday, I was talking with Norberto, the owner of the newspaper stand on the platform. He asked me what they teach us at the police academy because the officer who was before me at the post wanted to be a dancer but when he told his dad, he sent him to the police academy so he learnt what it meant to be a real man.

And this guy asked Norberto to lend him the magazines about dance and he didn’t give them back. As he is a police officer, Norberto felt embarrassed to ask them back. While we were talking, the young man, the one who was the Engineering student, approached the stand and began to browse a magazine. Guess which one? Popular Mechanics, of course!Perhaps you’ll ask yourself what connection there is between this and what happened later. Let me tell you that there is, and a very strong one. Because the words played me dirty yesterday. They didn’t reveal me who robbed the National Bank, nor the name of the murderer of Barracas, or the true feelings that Carmen has towards me.No, sir, nothing of that. I heard: The thief! The thief! And the old lady, the one who wanted a dirty story, pointed at the young man and I told myself that he isn’t a thief because he will build the bridge. But other people pointed at him and I ran after the boy, as I tried to think of all those words in the rules. But the words yelled by those people erased every other word that came to my mind.-That is everything that you have to say, captain?-Yes, sir.-Do you realize that with the same gun that the force gave you to protect the citizens, you wounded four persons, including the kid who died in his way to


the hospital? What did we teach you? Bullshit we taught you. And now we have the press on us, asking questions, inventing all those stories. I’ll have to take out your gun and badge. I need to follow the rules. Do you understand?-Yes, sir, make the word prevail.


Excerpt from Novel: Of Deers and Butterflies

Once he left La Gregoria at the pier, Suárez walked into the bar on Mitre Street, choked down a grapa and boarded the train towards Central Retiro station. He got off in the first stop and wandered amid the vending stands covered with rags bearing uncertain color. He refused invitations from strangers to spots that he already knew. Late at night, from the bar in the corner of Colon and Lavalle streets two men saw him climb the stairs of Lusitano hotel.When Concepcion opened the door of room 202, he threw himself into her arms; even though she had a customer in her bed, she whisked him in. Half dressed, the customer refused to pay her; Concepcion cursed him using one word (Dona Marta heard her from the newspaper stand from across the street); she was once a mother and recognized a son in need (Don Luis peeked through the opening of the door and thought that she was holding a little boy). He always visited Concepcion when he hunted deer, what happened within the four walls was a desperate attempt to resuscitate the animal that was hours ago dead. That time, there was no possibility of resurrection. Concepcion wrapped him with useless words that she spit out at the officer when three days later he knocked on her door asking about him. Two hours later, the kid who used to work at the grain station saw him walk along Colon Street: he clumsily moved as a doll pulled by invisible threads; he remained on the coast of the River, but he was no longer the one that he used to be although he resembled him.After eleven, he registered at Delta Hotel. Acknowledging the authority gained by paying the bill in advance, it was at one o’ clock of the third day after he checked in that the manager knocked on his door. As nobody answered, she opened the door with the master key. The open window revealed that the guest had flown. The cries coming from the street pulled the women to the balcony; the neighbors announced a whole collection of misfortunes: one of Lavalle bar’s habitués missing one arm and both legs, two kids with a sudden rush of green cockroaches all over their skin, one of the women from the neighborhood by the river with two heads none of which held any resemblance with the original one and one of the cold meat station workers with chicken legs and wings instead of legs and arms. The catastrophe was settled and the woman added her own voice when she turned to the bathroom and saw an animal hanging from the shirt that the guest wore when he checked in three days earlier. The Dona twisted her body towards the sun now transformed into a black disc, perhaps reacting to the horrors announced by the humans.


The neighbors didn’t flood the streets as they used to when something was wrong in the neighborhood, instead they remained seated in the living rooms and in the kitchens. To prevent the spreading of the pest, the mate, the gossip and the kisses on the cheek were suspended indefinitely. Due to the reclusion of the infected neighbors, the doctors wouldn’t provide a diagnosis responding to the magnitude of the deformities. Considering those alive and their specters, nobody ever knew how many the affected were; the only death registered as result of the pest was the islander’s at Delta Hotel, if it was, in fact, him. Many neighbors explained the sudden presence of this army of silent monsters as a sign of the Apocalypses and a few others as the vengeance of the Cabecitas, a gang recently set free after spending more than one month in jail while they waited for the sentence of the judge. Confronted with the file of the case that consisted of just one page, the judge, raised his hands invoking the non existent justice and established, by signing that only paper, the innocence, wrongly gained, of the gang. Everybody expected their vengeance: somebody from the neighborhood had given their whereabouts away. Pampero wind played on the streets of a deserted Canal District and, in compliance with the river, invented its own game; it dried the channel revealing more than half of a century of history on the coast. The Cabecitas indulged in a sweet sleep and dreamt their future crimes.

***Yes, the river has never receded so far into its center. In the islands, sirens announced once and again a new barren ship; the river stopped along with everything that it carried. Officer Martinez couldn’t figure out how this young woman bearing the dullness of the river, reached the Prefect Department and was now handing him a set of papers soaked in the muddy water. Perhaps the river forgot her on the pier as it left its usual dwellings. With uncertain interest, Martínez eyed the tepid handwriting, impossible to translate into the language of the official documents; the set included a collection of drawings that exhausted the logic of possible and improbable combinations among all the animal species including the man. He had his hands in this fantastic universe when Subaltern Segundo stepped in the office supplying the new of the death of the islander from Negro creek at a hotel in Canal District. He mentioned a massive collage of deformities that Martinez immediately eyed replicated in the pages at his hand. For the first and last time, the two stories met and instantly, as a true son of the river, Martinez filled his lungs with the humid air of the islands, released it and kept


the papers in a manila envelope curtailing any comments. At that moment it wasn’t worth the effort looking for the woman: she had already disappeared like a specter of the river. That same afternoon, Martinez took the news of the islander’s death to whom everybody considered to be the father. Martinez had worked a one-sided friendship with the old man and visited him with the excuse of advice on deer hunting that he mixed with other words –have you seen anything strange in the river, if I could anything for you, just let me know, we can go together to hunt, some time-. With his habitual indifference, Don Julian just heard that useless thread of words. Martinez took good care to simulate a similar indifference as he tightened a cord of the police boat, but the truth was an imbalanced equation between memorable and insignificant moments trapped between two strangers. With the eyes nailed on the wooden floor of the pier, the old man listened to the usual nothingness (did the tide ruined the entire plantation? when are you cutting the sauce? Is the dog ill?); Martinez was only delaying the purpose of his presence on the island. The old man uttered interjections; after he heard the two-sentence summary of the happenings at the hotel in Canal District, he raised his shoulders and returned his eyes to the wooden floor where they were expected to lay. The papers remained on Martinez’s desk for more days than it was usual in these cases; was it a sign of somebody asking for help in a case in which his guilt might be revealed? Dona Luisa, the lady in charge of cleaning the Prefecture, exclaimed as she saw the drawings:That is the devil’s deed or a Christian who lodges the disgrace. And, into Martinez’s ears, she murmured: The tide is low and the bad bugs leave their hiding place only to spread damage.The papers were ostracized in a drawer almost identical to the one that received the file of the islander’s death at San Fernando police station. Only Dona Luisa eyed the texts once in a while: those images of monstrosities fed her routine pleasure in reading the police section of the newspaper. The texts had no order at all, not even an ending; as bored as Dona Marta was –there is so little happening on the islands-, she lent them a beginning, middle and end; the work of cutting and pasting together fragments took her several months (what she ordered one day, somebody who she never saw, disordered the following day) until the wind, taking advantage of Dona Marta distraction to close the door, stole the papers from her hands and returned them to the river.

***


Rosa and Leonor arrived together in Buenos Aires; in a sudden, one split from the other, the incident initiated Rosa’s quest for Leonor. The mother sent her daughters to the South: there the men had fewer manias than the ones up the river. If she could only buy them the husband at the marketplace! There vendors let her touch the merchandise and she never got a surprise when she opened the bag at home. The mother always sent the same letter and added a new detail; each of her daughters had a peculiarity that she made it stand out: she is good folding the empanadas, she manages to wash the collar of the shirt to white, she extends the sheets on bed so neatly that you won’t be able to see a crease, she washes her feet every day. Her sources? All the reliable ones: the three o’ clock telenovela, a letter sent by the only cultivated husband that she had, a short story from a fashion magazine, a little anecdote that that her neighbor next door told her before she stabbed her husband, and what her first husband told her the wedding night before going into bed. In a school meeting, the mother convinced the teacher to review the spelling; although she mastered the composition, she was not as good with accents and differentiating s, c and z. The letter was a success as the girls once they left, amid weeping and questioning their destiny, never returned. The answer from down the river delayed what separated one menstruation from the following one. As soon as the mother put the letter in the mail, she began packing. She wept wetting the humble bridal packing that included a nightgown long to the knees, a set of white blankets, two embroidered panties, a loose dress with floral prints on the front, and a linen tablecloth. The clothes remained wet until the daughter opened the suitcase in her new home. Seduced by the politeness shown in the letter, the mother harbored no doubt that the husband would fill in the required household furnishings. Rosa was different; the answer to the mother’s letter delayed more than the usual; the mother wrote two new letters but still obtained no response. In the fourth one, she talked about Leonor; it was evident that the product was not enough to the eyes of the candidate. Since she was pregnant, the mother never trusted Rosa; she had the heart torn between two lovers, a luxury that a girl shouldn’t had. No fancy stuff for the girls, only problems stood ahead. Rosa was white as a fogged photograph. At the photo shop, the technician explained the error as a result of opening the camera when the film wasn’t completely rolled. Rosa was born before the due date; the mother experienced the labor pain on bus 45 near the


market. Two senoras delivered the child on the sidewalk under a burning sun. The mother couldn’t set her eyes apart from that sun set at the zenith of midday; that light fogged Rosa. When the mother heard: She is white! She is white!, she was certain that something had gone wrong. The mother started talking about Leonor before Rosa learnt to talk; she took greater care of her than she did of the ruined one. The older sisters raised Rosa but as the mother sent them South, Rosa grew alone and her education was never completed. Rosa and Leonor didn´t quarrel as typical younger sisters do, Rosa didn´t foster any envious or jealous sentiments due to the mother´s unrestrained attention and her constant praise of Leonor: your hair in braids looks beautiful, how adorable wearing your stockings up, if you went to school the teacher would only give you the highest mark. Leonor was the female embodiment of an illusion from the park and she never stained her panties. Her clothes were always clean as if she hadn´t ever worn them. Her voice had the pitch of a fully developed woman, she didn´t skip the ºsº and could pronounce all the consonants. She learnt everything at first sight even though she never attended school; the mother didn´t want anybody to smear, that is to say, to tell her the truth. My daugther is part of the advances of the modern world along with the electric toaster, the vacuum cleaner and the tampons, the mother explained to her new indifferent neighbor, a short woman with dyed hair and cigarette breath, who just moved her head to and fro as she rapidly swept the sidewalk towards her house. When the postman gave the mother the long awaited letter, a Thank God that lifts this pain from my chest, flooded her mouth. Even though she hadn´t got her period, even though she was already seventeen, Leonor parted with Rosa, the mother liked telling stories but she was no a lier and it was not fair to deceive the candidate sending one woman when she talked in her letters about the two. The mother quickly invented a new boy friend for Leonor: he was the groom´s brother who had just arrived from Spain with suitcases filled with money. He was building a factory of women´s underwear on the coast of the Parana river. Certainly, he was the perfect match for Leonor, the mother knew from the Spanish movies, particularly those shot during the general´s era, that ºmen from the other side make women feel like queens.ºLeonor was the mother´s most extraordinary work of fiction conceived involving no semen, no fluids, no blood, no cries, no pulls. It had been the tranquil elaboration of a woman enjoying the afternoon. As she contemplated baby Rosa, that piece of animated flesh crawling along the sidewalk, she started talking about Leonor shaping the biography with unforeseen consequences for the little creature that was playing


between her legs. When she was called inside with a mate offer, Leonor had been conceived, incubated and born and the new baby started playing with Rosa. To prevent her from getting bruised, the mother lifted the newlyborn up leaving Rosa at the mercy of the sidewalk. The mother´s poor love for Rosa was confirmed later on when, instead of inventing a boy friend as she did for Leonor, the mother pushed her to the uncertainty of an unknown real man when in fiction everything can be revealed. Amid the madness at Retiro central station, the two sisters waited for the two men below the huge clock that hanged from the center of the gothic ceiling. Patience struggled with distrust as Rosa and Leonor stared at the hands slowly completing one hour cycles on the four white uncaring face of the clock. Devoid of the mother´s script, Leonor quickly got bored in spite of Rosa´s attempts to cheer her up with massive praise of her clothes, hair, nose, hands, look. Better go to the waiting room to rest, Rosa told her because leonor was quickly fading away and she needed to wear a fresh face when the guy from the factory arrived. Visibly upset, Leonor drag her languid body imbalanced by the weight of the small suitcase that she carried in her right hand towards the desolated room. That was the last time that Rosa saw her. When it was clear that nor her groom nor his brother were showing up, Rosa found no sign of Leonor. In vain, she asked everybody until a crippled old man begging by the ticket booth pointed at the platform: all the girls board the train. Rosa didn´t find Leonor nor in the first nor the last wagon. As soon as the train pushed to a start, Rosa took her head out of the window where the pictures only showed a young woman who has been robbed and was posing in underwear. She was not leonor but Rosa saw the doings of the underwear factory brother on the premises. Concentrated on their newspapers, books and cryptic conversations, the passengers paid no attention to Rosa´s drama. When a little girl who sold religious cards smiled at her, Rosa asked about Leonor (did you see a girl, older than you, with her hair combed in braids, impeccable white teeth, her mouth sepraating the two holes that her eeks create when she smiles, she speaks a little English). Like a broken record, the girl repeated: yes, yes, yes. Rosa followed the girl along the wagons and out the sliding doors whn the train stopped at a busy station. The crowd coming in and and going out entangled Rosa into confusion moving her away from the girl who raised her white arms while the opossite crowd pushed in the oppossite direction. When Rosa was able to get loose, the girl was no longer there along with the hope of finding Leonor. As she tepped out of the station, she mingled with the apparent festive of the multitude gathered in between the stalls exhibiting fresh fruit and vegetables brought


from the islands along main street and the señoras´gossip. At the end of an alley, Rosa recognized her mother´s house but she refused to disappoint her and she avoided that alley during her short stay in el Canal. As she walked further, her wedding started losing validity. By the curb by a chaotic collection of wooden boxes, Rosa opened her suitcase: the panties fell on the pavement, slowly the mother´s fiction blended with the reality of the street. Mine didn´t have that. A young man fished the panties from the pavement, the synthetic lace got entangled in his scratchy hands. What did you keep in yours?I can´t remember. Rosa laughed at the young guy, known as El Pibe, who couldn´t tell the difference between the top and the bottom of her panties. They are itchy. What is the use of them? To make curious guys ask. If you are trashing them, I want them. As soon as Rosario shrugged her shoulders, El Pibe tugged the panties in his trousers. If you are looking for a job, the boss needs a hand. What do I do with the rest? He´ll find something in which you can use it. He knows everything. Now tell me that he is God. Well, as a matter of fact, he is.

***


Exhibition books


The Comadres in Nightgown. México. This book collects the conversations with elderly women who share their hidden stories in the Port of Veracruz.

Veracruz, a City to be built, Mexico, 2008. The dwellers of this historic Port on the Gulf of Mexico chronicle the internal life of the city.

New Film ProjectsSo LongTold from the point of view of the women, the ambiguos time that the salutation So Long includes is revealed when four migrants return to their home community in Mexico after working for years in the United States. As they try to adapt, their communities question the original purpose of their trip and the present identity after years of separation.

Memory of the Animal After a huge high tide, Rosario visits the islands of the delta of the Paraná river in the border between Argentina and Uruguay to shoot a movie of the aftermath. She comes across an old man who lives with a girl and a police officer who will reveal the true story of her film which happens to be linked to her past.

Etsuko´s Box

Etsuko arrives at the port of Veracruz and opens an oriental lunch place. When she grows an orchard in the backyard of the store, she finds a box with objects which she hangs in the store. Neighbors recognize the decorations as theirs. Etsuko starts a research that will reveal the reason by which the box was buried a long time ago. The neighbors will need to convince Etsuko that they are the real owners of the objects.


Broken Doll FilmsMARIA BERNS

OFICINAUribe 169 91900 Veracruz Veracruz México

TELÉFONO FAX 52 1 55 2883 6975 1 501 639 1008

[email protected]

WEBissuu.com/brokendollfilmsissuu.com/solongfilm


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

broken doll brochure

Documents

broken doll films productions

feature films

produced films

broken doll filmsbased

mxico city

award winning mexican

short story

russian diary