presents amazona - edinburgh international film …...want to reflect on the dilemma faced by women,...
TRANSCRIPT
amazona
WORLD PREMIERE
press kitnov 2016
A film by Clare Weiskopf
amazona.co
presents
contents
loglinemain info synopsis locations
director’s notecredits
filmmakers production company
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IDFA screenings + Q&A
Val swapped family life for seclusion in the Colombian jungle. Now pregnant, her daughter, film director Clare Weiskopf confronts her with the choices she made in an attempt to heal her wounds and define motherhood before becoming a parent herself.
logline
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: ColombiaYEAR OF PRODUCTION: 2016
LENGTH: Director’s cut ca 82 min TV version ca 52 min
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE: Spanish, EnglishSCREENING FORMAT: DCP -English subtitles
FORMAT: 16:9
AMAZONA.CO
STILLS download
TRAILER ENGLISH https://vimeo.com/130672709 SPANISH: https://vimeo.com/182891448
main info
This is the story of Val and Clare: a mother and a daughter. After the tragic death of her eldest child, Val left her kids and family behind and escaped into the Colombian jungle. Only 11 at the time, Clare Weiskopf (the director of this film) couldn’t un-derstand what her mother was look-ing for. Thirty years later, when she becomes pregnant, Clare decides to confront her mother, heal the wounds of the past, and try to define moth-erhood on her own terms. Together they go on an intimate journey ex-ploring the boundaries between re-sponsibility and freedom, with all the guilt and sacrifice they entail. What makes someone a good mother?
synopsis
The film centers around a natural re-serve near the town of Leticia, right in the heart of the Amazon jungle, on the bor-der between Colom-bia, Brazil, and Peru, South America.
location
Does a woman have to sacrifice her dreams, when she becomes a mother? With this film I want to reflect on the dilemma faced by women, when they become mothers in today’s society. Once we have children it’s not at all obvious that we can continue to follow our personal path.
In 1985, my sister Carolina died tragically, when a volcano erupted and destroyed the town of Armero. My mother concluded from this that she should live everyday as if it were her last. Instead of wallowing in depression, she decided to follow her dreams.
I didn’t grow up in a city; I grew up travelling from town to town. Although the past left big gaps in my life, like not growing up in a stable family, it also allowed me to live a different kind of life and have unique experiences, like learn-ing to climb up an açai-palm, drink ayahuasca with real shamans, and live in different parts of the Colombian countryside.
When I was 11, I said good-bye to my mum, because she was leaving to live right in the heart of the Amazon jungle. I remember how
I couldn’t understand what she was actually looking for.
Everyone admires my mother: at 79, she is a free spirit, an adventurer, and a reiki master, who lives in the middle of the jungle, but trav-els across Europe every year, singing and play-ing her guitar in the streets. And she is a great storyteller too. Yes, she is an incredible person, but I have my doubts about her skills at being a mother. We are still close very close friends I never saw her as a mother.
I want to show my mother, as a rounded char-acter. I want people to see that she is an incred-ible woman but that she also had to make great sacrifices to get to where she is now. I want to show how some of her decisions had con-sequences, which prevent her being at peace with herself now. I portray her as a person with bright sides and dark sides. I reflect on how, in life, circumstances beyond our control can lead us to make one decision or another decision, which will define the course of our lives.
All my life I knew I had to make a movie
about her, but I never did it until now, when I became a mother myself. It should be obvious that by making a movie about my mother, I am also making a movie about myself. This is a movie about our mother-daughter relationship. In it, I set off on a journey into her past to try to understand the decisions she made.
I myself chose to be a filmmaker, and at this moment I have a 2-year-old infant. I know that sometime in the future, I will have to make some decisions too.
After more than 10 years making TV docu-mentaries on various stressful subjects, in-cluding the armed conflict in Colombia, this is the greatest biggest challenge I’ve encoun-tered. That is because it is always much more difficult to look inside one’s self.
Most of us spend all our time in front of a computer, wishing that we could travel the world and follow our dreams. For the most part, we don´t have the courage to do this. My moth-er did have that courage, until she encountered the final consequences of all her decisions.
director’s noteby CLARE WEISKOPF
DIRECTOR: CLARE WEISKOPF
PRODUCER: NICOLAS VAN HEMELRYCK
IDEA: CLARE WEISKOPF, NICOLAS VAN HEMELRYCK
EDITOR: GUSTAVO VASCO
NARRATIVE CONSULTANT: ANNE FABINI
CAMERA AND SOUND: NICOLAS VAN HEMELRYCK
MUSIC SCORE: CAMILO SANABRIA, VAL
SOUND DESIGN: ANDRES SILVA
LA TINA SONIDO
MIX: CARLOS GARCIA
GRADING AND FINALIZATION: JOSE ESPINOSA
2.35 DIGITAL
credits
Clare Weiskopf – Director
filmmakers
A filmmaker and journalist, Clare has spent more than ten years working on various social issues, ranging from the armed conflict in Co-lombia and sexual violence as a weapon of war to the spread of cumbia music in Latin Ameri-ca and Europe. She was twice a winner of the Simon Bolivar Colombian National Journalism Award. She was selected for IDFAcademy and
Dok.Incubator, and her projects have won fi-nancial support from the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute Fund, and the Colombi-an Film Fund (Proimagenes-FDC). She recently finished directing a documentary series for tel-evision for RCN-TV in Colombia ‘2012: Chroni-cles of the End of the World’ and one for Señal Colombia ‘Los Colores del Futbol.’
A filmmaker, photographer and architect. Cur-rently producing and co-producing several fea-tures. As a filmmaker, his work has been award-ed the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Colombian Film Fund, and the Tribeca Film Institute Latin Fund. He was also chose to participate in the Dok Incu-bator, the EAVE-Puentes Producers Workshop, and IDFAcademy. He has worked on television documentaries and for the feature-length docu-
mentary ‘Euritmia,’ winner of the Istanbul Inter-national Architecture and Urban Films Festival. From 2010 to 2012, he was producer of Violen-tology by US journalist Stephen Ferry. His pro-ject ‘San Juan sin Dios’ won the Colombo Swiss National Photography Prize and was chosen for PhotoEspaña. His work has been exhibited in Colombia, Spain, the USA, the Netherlands, In-dia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan.
Nicolas Van Hemelryck – Producer and Cinematographer
CasaTarántula is a Colombian production company devoted to filmmaking, and espe-cially author-driven documentaries. It combines the experience of Clare Weiskopf and Nicolas Van Hemelryck, who have worked together for over 10 years, designing, devel-oping, and producing audiovisual productions. They began working together for TV on 2009, as correspondants in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the United States, and Spain. Clare won two Simon Bolivar Colombian National Journalism Awards for some of these productions. Nicolas was awarded with the Colombo-Swiss Prize for Photography.
The company was created to produce AMAZONA (previously called To the Amazon), their first feature-length documentary. It began with a successful crowdfunding cam-paign (142%) with support from 322 funders in 28 countries. It went on to win support from the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the Colombian Film Fund, and was selected for the Dok Incubator, EAVE Puentes producers Workshop, IDFAcad-emy and IFP’s International Film Week.
The company is currently working on new projects at various stages with other film-makers, and is beginning the development of Clare’s next film.
production company
COMPLETED
AMAZONAFeature-length documentaryDir: Clare Weiskopf Prod: Nicolás Van HemelryckProduction co.: CasaTarántu-la (CO)Country: ColombiaSupported by: Colombian Film (Proimagenes), Sales: Cinephil
IN POSTPRODUCTION
HOMO BOTANICUSFeature-length documentaryDir: Guillermo QuinteroProd: Nicolas Van Hemelryck Production company: Casa-Tarántula (CO), Stank (FR)Country: Colombia, FranceSupported by: Colombian Film Fund (Proimagenes) Teaser: https://vimeo.com/184039372
DREAMS FROM THE MOUNTAIN OF CONCRETEFeature-length documentaryDir: Alex Fattal Prod: Nicolás Van HemelryckCountry: ColombiaProduction co: CasaTarántulaSupported by: Harvard, Wen-ner-Gren, Fejos
IN PRODUCTION
NO SOY YO QUIEN GRITAFeature-length documentaryDir.: Yira Plaza O’ByrneProd: Nicolas Van Hemelryck, Clare Weiskopf, Jorge BoteroCountry: ColombiaProduction company: Casa-TarántulaCo-Producer: Septima FilmsSupported by: Colombian Film Fund (Proimagenes)
IN DEVELOPMENT
AURORAFeature-length documentaryDir: Clare WeiskopfProd: Nicolas Van Hemelryck Production company: Casa-TarántulaCountry: ColombiaSupported by: Colombian Film Fund (Proimagenes)
EL VIENTRE DE LA BAL-LENAFeature-length fictionDir: Marianela MaldonadoCountry: Venezuela, Colom-bia, MexicoProduction company: Somos La Otra Banda (Mx), Casa Tarántula (Co), Sancocho Público (Ve)
LA ISLAFeature-length fictionDir: Enrico MandirolaProd: Nicolás Van HemelryckCountry: ColombiaProduction co: CasaTarántulaSupported by: U. Minuto de Dios, Dpto Comunicaciones
MELTING MEMORIESFeature-length archive docu-mentaryDir: Lorena KrausProd: Nicolas Van Hemelryck, Clare WeiskopfCountry: ColombiaProduction company: Casa-TarántulaSupported by: Ministry of Culture (Co), Distrital Insti-tute of Culture - Bogota
filmography
AMAZONA.co
facebook.com/AmazonaTheFilm
PRESSMirjam Wiekenkamp
NOISE Film PR +31 (0)6-28652249
WORLD SALESPhilippa Kowarsky
CINEPHIL +972 3 566 4129
PRODUCERNicolas van Hemelryck
CASA TARANTULA +57 31 32 33 1717
contact
Press & Industry screening:
FRI 18 Nov 2016 12:45 Munt 12
Public screenings:
FRI 18 Nov 2016 20:15 EYE Cinema 1 – World Premiere + Q&A*SUN 20 Nov 2016 22:15 Tuschinski 4 - Q&A*WED 23 Nov 2016 11:00 Munt 9 - Q&A*SAT 26 Nov 2016 14:00 Tuschinski 6
*Q&A with the director
IDFA screenings
