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Synopsis
Sit at his little 12 square meter hovel, made up of plastic and bamboo over
moisture and dirty soil, and the one that she shares with his husband "El Turco",
3 daughters and 3 grandsons, Paulina watches the people walk through themuddy streets of her neighborhood in Cali, the third city of Colombia in
importance and the one that receives more displaced people.
Paulina arrived 7 years ago to Aguablanca, a citadel at the east of the city
that homes more than a million displaced people from all over the country
most of them afro descendent of the Colombian pacific zone and from Chocó.
A dawn of 1997 in Salaqui, a town of Chocó, a strong buzz coming from
everywhere, woke Paulina and her family unexpectedly. Frightened, they
leaved their house, taking with them only the clothes they were wearing. After leaving their house they saw that the population was being bombed by “kafiros"
(military airplanes) as they call them. That day an air and land attack that lasted
several days began. They were thousands of men, women and children who
left Chocó.......they know they were expelled because of their land value, were
natural resources as uranium can be found, and also know that those airplanes
that throw bombs can´t be owned by any. With fear and uncertainty they
walked for weeks in hostile areas among rivers and jungle. On their way they
found entire villages, destroyed by the bombardment. Without knowing what
happened with the rest of the family, Paulina, and "El Turco" arrived to a shelter
for peasants, were they lived heaped with other displaced people for over one
year. They couldn’t leave because armed groups were out waiting for them. In
spite of international intervention, one day they announced that they would have
to leave from there, because the threat of a new assault was imminent. Without
anything and no money, they started again their viacrusis by different cities in
search of a place where to live, until finally they arrived to Aguablanca in Cali.
Paulina, aged 69, is a fertile woman that has given to birth 26 children and
brought to life another hundred of them as midwife. She’s "Mama Chocó",
symbol of nature, the river, the woods....... and of Colombia. She lives at a hotel
in Cali that when it rains gets bogged, and when sun shines the heat isunbearable, which has generated that Paulina’s health is deteriorating day by
day. Far away from where she belongs to tries to keep the bondage with Chocó
through memory and her songs. With a cigarette in his mouth, the one she
learned to smoke backwards when she washed evokes the happiest moments
in his land. On her new neighborhood streets and at the edge of a
contaminated pipe, Paulina imaginarily rebuilds his town and the Atrato River
“the mother of all small rivers”.
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She writes song’s lyrics, most of them express the love she has for what she left
and also the anger produced by inequality and injustice. She loves to sit on her
rocking chair in front of her house and tell to all the neighborhood children
stories and legends from Chocó, where the devil becomes an animal and
"Madre agua" is a mythic being that spell´s on men . They are stories that they
would only know through their grandmother, because hardly they would be able
to go to this magic place.
Paulina heard that in his farm is now living a military officer. While she talks to
us about this situation, she questions how life could be so unfair, how is it
possible that this man is eating their crops, their animals, sleeping on her bed
while they are "eating ashes" with not even a single bed to rest on, or a selling.
She complains of the abandon of the government towards displaced people,
opposed to the working , education and house benefits they are offering to
demobilized paramilitaries and guerillas, while them , their victims, expelledfrom their land by this groups are waiting for a small grant from the
government to buy a house. Every week Paulina meets with other displaced
women in a theater to exorcise their fears, the pain and the suffering through
music and dance and state testimony of their story. She´s a natural born actress
and one day she was chosen to co-star the film "Perro come Perro" in the role
of Iris, a malevolent witch. Her image and voice have been seen in the United
States, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Europe. ¿Would this change her story?
¿Would this improve her life? ¿Would the fame help that she finally could have
a house with floor and walls of brick? But like Cinderella’s story, Paulina is too,once the film release gets to it’s end, she has to get back to reality, back to her
hovel struggling day by day selling cigarettes and candies to survive. Beside
Paulina we always see "El Turco", her companion for over more of 35 years,
who won a lifetime of love with Paulina with a spell he put in the rum to Paulina.
Together they danced, laughed, worked and raised their children and
grandsons that reach to 70. According to Paulina "they are the biggest family in
Colombia" and now they are all spread out around Colombia fighting against
fear, war and abandon. This story is the symbol of what almost three million
displaced people in Colombia are living. They feel lost in the cities, were they
can’t work and are discriminated. Their reason of life is to have a house again.
Paulina with her songs evokes her town and takes us in an imaginary journey to
a rich and at the sometime desolated by war region, were we hear the voice of
those who stayed. It’s the chronicle of the pain, the suffering and the struggle
for having a worthy life in something that can be called "home".
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Treatment Elements
Narrative Structure
The narrative axis of this chronicle is the meaning of house in Paulina and her
family’s life. In this part of the documentary Jaime intervenes, Paulina´s
neighbor who paints pictures of dislocated people who live in Cali, he
reproduces them in oil paint, but painting about them the places where they
come from, getting inspiration from the photos these people give him
themselves. Paulina has asked him to make a picture of her with the house she
left in Chocó of which she has no photograph and this creative process will be
shown all along the movie. It is a symbol of Paulina´s evocation and search and
will also serve us as a visual axis.
This is the starting point of an imaginary trip our protagonist will make from Cali
to her hometown Chocó…we will go there and meanwhile Paulina tells us her
story, as she remembers her town, its rivers, forest and people; with our camera
we look though those places where she will not be able to return and we come
across other characters that complement the story, creating an account of
farmers, afros and Indians who fight clenched to their land and of others who,
not finding another way, fled.
Narrative Device
The element that will serve as a trigger and that will push this chronicle ahead is
the nightmare since the day of the displacement and the meaning of having a
house for Paulina and her family. It is the story of her constant search, from the
moment of their exile, going through different conditions, of the promise of
having it either from the part of the State, or of friends or the press that
generates expectation in the lives of our protagonists; up to the disappointment
of never reaching the goal. One of the turning points is when Paulina is granted
a housing benefit and Paulina chooses the house she is to buy. Light is once
more shed onto Paulina and el Turco who had been left with less and less
hope. This generates a sense of suspense that drives us to answer the
question; ¿Will Paulina finally have a house? “Never like the one in Chocó”.
That is clear.
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Musical Documentary
Our starting point and first creative proposal in this documentary is bred from
the musical richness of our characters, where we reached Paulina thanks to her
songs, that she composes, and at the same time she took us to a world where
her daughters, granddaughters, neighbors say it all through song. Music is a
fundamental part in the characters´ day to day life, as in this films narrative.
With it words are sometimes unnecessary, it is their way of expressing their
deepest feelings; joy, pain, mourning, friendship, love….
It is so that one day while I was watching her having lunch, she looks at me and
starts singing or how she seduced the filming team with which she worked or
when her colleague, Blas Jaramillo had to leave and she sings her gratefulness
and goodbye. This is as natural in their lives as is sleeping or eating. Thus, I
reach the conclusion that this will be reflected in this audiovisual proposal thatwould make MAMA CHOCO a “musical documentary”. In the middle of the
story some brief interruptions occur to give way for a fragment of singing, as in
the classic “Singing in the Rain”, result of passing the spirit of Broadway to the
screen. Here we use the music in the life of the characters to tell their own
stories, the same way their ancestors have. Parting from this concept, the
musical and sound designs become fundamental things in our movie, on one
hand, and oral lore as a root element.
Music and Audio Design:
Duality set by the documentary between the past in Chocó and the present in
Cali will be one of the starting points for our sound design. On one hand there
will be transitions between the two environments through sounds capes
recorded in Chocó which contrast with he urban sounds of the reality of the
present. On the other hand we will refer to traditional sounds of marimba and
other percussion but through samplers that allow a more contemporary
treatment to it.
The music will have an impressionistic nature since, instead of describing; it will
seek particular atmospheres thanks to sound textures achieved from popular
instruments. The oral tradition of the Pacific is reflected in the original songs
that the protagonist is used to composing to tell the episodes of her life. The
recording of her voice becomes valuable material to clear up and articulate
sound, music and story.
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Oral Tradition
This leads us to another important issue of our proposal as is the way orality is
handled in the documentary. Africa’s Diasporas have played a leading role in
Colombian literature. Since the arrival of Africans to Cartagena, the sacred and
profane word of the enslaved dialogued with Indian and European tongues. This
fateful encounter molded creative universes where there is a poetic deployment
of the word, be it written, said, sung or recited. In Afro-Colombian literature and
oral tradition we can see Africa’s memories recreated on American ground.
Among them is the deep love for words, according to anthropologist Nina
Friedmann. We will use this resource to obtain information about her life.
Paulina will chat with her husband, El Turco, with her grandchildren, her own
children, and friends to reconstruct the story of her life.
Textures and Shots
We will shoot some sequences using two cameras, trying to get a more
cinematographic effect, especially during conversations, where shot reverse
and the shot scale lead us away from a merely journalistic aesthetic. In regard
to textures, each place where the story takes place will have a special
treatment. Chocó will be warm, lively and evocative, long shots that allow us to
appreciate the grandeur and beauty of the landscape. On the other hand,
Aguablanca will be colder, yet contrasting with close ups capturing gestures and
characters´ emotions becoming much more intimate. It will also depend on thefeeling we may want to transmit. The represented sequences, as when
simulating Paulina´s dream in Chocó, will have a subtle change in color that will
differentiate it from reality. These textures will permit us to separate times and
spaces.
Production
Due to the film’s aesthetic and narrative approach, production is the key issue
to achieve a fluent account. Only here will there be a coherent construction
where different places and times shall blend; parallelism and juxtaposition
advancing towards the same end. Textures and sounds will play a vital role in
the aesthetic and narrative of the program.
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Motivation
“Once we arrived to Chocó, we found an incredible beauty
and natural wealth. At the same time a reality
full of violence and abandonment. So we stayed capturing pieces of life of this region. That´s how Mama Chocó
was born, a documentary project that shows the imaginary
Journey of a Chocó woman displaced in Cali…...from the
streets
of aguablanca´s district, with her singing and stories evokes
Bojaya and the Middle Atrato, a desolated and abandoned
region because of war”.
Chocó is a zone of the Pacific Colombian Region, were the biggest ethnical and
natural wealth and resources of the country converge but also the biggest
population poverty index. With a 46.530km extension is one of the most rainy
regions in the world, contains great biological wealth (subsoil, minerals and
water) represents a privileged geostrategic position: fluvial way made up of
three rivers that communicate the inside of the country with the pacific ocean,
the Atlantic ocean and panama.
Is the zone that provides to the country the 69% of sea fishing, the 70 % of
feedstock for the octopus industry, the 42 % of wood, the 8.1% of platinum, the
18% of gold and the 13.8%of silver. It zone has homes deposits of bauxite,
manganese, radioactive cobalt, tin, nickel, chromium and key minerals for the
ironworks and aerospace industry and for nuclear energy production. However,
its population has the highest mortality, fecundity, human poverty index,
unsatisfied basic needs, and lowest hope of life at birth, the lowest gender
development index and the lowest index of human development.
Chocó suffers the confrontation between armed groups because of the geo-
strategic position value of the territory (halls for arms and drug dealingcommerce from the inside of the country to the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic and
Panama). An interoceanic bridge construction project, the implementation of
large-scale projects, researches and investigations for management and control
of biological and genetic diversity, monoculture among other elements, has
generated more violence and the displacement of its population.
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This has been reflected in the forced recruitment of illegal armed groups, the
raise of selective murders, the abandon and forced confinement of native, black
and peasants towns, while the government plays an inert roll, where Chocó
doesn’t counts with social, economic and education plans benefits, only making
presence through the army........." it’s not fair, that from this country progress,
bullets are the only thing that has arrived to us."
Genesis Operation
Between the 24 and 26 of February of 1997, the counterinsurgency operation
"Genesis" was performed, with general Rito Alejo del Rio at head, in which the
Colombian army in collaboration of paramilitary groups, occupied and bombed
the basin of Salaqui and Cacarica rivers in the low chocoan Atrato region. In
this military operation, the murder of Marino Lopez took place, followed by the
forced displacement of more of 8000 natives, peasants, and afro-descendents,facts that were put in knowledge of the Inter-American commission of Human
Rights.
As a part of the commemorative acts of "Genesis" operation, the Permanent
Peoples Tribunal, realized a hearing about biodiversity and Crimes against
humanity in the humanitarian zone of Nueva Esperanza de Dios in the basin of
Cacarica river, during the days 25 and 26 of February of 2007. This session
gave continuity to the analysis of the multinational industries in Colombia
problem, in their activity of extraction of natural resources with the help of theColombian public force and paramilitary groups.
In 2009 the number of displaced people because of the armed conflict is up to
three million people.
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Script
Mama Chocó could be defined as a documentary in which observation,
representation and music are mixed with some traces of poetry that refer us to
the chronicle of Paulina´s life and journey. It will be the result of a series of narrative elements that allow us to tell this story with a juxtaposed approach of
time and space.
It is a story whose starting point will be Paulina´s here and now. Paulina, who
through conversations with her grandchildren, husband, family and friends and
her evocation songs will take us to her past, in which we can see the Chocó
where Paulina lived her childhood and youth happily; the arrival of the armed
forces and her escape from her land, up to her present day life in “el Distrito de
Aguablanca” in Cali where she now faces fear and fights to get ahead and havea house to live in while being able to keep her culture alive, in a violent world
where they are out of place and obligated to abandon their origins to be able to
survive.
Paulina and her family will find a view of their own history; they will take it,
holding on to their pride for their origin and the philosophy of life inherited by
their African ancestors that are reflected in their day to day life in their musical
tradition and social rites.
Direct Film
Film techniques will be used to get close to reality in certain conditions:
understanding, interchange and living along with our character and her
environment for a long time. This allows us to construct the story from an
omniscient viewpoint from the author, where our presence is almost invisible.
Films, the art of the instant and the instantaneous are the art of patience and art
of time. There are some provoked situations with the objective of generating
remembrance from the part of our protagonist that will send us to the land sheleft behind and the home she lost.
Our main reference point is Ralph Rouch and particularly his movie Moi, Un
Noir . Of the 530 ways to film and set up a character that merely walks down the
street, Rouch chooses the best way. Each shot is good, but what makes this set
up something special is the balance between trajectories, angles and speeds
among the different shots and solutions that Rouch adopts for the film.
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Representation
In the creative development of this documentary we will scratch around the
controversy of fashion, reality and fiction. This documentary will have provoked
sequences and others designed to generate metaphors in the story that blend
among the real moments.
This approach is opposed to direct films and its combination is what will
definitely make this documentary have an original proposal. In representation
Abbas Kiasrostami is our teacher with his movie Close Up, in which a relation
between documentary and fiction is established and proves that one feeds itself
from the other.
Furthermore, his ability in the management of the view that does not hold a new
problematic of representation but rather refers to its ontological background.There is not a view upon representation nor a representative view but
something simpler: movement of the view. Or what is the same: to open the
eyes” (Jan Luc Nancy).
On the other hand, through representation we also seek to provoke the
characters, for instance, taking Paulina to her house in Chocó. In this sense, the
filmmaker whom I consider does it with great ability is Rithy Panh in his movie
The Death Machine.
The movie confronts a dozen ancient red jemers – prison guards, in charge of
questioning, a doctor and a photographer, among others – with two of their
victims. Torturers and victims evoke this extermination machine, red jemer; the
first listen among a guilty silence the demand for explanations from the second.
The executioners are taken to the places where they tortured their victims.
Leitmotivs
1. Don Jaime’s creative process. Starting at the feeling of the dream of an
ideal home, a character appears in the documentary that materializes it.
It is Jaime; one of Paulina´s neighbors who makes oil paintings of
displaced people from the Pacific in their original places. He does this
getting inspiration from the photographs given to him by his clients.
Paulina has asked him to make a picture of El Turco and her with the
house they left behind in Chocó and of which she does not have a
photograph. This is the starting point of an imaginary trip that our
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protagonist will make to her hometown, Chocó…
2. Afro-Colombian Memory. What has happened in these last years in this
region. This will be developed in a television program created by us and
that Paulina and her family and neighbors will watch every week, which
will serve as a trigger for them to tell us about what they think and
remembrance of what they left behind. We will go to Chocó with our
cameras and while Paulina tells us her story, as she recalls her town, its
rivers, forests and people, we go through the places where she cannot
return. On the way we come across people that repeat the story that
Paulina already lived. It is like going over her steps. Reflection will be
generated not only about the violence lived by this region, but also about
the beauty of nature and the legends, customs and rites that are
practiced here. At the end we will go with Paulina to Rio Sucio, where her
house is and of which she has some vague news referred by family andfriends who did returned to the town.
Parallel Stories
Subplots will be juxtaposed all along the documentary, which will allow us to tell
the main story in a rhythmic manner, while other topics are developed parallel
to it, having characters in other spaces.
Love story with El Turco: behind every great woman there is a great man, and
this is Manuel’s case, El Turco, who Paulina had 18 of her 26 children and whowon her over putting a spell into her drink and who, from the moment she said
yes, has become her guarding angel who cares for her, adores and supports
her in all her projects.
Her life as an artist: her success in the movie Perro come Perro [Dog eats Dog]
(Director: Carlos Moreno), her rehearsals in La Mascara and her participation in
different castings to get a job as actress and/or singer.
State benefits and aids to have a house and eat: We will see along with Paulina
and her daughters the different stages of the process that displaced people
must go through to be able to get a house with the help of the State and/or
NGOs
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The exodus of the people of Chocó: Parting from Paulina´s story, we collect
testimonies and images that reveal some of the situations people live in Chocó
that cause its inhabitants to be move out to other places, especially cities like
Cali and Medellín.
Characters´ Profiles
Paulina Rivas was born 69 years ago in Bojayá, Chocó, and mother of 26
children from two different fathers. She used to live in Bajo Atrato with her
husband Manuel. There they made a living with a grocery store. She had a big
house with crops and cattle. She lost her mother and some of her children and
relatives in the Bojayá genocide. A year later she was pushed away by
bombarding and from that moment on she has been a displaced person. She
does not know how to read but has a prodigious memory. She sings, dances
and acts. She has been living in Cali since 2000 with her husband, somechildren and grandchildren in a house made of plastic and wood with a small
vegetable garden where she remembers the crops she used to care for in her
land.
Two years ago the producers of a feature film saw her acting with other
displaced women in a theater called La Mascara in Cali and that way she
became an actress in the movie Perro come Perro where she played the role of
a witch from Chocó and, although she could eat well for several months, her life
continued the same. Her struggle is the search for a house.Some months ago the State gave her a housing benefit that will only become
effective if she can obtain four million pesos more - an amount she might never
be able to collect. Now the movie has won awards abroad and she holds on to
the hope that this will give her the chance to finally have a good job and, so, the
money she needs to have her house.
Manuel “El Turco”, same age as Paulina, born in the capital of Chocó, Quibdó.
He used to be a policeman. One day he saw a beautiful woman who was
cooking in Bojayá and fell in love, it was Paulina. From that day on he became
her other half, her prince charming. Because of his condition as a state worker
in the police department he had to face difficult situations with the illegal armed
forces, to the point where his life was threatened by paramilitaries who
considered him an untrustworthy and dangerous person.
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He has remained by Paulina´s side all along the way as displaced people; he
has supported and protected her. His eyes are nostalgic and yearn for the land
he is sure those eyes will never see again.
Jaime is a self-taught painter who comes from Buenaventura. He has lives for
more than 15 years in El Distrito and he has his own house which he built
himself. He likes painting displaced people in their original environment as an
act of evocation. When he met Paulina he was amazed by Paulina´s courage
and for the misery she lives in and he wants to know what her house in Chocó
was like.
Besides these characters, Paulina´s children, grandchildren, friends and
neighbors, displaced as well, who back each other up and give each other
strength to be recognized by the rest of the population in the city and especially
to stop being invisible for the State.
Locations
Distrito de Aguablanca – Cali
There is a seemingly endless row of houses made of wood, cardboard,
bamboo, some houses in ruins and others made of brick and concrete that
leave columns in sight as a promise of a second or third floor. More than half amillion Afro-Colombians live here together with big numbers of people coming
from the south and the interior of the country. Most of them displaced people
who have fled from misery and war during the last 20 years or more. Floods are
very common due to the closeness of rivers, malaria and influenza are
abundant. Unemployment comes to 70% in some places. Some work taking
sand out of the bottom of the rivers and rubble while cultures, legends and
voices meet reveling origins that resist being lost. El Distrito de Aguablanca is
for some of the people in Cali a dangerous place whose limits they rarely cross.
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Departamento del Chocó
As was mentioned earlier, Chocó is located in the Colombian Pacific region,
between the jungles of Darien and the basins of the rivers Atrato and San Juan.
Thanks to its closeness to the mountainous region of Baudó, the jungle
escorted by its population, plus its climate with constant rain allow the
development of a great biodiversity. It is a region with awesome, exuberant
landscapes. It is the only department in Colombia that has coasts on both
oceans and borders Panamá. It is strategically located. When arriving in
Quibdó, the capital of Chocó, reality turns shadowy. The view over the Atrato
river, the houses with zinc roof tiles (tin roof covers), made of wood and in very
few cases of concrete; you can see the joyfulness of the people but you can
also see their poverty; the lack of water and sewer system in their territory, lack
of food in the houses of the displaced from other parts of Chocó.
In the interior of Chocó deforestation is undeniable. The territories are nearly
uninhabited. Chocoans tell us they have always been denied, since their
enslavement until now, when big companies exploit their territories or plan big
projects for “development”, which so far has only brought war. Accustomed to
making a living in the mines, fishing, low-key agriculture and hunting, they now
find that their land no longer belongs to them or that the animals that provided
their protein are being swept away, extinguished.
Step Outline
Evocation: Paulina remembers her house in Chocó, what nature was like, the
good quality of her life while we watch her talk from the inside of her house in
Aguablanca in Cali. A house made of plastic and wood, soil floor, lacking water
and getting her electricity clandestinely. While she keeps recalling her past we
see how she lives piled up with her husband and several grandchildren. Paulina
gets out of her house and tells the kids from the neighborhood about her land,
takes them up to a ditch with dirty water flowing down and there evokes the
Atrato river, the things she did there. She talks about the future and her hopes
and dreams… about how life is in nature and she can’t go back to it.
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Chocó: From the air we can see a lush jungle, surrounded by rivers and seas.
As if in a road movie we will record the trip through the region by boat what will
allow us to see the great importance of the rivers in Chocó, they function like
city streets. Commerce, culture and social life develop in them. Along the way
we can see the small colored wood houses on the Shore of Atrato River.
Further on we find kids swimming and women washing clothes in Ichó River.
There is such exuberance.
Operation Genesis: Paulina and El Turco relive that morning in February when
they had to run out, almost naked at 5 am, because they were surrounded and
being bombarded. As a flashback, we will see archive images showing the
attack and farmers´ escape from the bombs that left craters of 32 feet in
diameter. They all ended up as refugees in improvised shelters for the
displaced from where they could not go out because the armed groups were
waiting there to murder them. It looks pretty much as in a concentration camp.
The Nightmare: with the aid of a map we will follow Paulina and El Turco´s trip
with some of their children and grandchildren since the moment they were
displaced. They went by cities that did not receive them, towns where they were
led away by gunfire from battles between paramilitaries and the guerrilla, other
places where they were shooed away with tear gas by the police until finally
they arrive to Cali without a single coin to their name and with the feeling that
they were worth little for the rest of Colombians.
I need a house: Paulina and El Turco live in a worn down hut in very
precarious conditions which have made her ill. That’s why they have had to look
for a solution to get out of there. That’s how they get involved with Colombian
bureaucracy, being sent from here to there to be able to have a housing benefit.
This produces conflict between the people from the country and the people from
the city, the monster that devours them. They struggle to complete the money
they need to have a decent house to live in. As the story goes we will know if
they achieve it or not.
The Love Story: Paulina an El Turco met more than 35 years ago when
Paulina was already the widow of a man whose own grandmother had cast a
spell upon. It was love at first sight, but Paulina played hard to get until one day
El Turco convinces her of having a couple of rums with him. After that day
Paulina could not stop thinking about him and they are still together to this day,
with 12 children from their marriage and 7 from her previous marriage plus 6
she lost, in good times and in bad times.
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Neighborhood life: El Distrito de Aguablanca is a small city within the city. On
its streets we see the great variety of cultures that fuse together there since it is
a neighborhood of immigrants and displaced people. So, on each corner we see
afros singing, women knitting, kids dancing hip-hop, each one trying to bring in
a piece of their land. Don Jaime also lives here, a painter who makes oil
paintings of his neighbors in the places where they originally belong based on
photos. One day he receives Paulina´s order of an oil painting of her house in
Chocó.
Fame without Money: In her fight for survival Paulina took hand of the best
she knows how to do; sing. She begins working with a theater company that
works with displaced people and is discovered in one of the rehearsals by an
important producer who hires her to be the protagonist of a feature film. Paulina
sees the light at the end of the road at a moment where life is hard for her. We
see Paulina like Cinderella in the middle of the glamour of film making. Sheplays Iris, a witch from Chocó who serves as advisor for a mobster from Cali.
Colombia’s biggest family: Among children, some relatives, others not,
Paulina tries to remember the names of her 26 children of which most start with
an O. This makes her one of Colombia’s most fertile women, and of course of
her land. Not to mention all the kids she helped come to this world as a midwife.
Mama Chocó.
$4 million to go: In her hut Paulina tells us she has not been able to collect the4 million pesos she needs to make the housing benefit effective and buy her
house. She hopes fame earned from the movie will be useful to get more work
and thus the money to live. She looks sick. This is when the question arises,
What does a farmer, whose land have been ripped away, do in the city
expecting to recover an honorable life and that someone will treat them with
justice, as they do with the guerilla and paramilitary members who in the
moment of having recourse to the government’s amnesty receive a guarantee
for housing, food and education while their victims still await to be heard?
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PRODUCTION PLAN
Etapa Duration Action DescripciónPreproduction 40 days Acquiring all the permitions,
making all the legal contracts,finishing the script. Realization
of a shooting plan.
Production (shooting) 40 days Shooting in Cali (30 days) and
Chocó (10 days)
POSTPRODUCTION 70 days Watching all material, making
an edition script, go to edition,
sound design, and original
music composer.
In ProcessFinalization 30 days Copies, subtitles, colour
correction, sound
In ProcessTotal 180 days
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BUDGET MAMA CHOCÓ 75 MIN
100 PRODUCTION STAFFÍtem Euros
101 Script-Direction 4.000 €
101 Producer 2.000 €
102 Cinematographer 3.500 €
103 Soundman 2.600 €
SUBTOTAL 12.100 € 200 PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT Euros
201
Camera and accessories. Panasonic
p2 8.200 €
202 Sound 2.800 €
203 Lighting Kit 2.800 €
SUBTOTAL 13.800 € 300 RAW STOCK Euros
301 MiniDv tapes 250 €
302 Memory Cards 3.000 €
303 Betacam Tapes 250 €
304 DVD 50 €
SUBTOTAL 3.550 € 400 PRODUCTION Euros
401 Land transportation (Cali production) 1.800 €
402 Catering (Cali production) 1.500 €
403 Land transportation (Chocó) 750 €
404 Air transportation (Chocó) 1200 €
405 Fluvial transportation (Chocó) 500 €
406 Acomodation (Chocó) 1200 €
407 Catering 2000 €
409 Equipment insurance 800 €
SUBTOTAL 6.450 €
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500 POSTPRODUCTION Euros
501 No linear Edition 4.000 €
502 Editor 3.500 €
503 Original Music Composer 2.500 €
504 Graphic Design 1.000 €
505 Copies 1.500 €
506 Recording studio 1.500 €
507 Retouch and graphicness 2.500 €
SUBTOTAL 16.500 € 500A Stock500A-
1 Photos and Images 2.500 €
500B Translation and Subtitles500B-
1Translation
1.000 €
500B-
2Subtitles
1.500 €
SUBTOTAL 4.500 € 600 ACCOUNTING/LEGAL/INSURANCE Euros
601 Administration 2.500 €
602 Taxes 6.500 €
603 Other (Contingency) 3.000 €
SUBTOTAL 12.300 € TOTAL GENERAL 69.200 €
FINANCIAL PLAN IN EUROS
PREPRODUCTION AND PRODUCTION POSTPRODUCTIONMinisterio de
Cultura
Altercine Making Docs Fourmedia
Group
Jan Vrijman
Fund12.100 3.550 32.550 4.500 16.500
21% 7% 40% 12% 20%
Script-Direction,
Producer,
Cinematographer,
Soundman.
Raw
Stock
Equipment,
Production,
Production,
Accounting/legal/insur
ance
Stock,
Translation
and Subtitles,
Editor.
Postproducción
TOTAL 69.200
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Support Documents
CV FILMMAKERS
DIANA PATRICIA CUELLAR ESPAÑ[email protected]
STUDIES2001 Master in Documentary Creation. IDEV. UPF. Barcelona, Spain
1993. Social Communication. Journalist. Univesidad del Valle. Cali,
Colombia
FILM AND DOCUMENTARY2008 Jury in Gramado Film Festival Brazil.
2006 First Direction Assistant Feature film PERRO COME PERRO. Antorcha
films- Patofeo Films, COLOMBIA
2006/04 Production Assistant Mallerich Films Paco Poch FEATURE FILMS:
Dans rouche du couchant (Edgardo Cozarinsky), Cravan vs. Cravan (IsakiLacuesta), Tempus Fugit (Enrich Folch)
FEATURE FILMS AND DOCUMENTARY
2006 First Direction Assistant Film PERRO COME PERRO
Antorcha Films - Patofeo Films –
Colombia
2003/ 04 Production Assistant – Mallerich Films Paco Poch.
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FILMS : Dans rouche du couchant (Edgardo Cozarinsky)
TVMOVIES: Tempus Fugit, Boris (Enric Folch).
DOCUMENTARIES: La Leyenda del tiempo (Isaki Lacuesta), F for Fontcuberta
(Citrullo Films), Miró (Yves de Peretti)
Barcelona - Spain
2004 Production Assistant Shortfilm “El cos”
Isaki Lacuesta – Forum de las Culturas
Barcelona – Spain
2001 Production Assistant Film “Cravan vs. Cravan”
Mallerich Films – Benece Films
Barcelona – Spain
TEACH2009. Audiovisual Comunication. Universidad del Valle.
Filmography
DOCUMENTARY “Marímbula”
About Palenque de San Basilio’s children and the recovering of their ancestral
memory.
Making Docs - Spain
DOCUMENTARY “Fotofilm case”
About cinema as humanity’s patrimony.
Thinkwll Europa – TV3 –
Barcelona - Spain
2007 DOCUMENTARY “Weavers of peace” 25´
Amnisty International – Europe / Making Docs / Punt Doc
Colombia
2005 DOCUMENTARY “Love out of reach”. 52’.
Festivals: Latinoamericano Films, Toulouse, 100% Colombia (Paris), Bogocine,
Itineraries (Bruselas) and Live Colombia (Barcelona)
MAKING DOCS
Spain/Colombia
2002 DOCUMENTARY “ISAKI VS. CRAVAN”. 20’
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Festivals: Sitges and “Docúpolis” de Barcelona
Mallerich Audiovisual – Benecé – UPF - Barcelona
2002 Co-author DOCUMENTARY “Jewish Gypsy”. 52’
Festivals: Rotterdam, Film Jewish of Barcelona, Docúpolis, Festival Latin Films
of San
Francisco
Moshe Pesach. AUREA DOCUMENTARY – Barcelona
2001 Co-author DOCUMENTARY “Zalman”.
Festivals: “Docúpolis”, Barcelona, Film Festival of Canarias “Mediafest”, Film
Jewish of
Barcelona
Moshe Pesach. Producción independiente. - Barcelona
1993/94 DOCUMENTARIES“Evoking from tropic” and “Life’s footbridge”. 30’
Rostros y Rastros de UVTV - Cali
MAKING DOCSProducing Company
www.makingdocs.blogspot.com
MAKING DOCS is a documentary film producer created by Colombian
documentary makers whose goal is to create, spread and promote audiovisual
documentary projects, while seeking the development of new filmmakers
through teaching. It is an innovative, avant-garde, daring and effective company
that produces different proposals and has the potential to sketch out a new
horizon in Colombian documentary film towards the world.
The documentaries made by MAKING DOCS have focused in different topics
approaching areas such as sociology, anthropology and history of a culture; it
explores the origins, their social, economic and political problematic; it
denounces and protects certain rights. These works speak of communities,
people and, above all, their memory.
Diana Kuellar, Andrés Giraldo and Mauricio Gómez are the creators of MAKING
DOCS which came to life in 2004 in Barcelona, Spain and since 2007 in Cali,
Colombia. They are producers of their own projects while taking upon the
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directive roles in the company. Diana Kuellar, president and founder, works in
direction and production, Andrés Giraldo, Director of Photography, Mauricio
González, direction and production, Olga Gutiérrez, producer and Carolina
Carvajal, project development.
Meeting its objectives MAKING DOCS has an elevated social commitment,
using documentary as a way to divulger and sensibilize. At present, it has an
amply trajectory in the creation of documentary works that are in different
stages.
BACKGROUND
2009. MAMA CHOCO (Feature Length Documentary) in pre-production stage.
Direction: Diana Kuellar. Awards: Ministry of Culture 2008. Altércine 2009
2009 MARIMBULA (Feature Length Documentary) is being developed.
Direction: Diana Kuellar. Congo Film Award 2007.
2008 COCA IS NOT TO BLAME (Documentary 52’). Direction: Mauricio
González.
2007 PEACE WEAVERS (Documentary 24’) Direction: Diana Kuellar - Joana
Galindo. With the support of Amnesty international Holland.
2006 IF THERE IS NO WIND, DON’T GO UP (documentary 24”). Director:
Mauricio González. Best Corot “Actua” Cafam, ANSA- Amnesty international.
2003 GYPSY JEW (Documentary 52’). Direction: Moshe Pesach. Script and
production: Diana Cuellar. Rotterdam Festival, Jewish Film Festival Barcelona,
Docupolis, Latin Movie Festival San Francisco. TVE. AUREA DOCUMENTARY
– Barcelona.
2002. ISAKI Vs CRAVAN (documentary 24’) Direction and script: Diana
Kuellar. Sitges and Docúpolis Festivals. Mallerich Films. Benecé. Barcelona.
2006 IF THERE IS NO WIND, DON´T GO UP (documentary 24’). Best Corot
“Actua” Cafam, ANSA- Amnesty international.
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2008-2009 INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATE IN DOCUMENTARY CREATION.
Cali, Colombia. Director: Diana Kuellar. With the support of Universidad del
Valle.
Certificate from the Ministry of Culture of Colombia -Scholarship programs for creating television unit in the genres
of chronic and reporting
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Certificate of co-production withFOURMEDIA GROUP
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