CONVERSATIONS WITH
VERÒNICA FONT ALFARO
What is your relationship with puppetry?
As a result of my past work as a scriptwriter for a TVE program, I know several professional artists from the world of puppetry.
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The art of puppetry was completely unknown to me, and one of the things that captivated me is the fact that it is a discipline that has maintained its essence, its natural magic, until today. It has barely evolved, it seems, and it is almost always based on the craft and labour of the artisan.
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This simplicity and austerity bring an element of connection with the audience. The minimum elements to express the maximum; a single fish is a river, a tree stands for a whole forest.
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Puppetry is a theatre of suggestion, a theatre that appeals to imagination, and the audience must often complete in their minds what the puppeteer only suggests.
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It is almost hard to believe that nowadays, with technology and sophistication at the basis of most entertainment games, kids are still left open-mouthed by a puppet show.
Why the idea of pregnancy and midwifery?
Working on another documentary, which intended to draw attention to a project of female empowerment in a small rural community in Nicaragua, we got to know the work of traditional midwives.
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Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about these women and I would like to highlight the importance of the work of these midwives who, nowadays –in this case, in Colombia, but this happens as well in other countries–, are still not integrated to the health system.
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One must remember that many indigenous communities have a very high rate of maternal and neonatal death. These are places where the trust placed in traditional medicine and the feeling of safety linked to the home space make women prefer home birth. As a result, many women deliver their babies at home and don’t go to a hospital.
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For these reasons, if the midwives were integrated to the health system, their voices heard and their wisdom and experienced valued, they would become true allies in the task of reducing such death rates.
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Besides their experience, these women are trusted by the communities, they have an unrivalled experience when it comes to maternal and neonatal health, and they also work in the areas where they are most needed and which are often far from hospitals.
What did you learn from your first trip scouting for locations in Colombia?
This first trip, carried out in September 2021, helped us consolidate our ties with the production company Séptima Films, while also proving to be a very important journey on a creative level, with new ideas coming into play.
One of them, which is growing stronger, has to do with Roberto’s cultural universe, and it’s about “the dreams”.
Dreams, in some indigenous communities, are the element connecting the material and the spiritual world. In the Wayúu culture, for example, the oneiric world, the dreams, and their significance in the lives of the living are an element of vital importance in everyday life. The dream occupies a central space in the resolution of situations that arise in life.
Throughout the development and rewritings of the script, I want to enrich Roberto’s evolution through the world of dreams, bringing the character closer to his own culture, and making it possible for certain messages or omens to mark his own destiny.
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In the Wayúu culture, we also find the figure of the traditional midwives who, together with SENA, are slowly working to improve the quality of life and health by means of an exchange of wisdom and different trainings.
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Another idea born from this first research trip is the will to film the Humpback whales as an epilogue for the film. These whales undertake a journey that stretches over 8000 kilometres to reach the warm waters of the Colombian Pacific coast, where they will give birth to their calves and mate. Between July and November, several companies in the Colombian Pacific waters offer sightseeing tours of such wonderful event. Besides the beauty of the scene, I think it works very well as a metaphor for the main plot.
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This research also brought me to decide that one of the main characters of the show performed by the puppeteers will be a stranded whale who receives the help of a Hummingbird.
The singing of the whales will also appear as another instrument in the sountrack, subtly and delicately adding to the music that punctuates the entire film.
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Puppeteer Angélica Espíndola, from the company Títeres La Jaguara, has been one of the most relevant additions to the team; after the good experience in the trip taking a show to the communities that we wanted to visit, she will play one of the puppeteers in the film and she will also be the person leading the whole proposal of the travelling show.