WHAT’S MORE, IT’S TRUE
BY GREGORY ELLWOOD >>> A police officer who, from an emergency call center, tries to save a kidnapped woman. An unorthodox family trying to survive by shoplifting and scamming the system where they can. A man who finds his kindness taken advantage of in a horrifying manner. A boy whose negligent parents force him to ask the unthinkable. And a surprising twist to Colombian drug trafficking. These five stories may originate from different lands, but they speak universal truths that are evident no matter what language they are told in. Moreover, all five stories are bound together by the fact that they were inspired by real events.
“Birds of Passage”
There have been many films over the years about drug trafficking in Colombia, but there is one important part of the story that has seemingly been lost to history. From the 1960s through the 1970s, a good portion of the cocaine pipeline was controlled by the Wayuu, a Native American ethnic group in the northernmost part of the nation. Their economic reign is the basis for Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s epic tale, “Birds of Passage.”
“It’s a story very few people know about,” Guerra says. “In the north, everyone knows about it, but it’s more like an urban legend. There are some books, but it’s not a story the new generations know about. It’s a story the old people remember.”
Gallego adds, “We had a kind of taboo to talk about the Narco trafficking in our history in our cinema, and we felt that it was something painful for us.”
When Gallego and Guerra approached the Wayuu people about the project, they were concerned about the reaction. But the Wayuu were enthusiastic and happy to share stories about what they consider a “golden age.” It was a time when the Wayuu experienced an economic growth they had not seen before and haven’t seen since. Moreover, everyone had a story about it or knew someone or had a family member who was involved.
“We weren’t just making a movie about them, we wanted to make a movie with them,” Guerra says. “So they really became close to us and they participated in every aspect of the film. A large chunk of the crew was Wayuu people and all the costumes were made by Wayuu people, all the construction was made by Wayuu people. And it was very important to us that every step of the way they were a part of it.”
“Capernaum”
Whether it’s in her native Lebanon or other countries around the world, filmmaker Nadine Labaki knows she is not the only one moved by what seems to be a neverending refugee crisis. This struggle was her initial inspiration for “Capernaum,” a drama about a 12-year-old boy (Syrian refugee Zain Al Rafeea) who decides to sue his parents for giving birth to him. However, unlike last year’s Lebanese entry, “The Insult,” most of Labaki’s drama doesn’t take place in the courtroom. Instead, Labaki and her team set their story on the streets of Beirut where Zain is attempting to simply survive.
Labaki recalls, “Every time I used to talk to those [street] children, I used to ask one question at the end, which is, ‘Are you happy to be alive?’ And most of the time the answer was, ‘No, I’m not happy to exist, I wish I was dead. Why do they bring me to this life if nobody’s gonna love me? If I’m gonna be treated like this? If I’m gonna be raped or beaten up every day?’ ”
To convey the depravity these children experience, Labaki would allow her actors to improvise based on what was occurring around them in real life. Sometimes that meant Zain would run around the block 10 times or he’d randomly interact with a stranger. These moments were not written into the script, but if they were compelling Labaki found a way to integrate them into the story.