Thursday, June 20, 2013

Telling the Spanish side of the Gibraltar story

After making the short student film in 2009, I saw that there were three main areas I wanted to improve on as I developed the story into the feature-length film that I'm now working on:
  1. Political inequity (lack of representation from the GSD party in Gibraltar)
  2. National inequity (lack of Spanish voices in the film)
  3. Gender inequity (lack of women in the film)
Each of these areas stung me sorely as I realized how narrow my representation was. I believed that I could tell the story better if I included more diverse voices, and that I could do it in a feature-length timeframe without losing the focus of the original student film.

Thankfully, I have been able to make four additional trips to film in relation to this film, and I have dozens of interviews that are now being worked into the narrative. Peter Caruana, former Chief Minister of Gibraltar, was happy to provide an interview that represented the GSD party. I recorded interviews with many prominent and interesting Spanish people, and I was able to interview a number of influential, thoughtful and eloquent women.

Here are two clips, one with Spanish sculptor Nacho Falgueras, and another with local Spanish government representative Susi Barranco. Neither is yet subtitled, so my apologies to those who don't speak Spanish. When finished, the entire feature-length film will be subtitled in both Spanish and English, with a third option to see no subtitles at all (which we're calling the Llanito version). If anyone would like to add English captions to either of these YouTube videos, the feature is enabled on the clips and I'd be grateful for the volunteer service.