Sangre propia

Direction
Andrea Castillo Cuéllar
Country
Chile
Format
Feature film
Type
Fiction
Original title
Sangre propia
Film presented in Toulouse

Near The River (Cerca del río)

Scenario
Andrea Castillo Cuéllar

Andrea Castillo Cuéllar

Filmography

Non Castus
Awarded in 69° Festival del Film Locarno and selected in Rotterdam, La Habana, SANFIC and Valdivia among others. Bilateral
Selected in SANFIC. Near The River
Selected in Toulouse and La Habana.

Note of intent

I was born in Bolivia. My grandma lives there, and my pregnant mother were visiting her, but I was born with six months of gestation so my parents couldn’t get back to Chile in time. When I was three years old, we went to live in Brazil and we only came to Chile on holidays. We came back to Chile when I was 12 years old and immediately I started going to school. I remember it was math class when I told to a classmate I was born in Bolivia, his answer was: “Really? I had never seen a pretty Bolivian like you, they are all black and ugly”.

Synopsis

Ariela (46), a Bolivian immigrant, has been working  for  eight  years  as  housemaid in the home of a Chilean family. While Ariela takes care of the daughter of that family, her own daughter Nayeli (7) goes to school full time and then waits in a precarious ballet workshop for Ariela to pick her up. Ariela has lost contact with her parents, because they refuse to talk to her since she left the Aymara community where she grew up, however, her mother’s health leads her to go on a trip to Bolivia so  Nayeli  can  meet  her  grandmother. Ariela and Nayeli board a bus, but the loss of a purse with documents forces them to stay stranded at the border. Ariela decides to call a former boyfriend who lives in that town to help them. In this desolate place Ariela  discovers  the  human  limits,  that the past is irreparable and how far she is willing to go to protect her daughter.

Visual concept

Own Blood is a road trip that will be filmed between Santiago and Bolivia. The main goal of the audiovisual concept is to show the  relationship  between  mother  and daughter. For this, in the insides scenes, we will use the closed-up shots with great emphasis on the skin and corporality of the  characters.  On  the  contrary,  in  the exteriors, we’ll use wide shots to privilege the oppressing environment. It’s essential for the movie to generate empathy with this peculiar maternal relationship, so the public can understand what’s in risk for Ariela.

Objectives sought in Films in Development

Get a co-production, get a sales agent and meet the heads of different residencies and labs, meet programmers for work in progress competition.

Planned shooting location

Chile and Bolivia.

Percentage of funding in place
6 358 USD (4,2 %)
Project's development phase

Script writing.

Production
Santísima Productora
Producer's biography

Graduate of Film School at the University of Chile. She worked in the production team of La última cena premiered at the Havana Film Festival, Sopa de Margaritas (2016) premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival and double winner 19th Rencontres du Cinéma, Near the river (2018) premiered at the Havana Film Festival and SANFIC 14 and the experimental feature film Transfusión.