X Quinientos

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Note of intent

Cities are breeding grounds for cultural hybrids. Influences from innumerable places are mixed in each one of them, shaping in singular ways the people who live in them. X Quinientos appears from my fascination for this changing urban reality and for the way in which we, as its inhabitants, adapt to it and contribute to its constant regeneration at the same time.
The script will concentrate in three radically different cities in America. This decision comes from my interest in establishing a dialogue among different parts of the continent in which their inhabitants live simultaneously without ever coming across each other, but relating in their experiences, complementing or contrasting them.
X Quinientos tells the story of Alex in Buenaventura, Colombia; of David, in the Federal District, Mexico, and of Aurora, in Montreal, Canada.   The stories of these three characters and of the places where they live will be interconnected with the constant theme of being in contact with death, with the outer transformation in order to escape from mourning, and with the inner transformation as a mechanism to survive in order to move on with our lives after losing someone close to us.
Field research in each one of these cities will be a fundamental part of the process for the script writing. This will be a crucial step because it will help me gather the necessary information for writing a script rich in precise references, without pretending to depict these places as in a documentary.  My intention is to creatively explore the narrative possibilities of these three spaces, concentrating in the stories of each one of the characters.  The tone of the film will be more intimate than ethnographic, because my interest is to get closer to the universal topics of mourning and transformation, giving them a new dimension when defining them in these complex and captivating contexts.

Synopsis

When taking a look at the map of America, X Quinientos, a small village in the Yucatán state, in Mexico, appears just in the middle of the continent. From this imaginary point of reference, the movie tells the story of characters who live in radically different contexts, but who are related to each other due to their singular relationship with death and to their need of changing in order not to be consumed by their mourning.
Alex, an afro-Colombian teenager, who lives in Buenaventura, the most important yet most dangerous port in Colombia, has to create and imaginary version of his life as a stowaway in the North in order to justify the death of his brother and travelling companion.  David, a Mazahua youngster who migrates from his town to Mexico City because he is incapable of dealing with his father’s death, realizes that the only way to face the discrimination indigenous people are subject to in the F.D. is by adopting a Punk personality as a protective armor.  Aurora, a mature woman of a Filipino origin who has lived in Montreal for 35 years, finds herself in the obligation of taking care of her teen grandchild, who comes to live with her after the death of her daughter. Aurora has to then try to adapt her life in the city to the image that Peter has of North America, image which was created from the stories in her letters, distorted by the longing and the distance, now incompatible with her current life.
The stories of Alex, David and Aurora get close and engage in a dialogue in which they never come across each other. This group of stories explores three different ways in which as inhabitants of America we create a self-representation of ourselves to protect us from death, and to get closer to how we think the others want to see us. The invisible conversation of desire and mourning with which people from America relate to each other, is the underlying theme and unifying thread of X Quinientos.

Visual concept

The movie will explore the visual specificity of each one of the places in which it will be filmed.  From the tropical humidity of Buenaventura, to the post industrial coldness of Montreal, going through the baroque chaos of Mexico City, X Quinientos will show a wide range of contrasted realities from the continent. The unifying topic will be the presentation of these places from the perception of the main characters. A shoulder camera will closely accompany the characters and will react to how they feel in various moments of the story.
The cinematography and art direction will work hand in hand to create a natural but expressive visual style. The objective will be to emphasize the intrinsic aesthetic aspects of the real places in which the movie will be filmed, in order to produce the dramatic intensity of each story.