Every story is about an open door.
This one is about going back to find the open door that leads to our hearts.
“Hundreds of stories that depict and recount loss from its most devastating standpoint have been shared. They portray an experience so agonizing and traumatic that it prevents us from ever truly moving on, revealing that something has irrevocably shifted and will never be the same again. And to some extent, it's only natural for it to be that way...”
“But what about those who decide to bury all that pain? When they tuck it away in some corner deep within themselves and choose to live their life as if they had never experienced that loss.
This story touches upon that human aspect of resignation, accepting the bitterness, and carrying on, oblivious to the truth right in front of us. Luna encourages us to turn inward, albeit with a painful struggle, to process and come to terms with life, granting ourselves an opportunity to place our memories where they truly belong."
Piero
At first glance, Piero might seem like a lonely, unfriendly man, but there is more to him than meets the eye. A while back, he was a prolific writer, awarded with numerous prestigious awards. Now he follows a strict routine where there is no time for anything other than writing. But something has suddenly changed and words do not flow as easily as they used to.
Piero has limited himself to living confined in the interior of his labyrinth-like house and rejects any contact with the outside world. What our protagonist does not know yet, is that the unexpected irruption of a naughty kitten into his fortress, will eventually put his resigned attitude to test and make him face his past.
The Cat
Little, naughty and adorable. That is the perfect way to describe our other protagonist. This kitten sneaks into Piero's house to look for some food and shelter. Her fun personality and adventurous curiosity will get her in a lot of trouble. She likes to play with the objects that she discovers a long the way.
The mess she makes in Piero's closed off world may end up getting him on his nerves. However, her unconditional sympathy will also awaken the writer´s need to turn back time and search for answers.
MANIFESTO
Luna is a psychological drama in which across the mind of the protagonist, we navigate his fears and memories until we reach a revealing conclusion. It is an emotional story that explores trauma and the aftermaths of experiencing loss. It is a story about acceptance and growth, with a moral proposal that invites the audience to hold on to life and take it for what it is and what it has been, and we narrate that through an unexpected friendship.
The concept of this story it is based on the duality of thought/reality, the difference between the mental level and the physical world. To express it, we have divided the narrative into two different dimensions. The real world where Piero lives, his physical and withered home; and an oniric world which represents its traumas, suffering, emptiness and mental state. By not accepting the past, Piero isolates physically from the outside world inside his home, that he transforms into his refuge and prison. Moreover he shuts himself too within him, blocking his memories and turning his back to living.
The visual aspects, the music and the narration are designed to convey said duality through different contrasts. The world of Piero is one full of detail and symbolism in every corner and object and, even from the aesthetics up to the cinematography, everything aims to support a diffuse illusion about space and time to emphasize the confusion and loneliness of the character.
As there are no dialogues, the narration is an introspective and lonely invitation. The music becomes the voice of the characters in order to reveal their feelings. Moreover, this is held over four pillars, Piero, the Cat, the House and the Ethereal Space or void. The stylistic contrast reappears in the soundtrack with different textures and genres such as the use of more melodic compositions when referring to the present and a more synthetic music when we enter Piero´s mind.
Author’s
BLA
BLA
BLA
The main thing that motivated me to begin this project was the university environment that I was involved in. Since the very first years I collaborated with groups of older students in getting their projects made through modeling and dressing 3D sets. These students were the elite of the university and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to dream big like them. I learnt so much being side by side with them and that made me realize that all of my life I had been longing for what we were doing; storytelling. That is when I decided that I should have faith in myself and embark on developing my own short film project to narrate visually every one of the things that I had always carried within me that had been silenced throughout my life.
Talking about Luna, the idea comes back in one way to my travels to Cabra de Santo Cristo, where I lived a few weeks in an old abandoned school which had been rebuilt into a big family home. That house, that studio, and its mysterious appearance became a great source of inspiration that resulted in the creation of Piero and his world. I spent most of the summer writing the script and compulsively photographing every single corner of that old mansion. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and wandering around the house or sitting alone on the porch writing while everybody was asleep.
On the other hand, the kitten is the consequence of some happy memories from my childhood, filled with childlike hope and at the same time represented in a real cat that we adopted when I was five, which we called Luna. That juxtaposition of melancholy and enthusiasm caught my attention. What would happen if we paired two characters too different from each other? Would they hate each other? Would they help one another? ¿Would they end up being friends? At the end of the day those two confronted feelings string along with me. I know them because I live with them daily.
Luna involves more things though. From a narrative point of view, this is a very layered project at many levels. But above all, this is a poetic narration, surreal and philosophic that aims towards my most personal concerns and its main objective is for it to operate as so. Remembrance, death, physical and mental decline, love, loneliness and friendship are the inquiries that have had me helpless in the course of my life and this project is trying to explore them. I believe that in a way this is something very universal that we humans struggle with. I have always been fascinated with this capacity, so human and universal, that we people have to keep moving forward even when that means putting aside our memories, traumas and hurting in the back of our mind, unattended, refusing to remember them. Hence, the goal of my directorial debut is the same as its protagonist; To release myself and to let go of my own mind, to love life and to show the world what I am made of, to have a breakthrough and direct and write stories for the world to watch.
Despite Luna being founded in a student environment with loads of students having participated, we have never had support from any production company or institution nor the resources to develop the project under the ideal circumstances. We had foreseen finishing it during the last years of our degree but the large scale of the project made it impossible. Usually, students are overwhelmed with the thought of completing their own portfolios to get a job and enjoying their youth. But, as for Emma and me, we wanted to depict our personal vision and our endeavors onto something bigger and we decided to go on with it after we graduated. We struggled a lot to get someone to have trust in us, people thought what we were doing was senseless, but it was not to us. Although we thought countless times about giving in and quitting, being as faithful as we are to the project, we have never stopped working tirelessly and learning in our spare time.
Our intention now is to head for a broader and more professional market with our project that can help to support us and get us to finish the work, as well as design a distribution plan and raise communications for it to be seen.
Help us fund this project!
Every little step we’re making gets us closer to the end of production, and you can help us in many ways!
Whether you are a producer or a studio looking for investment, a professional, student or an agency who is looking forward to collaborating, or just someone who wants this to get finished as much as we do, we’re welcoming your hand and you’d be properly credited for the help.