Manzanas, Pollos y Quimeras Dossier dossier de prensa en inglés

7/22/2019 Manzanas, Pollos y Quimeras Dossier dossier de prensa en ingls

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manzanas,pollos

y quimerasmujeres que cruzaron el mar de arena

PRESS RELEASE

Un documental de Ins Parspara MUJERES POR FRICA


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SynopsisLali is Guinean. She came to Spain becausea sailor told her that in our country the appleswere as big as balloons and giant chickensran up and down the Gran Via. Lali is oneof the women who show us their real situationand their innermost feelings, her lifes projects,hopes and chimeras in this documentary thatbreaks down stereotypes and for the first timegives a voice and a face to a forgotten, invisible

group of women in Spanish society: blackAfricans.

Leading Actors

Nicole Ndongala, Piruchi Apo, Edith Mbella,Lali Ferreira, Martina Casia Ferreira, Sharon OpiFerreira, Chanelle Mwizero, Aauri Bokesa,Agns Agboton, Tania Adam, Mariana Drammeh,

Vicenta Ndongo, Delphine Kouakou, AissatouNdiaye y Mamiya Conteh.

Technical teamDirection, production and script: INS PARSFinanced by the WOMEN FOR AFRICAFoundation

Songs written and performed byPIRUCHI APO.

Music: Mariano MarnDirector of photography: Javier Alomar

Editing: Mara LaraDirect sound: Jaume MelndezSound Editing: Steve Miller-Juan Ferro.Production manager: Raquel CleraDocumentation: Ignacio Pars BouzaPostproduction: EvasinFormat: 16:9DCP

manzanas,pollosy quimerasmujeres que cruzaron el mar de arena

press release


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Report on the directorIns Pars

Ahora soy: slo hoy tenemos

y creamos._

Nada nos es ajeno._Nuestra la tierra._

Nuestros el mar y el cielo._Nuestras la magia y la quimera.

Nancy Morejn. Black Woman

A new life

Lali is Guinean, of about forty, with small eyesthat she winks when she laughs. She has twodaughters, Martina and Sharon. The eldest wasalso born in Guinea and the youngest elevenyears ago in Spain. They were the first Africanresidents in our country that I contacted. Wemet in the cafeteria Comercial in the centre ofMadrid. From the beginning, that meeting wasidyllic: Not only was Lali willing to work but wasthrilled about it; for the first time in her lifesomeone considered her story to be significantand worth telling. Her story and that of herdaughters and her mother, because as I thendiscovered, the four women lived together ina small flat by the M-30.

The conversation lasted until noon and then theyinvited me to accompany them and eat at thehome of their great friend, Fatima, who was bornin Senegal and has four children. After sharingwith them a great lamb maafe, taking a lot ofphotos of them and starting to use the phoneas a recorder, I left there very excited. They hadso much to tell that was so amazing, lives so full,and they were so eager to share their viewof the world, that it was one of those momentswhen you feel you have the best profession

in the world. I felt that this documentary uponwhich I was embarking with the Women forAfrica Foundation was going to be a pricelessexperience in terms of my profession and my life.

It was not that day, but the first day we recordedat home, when Lali gifted me the title of thedocumentary. She was telling me that beforecoming, everything she knew about Spain wasfrom a merchant seaman who told them abouta country where people ate a lot: above all, veryfat chickens that thronged the streets and hugeapples hanging from the trees , which bent overwith their weight. Lali then imagined herselfsitting in a square in this country, with her sisternext to her and eating a roast chicken...Of course, this image was as idyllic as it wasabsurd and never came true. She ended upcoming her alone, hired as a maid for a familythat had her for years like a little slave withno pay, papers or holidays.

Nearly twenty years have passed since then.

Now, with effort and sacrifices, Lali hasachieved a minimally stable situation earninga thousand euros a month, with which she raisesher daughters: girls who speak severallanguages and who want to be economistsor writers. Her story seemed to me a symbolof what the documentary had portrayed: a groupof women forced by difficult circumstancesto leave their countries and build a new life.They are very strong, courageous and positivewomen, with a life plan and a surprising capacity

for joy, who are now an important yet unknownpart of our society.


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The Women for Africa Foundation

This documentary is a project from the Womenfor Africa Foundation, which is chaired by MaraTeresa Fernndez de la Vega. In the foundation,they do significant work by contributing to thedevelopment of Africa, but with a perspectivethat is as novel as it is effective: doing sothrough women.

Within the Foundations areas of work thereis the audiovisual world, in which I have thepleasure and honour of working as an advisor.From the outset, Maria Teresa insisted that thisarea of activity should be important and covera dimension that no other foundation of this kindhas. In just over a year, we have created two

awards: one for Best Woman Director at theAfrican Film Festival in Crdoba, and another forBest Woman Director at FESPACO, the largestAfrican film festival, held in Burkina Faso. Webrought several female directors to Madrid, andunder the leadership and initiative of GuadalupeArensburg we organized a series of filmsdirected by African women. We have alsosigned agreements with several film schoolsfor scholarships for students and to sendteachers to Africa. Projects have been filmed

and ... we shot this documentary.

The documentary initially arose out of the needto locate, investigate and document the socialgroup of African women living in Spain; to

contact them, to see their needs first hand andto create projects suited to their needs anddemands. We decided to do so in the form ofa documentary so that this research would havethe utmost impact and would be able to reachthe general public in the most effective way.

Do I know any african ladies?You mean african from Africa?

Very early in our research work, as well asdelving into the search for data and getting red-eyed in the documentation process, we went outto film people of all ages and situations. Weasked them: Do you know any African lady wholives in Spain? What image do you have of

them? How do you think they came here? Whatdo they do? The answers were very similar:their idea of African ladies was one of illiteratewomen who came on boats, many of themprostitutes, who were welcomed but who did notwant to integrate...and of course nobodyconsidered themselves a racist. They thoughtthat Spain was welcoming country, thateverything here makes things easy, etc.

These stereotypes and prejudices only changed

when they really knew some. This was oftenthe case among the parents of young children,

because many had a black companion in classwhose parents, whether mother or father, hademigrated from Africa.

After this experience, it was clear that the besttool to put an end to platitudes and false ideaswas to show the real situation, and this was ouraim: to give a voice and a face to someof the black women from Africa who livein Spain so that through their stories, theiremotions, their ideas, their art and theirprofessions, people may get to know thisunknown social group much better, this groupthat is invisible in the media and which is labelledwith many stereotypes.

From the kitchen to the Olympics: our stars

A writer, a waitress, an art gallery, a singer, a cook,

a journalist, a seamstress, an actress, a culturalmanager, a farmer able to create an associationof hundreds of women and an Olympic runner...these are the stars of this documentary.

They tell us why they have come, what imagethey had of Spain, what they found, how they gotby and what their life is like now.

Not only do we observe their comings and goings,their work, their homes, their families and friends,

but they have opened their heart to show us theirfeelings, the most curious anecdotes from theirlives, their fears, joys, hopes, ideas and their wayof looking at life.


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These are women who are characteristic for theirability to work, who have a clear life plan theystruggle to achieve; they have learned Spanishor Catalan, and generally speak severallanguages.

On getting to know them, the first thing welearned is that we cannot talk of a "group"because it is impossible to narrow down theenormous human diversity, the complex, rich,and surprising reality of so many women.

A musical documentary

All the women featured in the documentary havesomething in common (a trait shared by almost

all African women): their amazing capacity for joy.

Most of them have experienced terrifyingsituations that have made them leave theircountries of origin (war, poverty and sexualviolence). Many still have a difficult life (far fromtheir families, with economic and often legalinsecurity) but they all laugh heartily at theslightest chance. They celebrate life by sharingtheir food and welcoming all those who cometo them. And they sing. They sing so much, so

well and on so many occasions that I suspectedI was shooting a musical.

It is also true that in the documentary there isa professional singer: Piruchi Apo. At home,

we filmed the children rehearsing to create musicfor a cartoon. But when the children had goneand the work was over, she continued to sing,accompanied by her brother, her sister, herSpanish husband, her friends, and all hernephews and nieces. We continued recordingthis priceless testimony of family intimacy, andthe climax came when they reminisced abouttheir parents who sang in church. African churchservices, they explained, are so joyful that prayeris a party. Nothing at all like religious serviceshere.

frica es more realistic

This was the first thing Martina said to me. She

is a girl born in Spain of a Guinean mother andNigerian father. To my astonishment at thissentence, which she spoke so surely, sheexplained further, convinced that I was stupidand did not understand Spanish: in her mothersvillage, she had learned that one has to go andfetch water at the well or the river and that,if youre not careful, you may drop the jug andbreak it. Then you have to go back again forwater. I had to admit she was right: water outof a tap is not "realistic".

Martina feels African. The truth is that all Africangirls born here feel they are from there. Or fromboth sides. Africa is a fundamental point ofreference for all these women, which, as they

told us over and over again, they do not forget.They do not forget in the first place because theyknow that they are needed there; many havecome so they can send money and others do soeven though their families are not in need,because they know that there is always someonethere who needs help. Not only do they sendmoney, but they set up projects in their countriesof origin: womens cooperatives, associationsthat build schools in villages, digging a waterwell or constructing a mill. Nearly all of theprojects seek to give more opportunities to thewomen and girls who have stayed there becausethey know that they are the future and that, ifthere is anything they like about Spain, it is thatas women they have had more opportunities tostudy and live freely.

Powerful women

Edith is from the Dwala Tribe. She was born inCameroon and her surname Mbella means eagle.She specializes in African tribal art. A graduateof the Sorbonne, she has a fabulous, beautiful artgallery in the centre of Madrid.

The gallery has a library open to all who wish to

enter. As she always says, Africa is very near andyet for the Spanish it is still an unknowncontinent. With her, we learned about the richBubi culture in Guinea, about the status ofwomen in African cultures before colonization.


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She explained the shock of Livingstone ondiscovering that divorce already existed inCameroon.

Aissatou does not know this; she has a muchmore traditional concept of the family. Aissatoubelieves she is a simple peasant with an awfuldefect: she doesnt know how to get angry.But this must be the only thing that this womanfrom Gambia is not capable of.She came to Spain when she was still illiterate,and since then she has continued to takecourses (in Spanish, nursing, driving, geriatrics...)and now chairs an association that has createdmore than 800 jobs in her native village.

Ill never forget the image of Aissatou driving hercar loaded with farm tools. She and her friends

have a small agricultural garden next to a roadin Paterna (Valencia). The large lorries that passby just twenty metres from their crops are notable to smother the sound of these farmersvoices, who sing to cheer themselves as theydo their chores in the field. This work is notenough for them to live on, which is why theyare also cleaning ladies or work at tills, or elsethey care for the elderly. However, thanks tothe garden they feed many families that wouldotherwise go hungry. And as they do not spend

on food, they can send more money to thosewho stayed in Africa. Yet they still manage tomake ends meet so their daughters can study.Aissaitous nine-year-old daughter wants to bean airline pilot and her mother looks at her with

laughter. She knows she will achieve it, becausewith a mother like her it seems strange thatshe hasnt sprouted wings.

The making of

For four months, from the coldest winter tothe spring, we lived with these women who havetaught us so much and with whom we have hadsuch a good time. Weve followed them aroundMadrid, Barcelona, Premi de Mar, Valencia andPaterna. If they ever got tired of having us closeat their heels, of me interrogating themmercilessly about anything, of us sharing theirfood and going into their rooms and thoseof their children, then they did not show it.

The hardest part was having to choose fromthe large amount of interesting material that wentinto the editing room. Much has been omitted,but this material may serve those who wish to doresearch into migration, those who want to showthe real situation that is seldom portrayed andwhich will now be more accessible anddocumented.


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Movie women

Mara Teresa Fernndez de la Vega

When we launched the Women for AfricaFoundation in February 2012 we were wellaware that, in order to change things, the worldof images is an indispensable ally. When itcomes to transforming our societies, breakingdown old stereotypes and ways of doing things,there are few tools as powerful as the small orbig screen.

This is why, in addition to the fifteen or soprojects we are carrying out along the five mainlines that make up our Action Plan (which areeducation, knowledge, health, economicdevelopment and the empowerment of Africanwomen), audiovisuals are also one of the fieldsthat we are putting most work into.

We have participated in several Spanish andAfrican festivals, supporting women from theworld of cinema. In Madrid we have screened a

sample of todays African women directorswhich, it has to be said, has surprised everyonewith its quality and diversity. We are offeringscholarships to young African students who wantto receive an education in the world of images.Of course, we document all our projects inaudiovisual format.

When we considered that almost half a millionAfrican women living in Spain deserved to bemore well known to all of us, the idea ofproducing a documentary to show us their dailylives, their stories and their world, seemed to usthe best way to do so.

Today, now the film has become a reality, wehave no doubt that this was the right decision.

Apples, chickens and chimeras presentsanother way of looking, another view of Africanwomen living in our country, thanks to the solidwork of Ins Pars. In fact, surely we should notsay "another", but one, because few of us evenknew these points of view beforehand.

Through a dozen of these women, Apples,chickens and chimeras breaks downstereotypes, wipes out old clichs and, above all,opens a window onto the reality of the African

women who share their daily life with us.

It is well worth seeing, because what one findsis some magnificent, brave and tireless women.These are women full of energy andperseverance that are strengthening thecontinent of Africa. They are truly movie women.

As one of them says to another in the movie,"You are a woman of Africa and it is you whoare going to carry it forward." These womensability to deal with everything, to invent andreinvent themselves, to reach goals that seemunattainable to us, is indeed amazing.

The stars of Apples, chickens and chimeras area good example of all of this. Look at them, listen

to them, get to know them and you willunderstand why African women have becomethe continents great engine and why in thefoundation we have chosen to walk beside them.

Mara Teresa Fernndez de la VegaPresident of the Mujeres por frica Foundation


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Ins ParsFILMOGRAPHY

Director and screenwriter for film and television.

She has a degree in Philosophy, specializingin Aesthetics and Theory of Art.She studied acting, directing actors, and stagedirection.She is the director of the Buuel Institute of theAuthors Society, SGAE, and serves on its Boardof Directors.

She has written and directed three full-lengthfilms:

"Miguel and William" (Spanish/Englishco-production) (2007)"Semen, a Love Story" (Semen, una historiade amor) (2005)"My Mother Likes Women" (A mi madrele gustan las mujeres) (2002)

She has also directed these documentaries:"Women are...Africa" made in 2010 in Mali,Ethiopia, Mozambique and Senegal, and thedocumentary series "Igual-es" (Equals)(6 documentaries for TVE).

She has made three short films:Batumas radio" (La radio de Batuma)"Who's telling me to get involved in this"(A mi quin me manda meterme en esto)"Let's give this up" (Vamos a dejarlo)Her films have won numerous awards and havebeen screened internationally.

She has written several screenplays for other

directors, most notably the following: "Rivals"("Rivales") (Fernando Colomo-2008). "I knowwho you are" (S quin eres) (Patricia Ferreira,2000).

She has worked for television, directing creativeteams and writing numerous series. Theseinclude: "Altered States" (Estados Alterados)(La Sexta), "The Swamp" (El Pantano) (Antena3), "Fate in your hands" (El destino en tusmanos) (TVE) and "All you men are the same"

(Todos los hombres sois iguales) (Tele 5).She has combined her career as a directorand writer with teaching, giving courses andlecturing at universities and other educationalorganizations in Spain and abroad. She currentlyteaches at ECAM (Madrid Film School) and inthe Screenwriting Masters of the Carlos IIIUniversity.

Committed for years to the problems that affectwomen, she was the president of CIMA forSpain (Association of Women Filmmakers andWomen in Audiovisual Media) for six years andis currently a board member of the Women's

Foundation for Africa.


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Manzanas, Pollos y Quimeras Dossier dossier de prensa en inglés