Independent Feature Film | 2024 | Docu | Spain
Main data
| Director | Mariona Guiu |
|---|---|
| Written by | Ariadna Relea |
| Production | Suricata Stories S.L. [es], Un Capricho de Producciones [es] |
Shooting data
| Status | For Premium Members only |
|---|
Project data
| Budget | For Premium Members only |
|---|---|
| Film financing | For Premium Members only |
| Length of movie | For Premium Members only |
Brief synopsis
"L'hora de les tortugues" is an intimate portrait of the transformation of a family after the death of the father.
After the death of Salvador, her father, Mariona starts making a film about him with the footage he recorded. She hasn't watched it for years, she keeps it safe in her imagination. By reconnecting with that footage, and rediscovering the filmmaker that he was and that even herself had forgotten, she also begins to record her family, like her father did 25 years earlier.
In reviewing his filmic legacy, Mariona stumbles upon an abrupt cut, a sudden black on the screen. Her father stopped recording at that point and never took the camera again. There were no more tapes. The reappearance of that void, both in film and in life, reconnects her with the essential moment of her family: the depression that her father had in the middle of his life and that split him in two. A chapter that it is also a void not only in the tapes but also in life, since it was never really spoken about.
While exploring that unfilmed and untold space, Mariona also questions her legitimacy to break the balance that was built out of that narrative cut. Is she morally allowed to break it up? Is the 'anything goes' rule valid for this story? Her father had been an active director, he filmed a childbirth in its entirety, he made people smile when he wanted them to, he shut their mouths up, he removed them from the shot, he did not ask for forgiveness nor permission. How far can she go?
She also reviews her sister footage, who kept recording after Salvador quit. In this footage Salvador appears more distant, turning from being the filming subject to the filmed object. Mariona is never present in this footage, because, in fact, she left. The film reveals her inability to deal with pain, and unveils Mariona's distance through evoking trips and escapes, a life far away, a search for love through cinema.
The film takes us back to her back home, where she returns just before his death. Back to the beggining.
When choosing an ending for the film she decides to return to the initial tapes, and recoups the tape that she had initially discarded, since it is damaged and the noise is distorted. The shot points to a radiocassette for 20 minutes: it is surely another experiment, another recycled tape. Suddenly, a hand appears from the right side of the shot and moves the camera along. It is her father, many years later. He speaks but we can't understand him, the film is broken. He keeps thinking. He speaks again, while breathing hard. Suddenly, he looks at the camera, scratches his head in thought, and turns the camera back to the radio cassette, leaving behind the trail of the broken image.
The film closes with a strong realisation: They both wanted the same thing, to freeze what can't be frozen. She wanted to bring back the dad pre-depression, the person with whom she became angry for never being the same again. He wanted to embalm his children childhood, thus building the bucolic kingdom that he never had, a place to come back to.
After the death of Salvador, her father, Mariona starts making a film about him with the footage he recorded. She hasn't watched it for years, she keeps it safe in her imagination. By reconnecting with that footage, and rediscovering the filmmaker that he was and that even herself had forgotten, she also begins to record her family, like her father did 25 years earlier.
In reviewing his filmic legacy, Mariona stumbles upon an abrupt cut, a sudden black on the screen. Her father stopped recording at that point and never took the camera again. There were no more tapes. The reappearance of that void, both in film and in life, reconnects her with the essential moment of her family: the depression that her father had in the middle of his life and that split him in two. A chapter that it is also a void not only in the tapes but also in life, since it was never really spoken about.
While exploring that unfilmed and untold space, Mariona also questions her legitimacy to break the balance that was built out of that narrative cut. Is she morally allowed to break it up? Is the 'anything goes' rule valid for this story? Her father had been an active director, he filmed a childbirth in its entirety, he made people smile when he wanted them to, he shut their mouths up, he removed them from the shot, he did not ask for forgiveness nor permission. How far can she go?
She also reviews her sister footage, who kept recording after Salvador quit. In this footage Salvador appears more distant, turning from being the filming subject to the filmed object. Mariona is never present in this footage, because, in fact, she left. The film reveals her inability to deal with pain, and unveils Mariona's distance through evoking trips and escapes, a life far away, a search for love through cinema.
The film takes us back to her back home, where she returns just before his death. Back to the beggining.
When choosing an ending for the film she decides to return to the initial tapes, and recoups the tape that she had initially discarded, since it is damaged and the noise is distorted. The shot points to a radiocassette for 20 minutes: it is surely another experiment, another recycled tape. Suddenly, a hand appears from the right side of the shot and moves the camera along. It is her father, many years later. He speaks but we can't understand him, the film is broken. He keeps thinking. He speaks again, while breathing hard. Suddenly, he looks at the camera, scratches his head in thought, and turns the camera back to the radio cassette, leaving behind the trail of the broken image.
The film closes with a strong realisation: They both wanted the same thing, to freeze what can't be frozen. She wanted to bring back the dad pre-depression, the person with whom she became angry for never being the same again. He wanted to embalm his children childhood, thus building the bucolic kingdom that he never had, a place to come back to.