A Blossom of an Idea

I just came back from my grandmother’s house and as I said before, I asked my grandfather for stories of him and grandmother, which truly represented how t felt to be an immigrant. He went on for half and hour, story after story, but most cannot be represented ted in a short 2 minute film opening. They were too long. So, a bit defeated, I helped my mom clean up their house before we went back to our house. When I was putting my grandfather around e away, I found a crumpled up piece of paper with his handwriting in it. It read:  “A veces la nostalgia me atormenta y me salen lagrimas de dolor por mi país perdido pero oigo una voz que me dice: acuérdate de tus mejores tiempos”, which means, “Sometimes nostalgia torments me, and I cry tears of pain for my lost country, but I hear an inner voice that tells me: remember your best times.”

Naturally, I immediately was moved by such powerful words and knew that I wanted to incorporate this in my film opening. I think I am going to have the main character say these words, and I want it to be my grandmother since she had a shared experience with my grandfather.The experience of an immigrant is quite an emotional, but optimistic journey, since they are leaving the place they have always called home to go to an unknown place where opportunity for a better life is promised. I am going to keep in in Spanish since that is the only language they speak and my first language, and I will include subtitles. I might want my grandmother say it in film, but it might not be possible since she in unfortunately not in good health. I am going to go over top her house in the next few days to see if she can say the line on film, but if not I'll have to seek a way to incorporate the line without having my grandma say it directly. Maybe I might have it done through voice over. We’ll see...

Additionally, I think that I want to honor my grandmother's by highlighting something that always defined her in my eyes while growing up: her love for nature. She was always kind of a hippie who loved picking flowers with me and she imbued an appreciation for natural beauty within me. Her house is covered with large portraits of different places around the world, since she had a curiosity to see the world beyond her childhood village that was located next to the sea in Venezuela. I strive to show all these ideals that she held dear in my film opening with the purpose to truly give an accurate representation of the life of my grandmother.