TIERRA MALA
ethno-fiction feature film in development
Emanuele recently divorced his Afro-Colombian wife. Having stayed to live on one of the most unpredictable coasts in the world that is the Pacific coast of Chocó, Emanuele spends his days protecting his herb garden and foundations of his tourist lodge from local pests and extreme tropical climate. Every day he cooks spaghetti for lunch and seasons it with fresh pesto, provided crabs don’t devour his basil overnight. According to Emanuele, this is simply a physiological habit developed in childhood, and not a proof of his longing for his homeland - Italy. He claims he is barely Italian anymore, if at all, or maybe never truly was one to begin with. Emanuele is forced to constantly wrestle over this during his routine morning calls with his elderly mother, as she tries to convince him to return home. He knows that he will be able to remain here as long as drugs are trafficked unhindered along the coast and the local populations lack opportunities to make their living in other ways. As an indigenous Emberá family start constructing their own competing tourist lodge nearby, Emanuele takes up a new hobby - collecting venoms and antivenoms of endemic animals. His eccentric attempts to give meaning to his days in a radically alterous environment saturate the psychological landscape of this jungle-dwelling (non-)European and provide access to his inner experiences, motivations, and dreams. Emanuele’s life is a tireless negotiation between nationality and non-nationality in realities of contemporary migration and post-coloniality. Ethno-documentary film Tierra Firme is an ironic portrait of a post-modern individual - a post-national – questioning, rejecting, or outright denying their national origin and identity.