JOURNEY TO THE CİTY OF LİGHŦ
SHOOTING DIARY OF THE FILM “LIGHTSEEKERS”
BY FEDERICO SANDE NOVO
✴•✳•
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it. Louis-Ferdinand Celine
PROLO GUE Dear Ana
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T HE DIARY Day 1
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Day 2
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Day 3
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Day 4
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Day 5
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Day 6
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Day 7
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Day 8
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Day 9
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Day 10
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Day 11
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Day 12
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Day 13
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Day 14
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Day 15
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Day 16
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Day 17
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Day 18
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Day 19
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EPILO GUE Dear Fede
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JOURNEY TO THE CIT Y OF LIGHT
PROLO GUE
Dear Ana,
I write you as a way to reach the outside. I keep a kind of journal. Maybe at some point it will be useful. Sometimes I write more, sometimes less. But it is necessary because everything is very unstable here. I reached a midpoint in my journey. Every day I wake up speculating on a new approach for the project, but I’m giving up. When I remember our last conversation before I left Buenos Aires, I laugh at the idea that I could plan this film in advance. How naive to have thought all this was about my mother. She has not come yet. Something keeps delaying her to the extent that I wonder if she really wants to be here. By now I’m starting to question whether she is at the core of the conflict or I am. This place works like a mirror: trying to see others only brings back my own reflection. Perhaps I came during the wrong season. A time when people hide at home to escape the extreme weather. Many activities are limited because of this. There is a ‘dead hour’, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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PROLOGUE
Anyway, we film something every day. Early in the morning and close to sunset. At times the group seems more like a summer camp than a spiritual sect.
I have one more week with the team, before they return home. By the way, Ro decided to come. Maybe she sensed something and wants to support me.
I’m overwhelmed and anxious, with the desire to be productive, but the hot wind feels like a fire tongue on the face and impels us to slow down. In a mysterious way it is like a force has tamed us, making us surrender to the idea that we are part of an invisible scheme.
I will deliver this journal to you when I return, together with the disjointed material that accumulates every day. It may be a little intimate, I’m afraid, but otherwise I might struggle to trace myself back in the editing process.
The question arises: whose plan is it then? As you can imagine, they have their own answer here. They keep asking us the same thing: “So? Has something changed in you?” I blurt whatever comes to mind, but in reality I don't know. Time drags and the contradiction sinks deeper. I came all the way to examine what’s left of this isolated community and yet I don’t feel any closer to understanding this phenomenon. The absence of clear answers seems linked to an overwhelming presence: the shadow of the Master obscures every path. What power hides in his words, that they keep repeating?
Have you watched the footage from Buenos aires I left with you already? I think I’m not the one who shot it anymore. In a way, my mother opened a door for me to an unknown dimension. I heard of political turbulence in the city. What is going on? It feels the farthest place on earth now. I hope you are doing OK.
FEDE
P.S.: Tomorrow I am going to film the jail.
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JOURNEY TO THE CIT Y OF LIGHT
t he dia ry
✳
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DAY 1 .
Arrival. We are at the foot of the Andes.
It is a peaceful place. It looks both abandoned and clean.
They host us in a 6-rooms hotel – more like a guesthouse- in a corner of the sacred compound. One room for Costi (camera) and one for Omar (sound) and me. No TV, no Wi-Fi. No meat or alcohol allowed. Idols, a religious mix. A few images of the Master here and there. We are the only guests.
We plan for the next days. Prepare the crew and equipment.
Our room’s name: Kindness
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THE DIARY
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DAY 2 .
Morning Quick introduction to the Priest and the German, two of the oldest followers. Nothing clean comes out of it but I get some names to talk to. I’m shown the path towards the City of Light. We need permission and company to cross the entrance. Even though we were expected, no one seems to know who my mother is. Followers write to the Master and often years pass without any answer. I’m a privileged case. I guess cameras can open doors sometimes. Afternoon We sound the bells and wait under the blackberry tree for the Preacher. The story goes that the Master slept under this
tree for years, so now it is a precious place for the followers to gather within the compound. The preacher comes to tell us that the tree is needed for something else, so our meeting gets postponed. He doesn’t look concerned at all. Nobody is going anywhere. Although everybody seems to know I received permission from the Master, we still ignore the extent of our freedom to move around the sacred places. In the evening, the most beautiful fireflies invite us to the woods. But I don’t dare to trespass the tree lines. I’m happy to have Costi operating the camera. She is patient and has a great eye. We could shoot the trees all night.
Mother calls, she is delayed. Can’t say I’m surprised.
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THE DIARY
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THE DIARY
DAY 3.
Slept badly because of the heat. Omar wakes up restless. He dreamed that he opened endless boxes of sound gear, desperately looking for a particular microphone.
thousands became a couple of hundreds. Frequent parallelisms with Jesus. The fantasy of a spectacular comeback. (He believes what I’m doing will somehow help their cause.)
Early morning The talk with the Preacher is long. What is his gift? “The preach”. He always chooses to answer with words from the Master. Watching films is good as long as they are spiritual; “a film made with a consciousness of God”. “Once you have seen the light, there is no return.” His words make me sleepy.
I realize I am eager to listen but maybe not precisely to what he has to tell. What I want to know is somewhere else. When we finished, the Preacher asks Costi to wear clothes that cover her shoulders and thighs. I’m afraid we’re going to be on our own for the rest of the day.
Fan doesn’t work in the room. The utopian project of an autonomous community led by an enlightened being, focused on love and development of the self. It was hit hard by having the Master taken from them years ago. After he was convicted for sexual abuse,
✳ P23
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THE DIARY
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DAY 4 .
Omar and I are moved to a new room named ‘Peace’.
Afternoon
We are observing a group of followers and they invite us to have lunch. They pray. A follower opens a book and reads a fragment entitled ‘Nothing fills my emptiness”. I feel that I took a step closer to them. I’m not sure if I made the right choice. They don’t know my mother either and insist all of this is actually about me. That my project is an excuse to confront myself.
The Doctor, a tender old woman, drops by to check on Omar, whose right ear is aching. He is a very experienced sound man, with an Islamic background and it turns out he knows a lot about religions. She doesn’t charge us. Her ‘Service’ is her contribution. Everyone does ‘service’ in their own way.
Then the Priest’s phone rings. A call from the prison. And everything else vanishes. They behave like happy and yearning children. Hand over your life’s agenda and it's no longer you who has to decide. The next event in your timeline might come to you at any time, just like the word of the Master does. Play the game. Let yourself be surprised and act along.
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→
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THE DIARY
DAY 5 .
Morning
Afternoon
I visit the followers’ neighborhood where my mother shares a house. It’s 10 minutes away from the compound and only 5 minutes from the prison. I talk to her roommates Vivi and Vicky. The duo is very funny. They find it weird that I am speaking with them instead of just asking my mother. But I’m not sure I have that much to ask her. Besides, she is not here, isn’t she?
The Preacher tells me that the Master wants my feedback on a 5-minute piece they are working on. The guru’s old house looks abandoned but turns out they use it as an editing room.
They tell me the story of how they first met her by chance at a cinema, waiting in line for a film about Rumi, a Sufi poet.
→∆
We watch the video. I say they need to use more of their own footage instead of ‘borrowing’ those terrible images from the internet. The Editor says they have tons of material from the good old times. I can’t get him to show me.
They subtly stress a difference though: my mother never settled here. I think they find her behavior ambiguous. They don’t like her exploring different Masters either. They give me a book of the Master. I feel I have to take it. I briefly check out my mother’s room.
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DAY 6.
Meet the Corrector. Precisely when I am about to interview her, she gets a call from the Master. We wait. It is a very unusual event. Only the Priest receives calls from him. The Corrector: “There are no coincidences when something comes from the Master”. She tells me that he asked about us. “Are they filming Lidia?” No, we are not. She is not even here yet… Could it bother him? “If it bothers him, you will find out”. The Corrector came to this place along with her husband 12 years ago. Once here, they decided to peacefully split up. She says she found a deeper love. “Devotion”.
Former high-school teacher. She receives the Master’s manuscripts first hand from the prison to edit and publish. According to her, she only has this assignment because he delivers flawed texts on purpose. Afternoon The Priest involuntarily shares a secret with me. The Master will send a video greeting the community for the upcoming festivities. Afterward, visibly worried, the Priest tells me it was a mistake, I was not supposed to know. None of the followers can be told either.
∂∑
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THE DIARY
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DAY 7.
▶
Day off.
Evening
Afternoon
Beer night. We kill time sharing the dreams we have been having. Omar dreamed they were visiting me at my house, which was a perfect circle in the middle of a park. I took them running in circles around it. Mine was not pleasant. The Master whispered unintelligible words in my ear. Costi doesn't know what she dreamed of but she woke up crying.
We drive downtown to Coneta. It looks dead. Or everyone is asleep. On the local radio they speak mainly about car crashes in Route 38. It interconnects every single place around here.
We get back but we are not ready to sleep yet. Seated in the hotel’s porch, we stare at the remote silhouettes of the mountain peaks. Why do we feel we’ve been here longer than we actually have?
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DAY 8 .
Second week. Difficult start. 42 degrees. Total inaction. We see someone that looks exactly like the Master pass by. Must be our imagination. They inform me that I’ll be banned from the ‘Lingam Bath’, which I was initially authorized to shoot. They say it is a very private ceremony. In it, they bathe these Lingam (egglike object) in milk and honey, and then drink the liquid. It symbolizes the Master's body.
Afternoon Dance class. Senior followers completely surrendered to Hindi pop music. A bunch of men in their late fifties catch my attention. I’m mesmerized by their joy and playfulness. I talk to my mother. She's still in Buenos Aires. Makes excuses. The constant buzz of the cicadas makes thinking impossible. I feel disoriented. There doesn’t seem to be room for anything that I planned. This place is saying to me: “Do you think you are in control of this film? Well, you are not.” Power outages happen randomly in the building. They move us to a new room: ‘Love’.
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THE JOURNALS DIARY
the way of achieving serenit y is to look at the mirror
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what mirror?
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THE JOURNALS DIARY
the one in front of you under all names and shapes
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≈≈≈≈
We have breakfast with the group that lives uphill in the hermitages. We carry the camera. They silently put up with it. “The Master is interested in you, not the cameras. Your souls are his prey, that’s why you are here”. There are more than forty hermitages along the City of Light’s endless paths. “The cherry on the cake”, they say. The last step, built by the Master for those ready to abandon the material world and embrace the divine within themselves. The Hermit agrees to take us along on Wednesday. The hostel's functional music is a Hindi mantra that repeats day after day. The Accountant comes in and asks to change it. He plays Bob Dylan. "Knocking on heaven’s doors, so you can be happy," he tells me and sits with us.
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DAY 9.
He is the one that takes care of the business around here. He owns part of the sacred land, and gives it to the community to usufruct. “The Master was set up by the Church. They can’t stand such a bold enterprise in this feudal province”. Unlike most - who stand out for their humility - he makes noticeable efforts to show me he left behind a successful life. He says I remind him of his relationship to his mother. Apparently he used to be the cliché of the arrogant businessman, until the Master had him bring her mother to surprise her with a foot bath in front of everyone. While he performed it, the Accountant cried and felt thankful for he was starting to pay back an ancient debt to her.
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DAY 1 0.
We wait for a mechanic on route 38. The car failed to ignite and looks like the batteries died. We try to fix it but they end up burnt. I’ll play along. Let the place control us and perhaps we will find an invisible thread. We are towed to an old colonial ranch nearby. The Landlord knows the Coneta area by heart. It means "House of God" in quechua dialect. The land where the community is settled used to be an ancient indigenous sanctuary. Afterwards, the Catholic church took it and built a monk’s retreat. Now, it holds the sacred compound, and the City of Light sits on top of these mountains.
He is happy with his neighbors. They are educated and brought good values to a forsaken town. “The followers are people who smile, who sing, pray and make processions. How can you not like them?” He laughs when I ask if he could become one. Afternoon The mechanic never arrived. We stay in the polo field to see a ‘shower of stars’ that is announced for that night. We see several shooting stars. We make wishes.
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DAY 1 1 .
It’s too damn hot. Last night Omar was snoring and I tried to silence him by clapping my hands and hitting the wooden bed frame. He woke up to find me still asleep, clapping my hand to shut my own snores up. I’m going crazy. We laughed.
Dozens of trails open left and right, but we keep going up. Crickets join the usual cicadas in an entrancing mantra. It is getting dark when we reach the hermitage at the peak. We rest and look down at Coneta’s tiny lights while the Hermit makes a fire. She sings softly, maybe for us.
We film the morning prayer. We are in a loop. In view of the austerity and simplicity of these people's routines I ask myself what it is that I really want to get from them. What is the point of putting a camera in front of their faces while they pray to their imprisoned guru? Why keep pressing on someone who doesn't resist?
I’m moved by her austerity. She owns nothing. She sleeps in eight square meters and comes down everyday to do ‘service’. Only her mother still talks to her since she left Spain. I ask her if being a mother herself is off the table now. Costi is very emotional during the take. She leaves the camera and gets in the frame to hug her.
Sunset
When we were done, the Hermit hesitates. She did not know that she was going to open up so much. The phrase "living in a hermitage is like living in a womb" will stay with me.
Guided by the Hermit, we walk the City of Light’s main trail for almost thirty minutes. In silence. Statues of Buddha, Ganesha and Krishna are present along the way. Scattered Christian crosses here and there.
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DAY 1 2 .
Mother might come by the end of the week. I’m not comfortable with the idea of filming her now. I feel clumsy. The familiar camera in my hands now feels alien. As if an inadequate tool for what I'm attempting. And everyone can notice it. The Preacher asked why I film. I mumbled something about looking for meaning. Then he asked what would happen to me, “to my very self ”, if I no longer had a camera. I wouldn’t be here without a camera. I get two "private number" calls to my cell phone. I don’t pick up. I fear the Master will call me.
They announce a summer storm later tonight.
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DAY 1 3.
First day that is somewhat cooler; there are clouds. The cicadas are silent. Not true. They return and we are unable to record the conversation with the Priest. We speak about “Hector”, his old self. Hector had a regular job, a wife, a son. Hector liked to watch football matches and drink beer with his friends. But something was off. He looks tired when he talks about it.
I am almost certain that all these conversations I’m recording will not work. Where is the film I’m looking for? Everything is a delusion. We later film random things without much conviction, out of inertia. I apologize to Costi and Omar for I am lost in the labyrinth of my mind. Still, they are very supportive. Afternoon Birdwatching. We are slowly withdrawing to nature.
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DAY 14 .
Morning I wake up remembering something someone said to me, I think it was the Hermit. “The ideal is to not reincarnate again”. I wonder if my mother feels the same way. The followers rehearse for the upcoming festivity. A theater play where they play themselves doing what they normally do: wait for the Master’s return, or recall stories from the time he was with them. One particular guy, the Double, plays the Master.
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To believe is to perform. To perform is to believe. Now the mirror is on the stage, placed in front of them. The difference between the represented and the real is erased. What do they see in the reflection that makes their faith grow stronger? Whose script is this now? Does it remain the Master’s or is it their own? This is the end.
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DAY 1 5 .
Morning
Evening
I got Ro from the airport. Tomorrow Omar and Costi will leave and she will stay with me. I’m happy she came, though it feels a little off. She clearly brings a different energy.
They make a farewell dinner for the team. I don’t feel like sharing when they ask us yet once again what we are taking with us from this experience. I’ve stopped analyzing.
They have me sign a contract. I wasn’t expecting it. It states that I won’t lie or distort the community’s identity and guidelines. I’m staying a few more days but the shooting is kind of over.
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Mother calls, she’ll be here tomorrow. I propose Ro to go away somewhere else for a couple of days.
■
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DAY 1 6.
Ro dreamed.
Evening
I (Fede) was now a long-haired woman. She (Ro) had visions and felt crazy. She had made contact with a strange reality that both flowed like a river and fragmented itself like a delta. The Master lurked in the background; slowly getting closer but she still couldn't see him. She took a picture of him even though she knew she was not going to capture him.
We drop the guys off at the airport. I am exhausted.
When you enter a universe with its own weird rules, it makes no sense to question them while inside.
A strangely ordinary dinner together with my mother downtown. I eat meat for the first time since I arrived. She explains that she spent the past days hosting a female guru that came from Brazil, who also teaches to find the divine within ourselves. “There was such joy and loving vibes at home during her stay.” She is not the same as the local Master, but she’s not too different either. The experience of meeting this “enlightened beings” is difficult to transmit. On our way back she remarks on the shifting architecture along Route 38. I just listen. Maybe I feel a little bit under the influence.
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DAY 1 7.
Mother suggests that Ro and I go to the healing waters in Fiambalá. I crave rest, so we take Route 60 to the north. “You’ll go across a dessert that once was a sea. Pull over and you’ll find tiny fragments of shells in the sand”. We see altars on the side of the road. Most of them dedicated to ‘La Morenita’, the dark-skinned Virgin of the Valley.
Once we arrive, we bathe in the thermal waters for a couple of hours. There's not much to do, but I don’t care. Ro browses the Master's book Vicky and Vivi gave me. She reads a few quotes. She’s enthusiastic but I need to disconnect. We agree to leave the topic alone for a while.
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DAY 1 8 .
I don’t feel like writing today.
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DAY 1 9.
Festivity day. We are back to the hotel and will leave tomorrow. Mother is dressed in white like everyone else. She insists that we dress the same, as a nice gesture to the community. She and her friends are cooking for the celebration. She will stay for 3 more weeks. She asks if I enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere. I can’t say I have.
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She tells me once she stayed for 3 nights in a hermitage and experienced a great connection to nature and to her inner self. But she reminds me this is only one of the many paths she has taken in her spiritual journey. As they all leave the neighborhood, her group mixes with others and soon she dissolves in a white multitude. We don't stay to hear the Master's message.
THE DIARY
➢
Full moon. Everyone went to the ashram to sing and celebrate for the evening. We sneak into the City of Light to steal some shots. We walk in complete darkness, our feet lit only by a flashlight. We whisper to each other despite knowing there’s no one watching. Ro films my silhouette in the night as it fades out of the frame. I I’ve become a character in my film. I’ve never been in such a solitary place.
◉
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JOURNEY TO THE CIT Y OF LIGHT
EPI LO GUE
Dear Fede,
I try to imagine the days there and I remember the crushing sun, the naps and the deafening cicadas north of Córdoba. Only that Catamarca must be even tougher. Your diary will be useful immediately so that you do not go crazy to begin with. It’s good that you unload your thoughts somewhere. Are crew members registered along with the characters? Did you get access to the City of Light ? By the way, did the Master communicate with you again in any way? Just curiosity. I was reading a very short novel in which the main character begins the task of correcting thousands of documents with testimonies of tortured indigenous people in some Caribbean country. He is hired by the Archbishopric. He undertakes it without second thoughts, acknowledging that it is an arduous and important task but confident that his lucidity, determination and a conceited attitude will keep him intact and impervious to the situation. Anyway, then everything goes to hell.
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EPILOGUE
It is a well-known formula that always appealed to me: the figure of the detective who is affected by what he investigates. Here, I am watching, converting and organizing material from your previous stage. I'm going to do it in Final Cut, at least for now. I thought that it would be easier for you if after our work period you want to have access to the project. I am still looking at my dates to travel to Cรณrdoba. I will probably return by January . Will you be back by then? And what to say about the city ... The riots keep going day after day. Hugs and good luck!
ANA
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My journey to the area of Coneta, Catamarca province and the Valley region took place in December 2017 and the original shooting diary was never opened again until April 2020 during the lockdown that was imposed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I finished the transcript in August 2020 in the city of Amsterdam to be published in the context of the Artistic Research Week of the Netherlands Film Academy’s Master of Film Program.
✴•✳•
Written by Federico Sande Novo with the collaboration of Rosario Cabred
Printed with the help of Ferri Wouters in the Digital Printing Workshop
Editorial design by Jimena Zeitune
Made possible though the financial support of The Netherlands Film Academy - Amsterdam School of the Arts
A limited edition of “Journey to the City of Light� was printed and binded in September 2020 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Bookdesign and binding by Gersande Schellinx at the Bookbinding workshop