Stories

LAURA | ESMERALDA | TELMA | ANA | MARTILEIDE

 

ANA
|Maceió|

FICTION


Scene 1: Maceió – ext/day

Aerial view of the city. The sun is rising out of the sea and fishermen are in their boats. We see the beautiful beaches lining the coast and rafts lying on the sand. Ponta Verde Beach.
We approach the verandah of a beautiful apartment on the Ponta Verde shoreline.


Scene 2: Maceió/Ana’s apartment – ext/day

In close-up, on the verandah, we see a row of trainers and leather sandals typical of the north-east. ANA slips her feet into the pair of interwoven leather sandals that she has chosen from amongst the others. Her face unrevealed she crouches down and fastens the buckles. WE PULL BACK TO REVEAL: ANA, about 24 who is wearing a pair of shorts that reveals a glimpse of her bikini beneath, as she puts on her sandals.
She slips on a loose-fitting T-shirt over her bikini top, grabs her backpack, hangs a camera around her neck, grabs her car-keys and leaves.


Scene 3: Beaches of Maceió – ext/int/day

Ana’s Toyota speeds down the ocean drive.


ANA, at the wheel of the car is talking to EROM, a boy of about 24, sitting beside her.


Pontal da Areia is a small community within Maceió. A rather unusual social situation in Brazil exists in this village that lives off fishing and handicraft. The role of women in the family is, economically speaking more important than that of the men. It is they who produce the typical lace-work of the region, hand-embroidered on wooden boards. This work has become a profitable, year-round tourist attraction, while the men depend on fishing which has to rely on a natural cycle, alternating abundance and shortage.

It is within this ambiance that ANA’s story unfolds, revealing curious and quite particular aspects of which most of us are unaware in our own country. ANA is a young student of tourism who, together with a fellow student, EROM, is going to Pontal da Areia to carry out a survey for the university. They photograph and interview several inhabitants and begin to draw up an outline of the community. ANA and EROM come into a hall where several women, from the elderly to adolescents, are making lace at their looms. Both are amazed by their skill and precision. They approach the group.


One woman looks up from amongst the group.


Julia is a beautiful 30-year-old dark-skinned woman with long wavy hair. She is wearing a lace dress that outlines the curves of her body to perfection. She immediately attracts ANA’s attention. She is particularly intrigued because, although she seems completely at home with her work and the community, she somehow does not seem to completely fit in. JULIA offers to show the students around. As she tells the story of Pontal da Areia, ANA learns of Julia’s life, who, when she talks of the place and the people, almost waxes poetic. Fascinated by JULIA’s personality, ANA wants to delve farther into this mysterious and seductive woman who has abandoned a life of travel to live in the village.


ANA finds out that she has fallen in love with JULIA, but it is a platonic love that must be sublimated. JULIA’s story has sparked ANA’s fantasies, has stirred an unknown side of her sexuality and has awoken in her an uncontrollable desire to set off in search of her place in the world. And a new direction for her life.

 

DOCUMENTARY

The documentary will involve statements of inhabitants of Pontal da Areia talking about their local handicraft and the fact that they are the economic pillars that sustain the community and their relationship with sexuality and their fishermen husbands.