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Pablo Neruda: The Poet's Calling
Red Poppy is creating a vivid documentary, Pablo Neruda: The Poet’s Calling, the first ever English-language feature-length documentary on Neruda. Our lyrical film weaves together the strands of Neruda’s personal life and poetry with the tumultuous politics that dominated his public life. The English version will be narrated by the acclaimed Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega.
See clips of the film below...
Compelling biography represents an idea larger than its individual subject—in the case of Neruda, the theme of el deber del poeta, the poet’s duty, obligation, calling. For Neruda, poetry was a rallying cry for the social function of art, a way of bearing witness to suffering and injustice. The Poet’s Calling will create an intimate portrait of one of Latin America’s most colorful characters, and introduce a broad new audience around the world to the power of Neruda’s poetry, while captivating readers already familiar with Neruda with an intimate and beautiful cinematic tale providing much more insight on the man and his words.
The Beginnings
Our initial rough cut of the film then entitled “Pablo Neruda! Presente!” was shown on Neruda's Centennial, July 12, 2004, at what the San Francisco Chronicle called "a perfect birthday party" to an overflowed crowd at Theater Artaud in San Francisco. From our limited showing we have big reviews, including the 2006 Latin American Studies Association’s Award of Merit in Film.
Moving Forward
With a shortage of funds the documentary stalled after 2004. But at the beginning of 2007, a fortunate series of events, including a significant donation, enabled us to move forward again. During this revitalization, the project piqued the excited interest of Carlos Bolado, an integral member of the nuevo cine mexicano generation. Carlos was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary of 2002 for Promises, a film about Israeli and Palestinian children, which he directed and edited. His feature Bajo California won 7 Ariels, Mexico’s highest cinematic award, including Best Picture of 1999. Early on, he edited Like Water for Chocolate, and later was an advising editor on Amores Perros, starring Gael García Bernal. His next feature stars Alec Baldwin. Carlos brings the ideal passion, creativity, and expertise to make our film the lyrical, compelling, powerful, and important art for which we are striving.
Bolado is beginning to work with Mark Eisner, this project’s creator and author of the bestselling The Essential Neruda. Bolado and Eisner are ripping open the first version and re-editing the film into a stronger, more captivating, and lyrical narrative. Read More about the filmmakers…
The Last Push
This summer we have been in production in Chile, filming spectacular shots of Pablo's sea, forests, houses, volcanoes, bookstores... We are creating new sequences to accompany select poems and have filmed intriguing new interviews—all in HD-- before our director Carlos Bolado begins directing a major feature, Solitary Lines, starring Alec Baldwin.
With this new material, we will edit new segments to present to sources such as Latino Public Broadcasting and the Sundance Documentary Fund. But we urgently need your help right now to keep the production running and to edit the new piece.
Our goal is to raise $2000 more by September 15th.
Please join us by becoming a member. Help us finish the film; help our garden to grow. Cultivating poetry, pen over sword. Once the film is out there we will be able to move onto other projects, documentaries and books we have the seeds for in our minds.
Give just $35 right now and you'll get the DVD of the movie when its finished!
We need just at the most four hundred new members to finance our shoot this summer.
As we have official 501(c)(3) non-profit status with the IRS, if you're from the US, your donation is tax-deductible, minus the cost of any gift you receive with it:
- $35 - Free DVD of the movie once it is completed.
- $59 - Free DVD of the movie plus a copy of the bestselling The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems.
- $100 - All of the above, plus a Tinta Verde CD.
- $250 – All of the above, plus a copy of The Essential Neruda signed by Robert Hass (former US Poet Laureate), Jack Hirschman (Poet Laureate of San Francisco), and Mark Eisner.
- $500 – All of the above, plus your name mentioned in the movie’s credits.
- $1000 - All of the above plus have their name highlighted in the credits.
- $5000 – All the above, plus prominent credit.
Join here now. Help us pull off this crucial filming this summer, we're so close to fully
funding it, and on to getting grants for the finishing funds now with all this new material, and from there we will continue...
Short on dinero? Give what you can everything helps. If everybody gives just a simple $7 we can keep the poetry flowing.
If you are interested in donating but would like more information, please email us and we will be glad to answer your questions.
Check out our Poppy Store to make your donation.
You can also mail a check made out to Red Poppy, PO Box 53217, Washington, DC 20009-9217
If you're already a member, but would like to give more, simply purchase another membership of the value you'd like to give.
If you dig us: please tell your friends - send out an email with our link.
Gracias y Paz
Filiming in Chile:
On the beach at Isla Negra
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Interview down the hill from Neruda's house
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Ode to Conger Eel Chowder
In the stormy
Chilean
sea
lives the pink-red congrio,
gigantic eel
of snowy meat.
And in the Chilean
waves,
on the coast,
the chowder was born,
heavy and succulent,
so enjoyable.
From below the waves,
the congrio is brought to the kitchen,
its stained skin slips off
like a glove
leaving
the bouquet
uncovered.
The tender congrio,
now naked,
glistens,
prepared for our appetite.
Now,
gather
garlic,
but first caress
that precious ivory,
smell its irate fragrance
then let the chopped garlic
fall with onions
and tomatoes
until the onions
are golden,
Meanwhile,
cook
the regal
marine shrimp
with the steam,
and then, when they've
become tender,
when the flavor curdles
in a sauce,
formed by the juice
of the ocean
and the clear water,
shined by the light of the onions,
then
let the congrio enter
and submerge in glory,
so it oils in the pot,
so it condense and impregnates.
Now all you need to do
is let some cream
fall into the delicacy,
like a heavy rose,
and slowly let
the flame heat the treasure
until the essences of Chile
are heated
and the newlywed flavors
of the sea and the earth
are brought to the table,
so that in this dish,
you know heaven.
translated and (c) by Mark Eisner.
Original poem (c) Fundacion Pablo Neruda
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Filming the sea in front of Pablo's Isla Negra home
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The conger eel
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Carlos at Pablo's bar, Isla Negra
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Filming 'Ode to Conger Chowder'
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Filming Rafita, Neruda's good friend and carpinter for his three poetic houses |
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Rafita
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The chowder! |
On the dolly inside Isla Negra casa
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Director Carlos Bolado in front of Valparaíso
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Manuel, Isla Negra fisherman, friend of Pablo's
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Below are selected clips from the first, rough cut version, which holds the
heart of the film, but we're going to now make it much more gripping,
lyrical, and powerful.
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What people are saying…
“Well-crafted…smoothly handled package” – Variety
“Never losing any of its lyricism, this film deftly laces interviews with those who knew Pablo best with readings of his own magical works throughout. One need not be a Neruda fan to enjoy this documentary, nor even a poetry fan. It is, quite simply, the story of a great man who possessed great thoughts – and of a world that has forever become a better place because of them.”
– San Francisco International Latino Film Festival
”During his lifetime, Pablo Neruda became the world's most famous poet -- a giant of a man who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, counted Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera as close friends and was so politically active that he became a senator in his native Chile. Yet what emerges as much as anything in [Red Poppy's Exec. Director] Mark Eisner's fine documentary about him, is Neruda's ability to connect with everyday people -- not just in the superficial style of a glad-handing politician but in ways that were so genuine and lasting that the people he touched remember him, decades later, with love in their eyes.”
- San Francisco Chronicle |
