dynamo Capital: Investment projects / Christmas Night (Noche Buena)
Christmas Night (Noche Buena)
Synopsis
December 24th dawns at the “Garden of Eden”, the De La Concha Family estate. As every year, Sofia de la Concha, the matriarch of the clan, has invited her sons, daugh-ters, and extended family to celebrate Christmas. Bernardo, Sofia’s youngest son, an audacious and unscrupulous stock exchange trader, is having an affair with his sister-in-law Esmeralda. He is also trying to avoid Uldarico, a dubious old-school local politician who also happens to be Esmeralda’s father. Rosario, Bernardo’s sister, still dreams the dreams of the Left, although nowadays she is little more than an anachronistic Marxist figure. Alvaro, a happy drunkard, who happens to be Esmeralda’s husband and Bernardo’s brother, lives satisfied as a middle ranked civil servant appointed by govern-ment friends.
The De La Concha family is economically bankrupt, but the only one aware of this little fact is Bernardo, who is in charge of the family’s assets. In a final attempt to save the opulent life he has always known, Bernardo has staked the family estate in a risky deal with Uldarico. On Christmas morning the deal goes sour and, unless Bernardo does something about it, Uldarico will join the Christmas party, uninvited, to claim his prop-erty.
Like every year end, the Family is performing the Christmas rite, completely ignorant of the social disaster into which Bernardo is leading them. Unfortunately for all, the family bankruptcy is not only economic. It is also moral; and amidst this moral decadence, they cling to the memories of happiness, prosperity and leisure of yesteryear. They deny real-ity with the same cheerfulness with which they avoid acknowledging the house’s collaps-ing drainage system.
The evening arrives and dark waters begin to emerge from broken sewers than can no longer be repaired. The garden, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the country mansion gradually becomes a stinking cesspit… and so does the family. As the clock ticks closer to midnight and the drinks flow faster, the characters merge and collide, closer and closer to a truth they can no longer avoid.
Awards:
Ibermedia development award: Spain
CNACC production award: Bogotá, Colombia
Selected for the Script Lab at the Amiens´ International Film Festival: Amiens, France
Key Credits:
Director and Screenplay: Camila Loboguerrero
Producer: Rodrigo Guerrero – dynamo Producciones S.A. (Colombia)
Cast: Constanza Camelo, Edgardo Román, Matías Maldonado
Genre: Comedy of manners
Date of production: February – September 2008
Film investments
Anger (Rabia):
An impossible relationship played by two lovers condemned to live in the same bourgeois mansion. He’s hiding. She’s free. And both will have to surrender to the consequences of a crime… and the anger from which it emerged.
Christmas Night (Noche Buena):
A Colombian upper class family will go through its worst (and most ridiculous) economic and domestic crisis ever… precisely on Christmas Eve. The final eruption of the Truth will occur at midnight.
Undertow:
A love-ghost from the past will make Miguel accept his true essence… before society and before himself.
