Back to Abnormality (more complex than a virus) A film by AA.VV

Eight stories from eight different countries in the world, Back to Abnormality (more complex than a virus) is about social contradictions that – pre-existing to the virus – exploded with the pandemic.

The authors will donate all revenues to EMERGENCY NGO ONLUS, to support the commitment of the NGO to ensure everyone’s right to healthcare.

The film, shot by eight independent filmmakers, doesn’t deny nor debates the medical issue but, using it as a starting point, reflects on the economic inequalities, the social injustices, the raise of domestic violence during lockdown, the denial of healthcare rights. All these problems exacerbated by the pandemic belong to a system that unites us all, worldwide.

Back to Abnormality gives voice to the indigenous communtity in Brasil, under the attack of Bolsonaro, to the factory workers forced to expose themselves to the contagion, to the ones who couldn’t have access to hospitals nor have a dignified burial, to the women victim of phisycal and psicological violence and to those who are not scared by the virus because fear, dead and poverty already scarred them.

Press-book download: “BACK TO ABNORMALITY”

CHAPTER 1

By Priscilla Aguirre Martínez

• Written and directed by Priscilla Aguirre Martínez
  Camera operator: Ricardo Bohórquez; Priscilla Aguirre Martínez
  Produced by Priscilla Aguirre Martínez
  Film editor: Priscilla Aguirre Martínez
  Color correction: Giovanny Sabogal (SABO)
  Sound: Priscilla Aguirre Martínez, Camille Enríquez, Pablo Encalada
  Soundtrack: Erlândia Ribeiro, Ramón Alvez
  Sound designer: Camille Enríquez
  Translations and subtitles: Vania Rivera
• Archive footage: Noticias Telemundo; Noticiero El Espectador; Noticias Diario El Expreso; Guayaquil, una realidad que no todos vieron (Diario El Expreso) – Realización Enrique Ortiz; Guayaquil reclama los cuerpos desaparecidos (Diario El Expreso) – Realización Blanca Moncada; Noticias France24; Coronavirus en Ecuador: El drama de Guayaquil con más muertos por covid-19 que países enteros y lucha a contrarreloj para darles un entierro digno (BBC News)

Guayaquil, my city, turns into a Dante’s hell while I can only observe from afar. An intimate reflection, a painful, helpless nostalgia, a diary of horror and social inequality; a personal look at an apocalyptic landscape, made up of corpses abandoned in the street and the excruciating screams of those who see death manifesting itself in the most macabre way before their eyes.

CHAPTER 2

By Lukas Jaramillo and Juan Pablo Patiño

• With Rosa Adela Tejada and Fredy Ernesto Jaramillo
  Directed by Juan Pablo Patiño and Lukas Jaramillo
  Produced by Servicios de producción cinematográfica SAS.; María Paula Jiménez ; Juan Pablo Patiño; Lukas Jaramillo
  Sound: Juan Pablo Patiño; Rueda Sonido
  Cinematography: Lukas Jaramillo
  Film editor: Lukas Jaramillo
• Special thanks to: Rosa Adela Tejada; Fredy Ernesto Jaramillo; Colectivo por naturaleza; Susana Molina

Rosa and Fredy live in the La Honda neighborhood of Medellín. Death, fear, closing in at home for them  is a well-known reality. Covid-19 for some is just one more drama: especially for those who escape from violence, poverty and corruption and try to rebuild their lives, to defend their dignity.

CHAPTER 3

By Pauli Gutiérrez Arcos

• Written directed and produced by Pauli Gutiérrez Arcos
  Film editor: Alfredo Ortega
  Sound designer: Manu Ponce
  Soundtrack by Cristóbal Oyarce

Going around the world and discovering only by returning home what really matters, understanding that when life wants to teach you something, it always finds a way to do it. Experiencing the outbreak of a pandemic up close and feeling that a virus is chasing you, reaching your dearest loved ones.

CHAPTER 4

By Stefano Virgilio Cipressi

• Directed produced edited and shooted by Stefano Virgilio Cipressi
  Drawings by Anna Brancato
  Soundtrack by Samuele Cima
• Special thanks to: all the factory workers who intervened; all those who helped us for the interviews; Carla Ferracini; Francesca Marras; Andrés Rico

Not “everything will be fine” if someone is locked out, if the right to health does not apply to everyone, if the interests of a few prevail over those of many. How can a country consider itself civil if producing (even non-essential goods) is more important than the health of the workers? From the factories of Italy, during the lockdown, the voices of those who felt they were slaughtered meat.

CHAPTER 5

By Xabier Ortiz De Urbina

• With Agustin Arandigoyen and Victoria Arandigoyen
  Directed, shooted and edited by Xabier Ortiz de Urbina
  Color correction: Stefano Virgilio Cipressi

My mother has been taking care of my grandfather since the latter is no longer self-sufficient. Among the growing business of private nursing homes, among the shocking increase in victims in nursing homes, I see in this woman the symbol of another, still possible care system.
Our home is full of unconditional love as the TV tells of investment funds that see the elderly as a source of profit. Perhaps, it’s a different idea of ​​humanity that I read in my mother’s smile and in my grandfather’s wrinkles.

CHAPTER 6

By Andrés Rico

• With Gene Sullivan
  Written and directed by Andrés Rico
  Produced and edited by Andrés Rico
  Fixer: Pedro García
  Subtitles: Andrés Rico

Gene Sullivan, member of the NRA – National Rifle Association (the organization that acts in favor of the holders of firearms in the United States of America), explains the importance of the second amendment of the American Constitution: the one that allows citizens to possess weapons.  Weapons that is good to keep, according to him, even more during a pandemic.

CHAPTER 7

By Raíssa Dourado

• Directed by Raíssa Dourado
  Shooted by Raíssa Dourado and Neni Glock
  Drone operator: Luis Gabriel Almeida
  Film editor: Stefano Virgilio Cipressi
  Color correction: Stefano Virgilio Cipressi
  Translations: Giacomo Rossetti; Arelis Soto
• Special thanks to: Luis Gabriel Almeida; Márcia Mura; Isaka Huni Kuin; Piratá Wauja Pyiulaga; Lautaro Actis

As the Amazon Forest burns, the indigenous people who inhabit it are accused by Bolsonaro of being the perpetrators of the fires. But how can you do this to the place you live, that you love, that gives you nutrition and medicine? A journey through the sounds and colors that resist and those lost forever, between the indigenous voices and their unfulfilled requests.

CHAPTER 8

By Diana María González Colmenero

• Written directed shooted and edited by Diana María González Colmenero
  “Canción sin miedo” by Vivir Quintana

Dates, names, places coldly listed, but which tell of the women and girls killed in the months of the lockdown in Mexico. An increase in violence in a context in which the data on femicides in the country were already frightening. Why is it so difficult to hear our pain?