— John O'Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)
Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake.
Walter Scott
There's a shadow on the door of my soul. It's my film story.
My screenplay characters are walking though a new door. They've come out of hiding. For the moment this feels like a consensus, but anything can change at any time.
It will be Sasha's story now. The kidnapped granddaughter.
Her challenge is to find her mother. But first she has to find her grandmother. The story is about unearthing, then understanding an accepting a tragic holocaust family 'story', which finally, brings transformation to three generations of artistic women, through Sasha. It's an archetypal, hero's journey about slaying inner self sabotaging monsters.
Log line: this is a term used in the film industry for the briefest possible summing up of the film. A great log line should be a fraction of the below, and should contain verbs like: struggles with, battles with, grapples, takes on, clashes with, or crusades, etc.
'Abducted when three weeks old, 18 year old talented Jewish music student Sasha grows up believing she was adopted. On the deathbed of her Moroccan abductor ‘Uncle Kaleb,’ she discovers the truth. He tells her her real name, nothing else. Devastated by this revelation, Sasha clashes with the world in her attempt to grapple with the truth. She starts an inner crusade after meeting a clairvoyant who convinces her to drop her singing studies and head for Bolivia where she will find her mother Shifra ,in the slums of La Paz, teaching street kids theater skills. Shifra believes her abducted daughter is long dead.
Sasha needs a passport, so her odyssey first leads her to wage war on the France authorities. They are secretive and unhelpful, but finally she tracks down her French widowed artist Holocaust survivor grandmother Anabel, who then as an act of secret atonement, accompanies her to Bolivia....'
There is so much more... but for the moment this is all I can share with you. It's a new angle. A new protagonist has stepped forward. I think this is the outcome of the casts retreat time in the refuge ! I've let them sort it out.
Sasha has come forward.
The film started as Shifra's story. Then it switched to Anabel's story. Then it became Holocaust survivor Grandfather Reuben's story.
I sank so deeply into his tragedy I felt I was drowning in love and pity for him. I also felt I was meeting disturbing ghosts from my own unknown Jewish ancestry.
So now , today, it's the bright and beautiful granddaughters story.
Despite Sasha's appallingly disadvantaged upbringing in an immigrant ghetto in Paris, through her innate innocence and exquisite voice, she manages to effortlessly brake barriers, mend and melt hearts, and bring peace to her biological family, thereby ending three generations of women being traumatized and scared at the age of 18.
The women :
Highly strung artist Anabel walked free from Auschwitz aged 18.
Her 18 year old daughter Shifra(an acrobat and an artist) becomes severely depressed when her three week old illegitimate baby Sasha is abducted.
Singer Sasha finds the shocking truth about her kidnapping when she is 18.
But, I think Sasha has to have a flaw, or a special need: she will have had this all her life.
This too will be transformed by the end of the story.
What could be her flaw, her special need?
Would you want to see this movie ?
Any suggestions what her flaw might be ?
Facebook me with ideas ?
"Art is the act of triggering deep memories, of what it means to be fully human."
David Whyte
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