In this lyrically simple film a five-year-old city boy is introduced to the traditional fisherman’s life of his father and grandfather as they pass a summer at work and play in the pristine waters of the Mexican Caribbean.
I was inspired by the simplicity of happiness.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2010
Alamar 2009
To the Sea
In this lyrically simple film a five-year-old city boy is introduced to the traditional fisherman’s life of his father and grandfather as all three pass a summer at work and play in the pristine waters of the Mexican Caribbean. Natan is the offspring of a holiday romance between Jorge, a Mexican son of nature, and Roberta, an Italian traveller, who is bringing the boy up in Rome. She drops him off to spend time with his father and grandfather, a fisherman who lives in a hut perched on stilts among the coral reefs of Banco Chinchorro. Director Pedro González-Rubio observes with documentary fidelity, savouring each moment as the boy finds his footing in this masculine world and becomes entranced by the puzzling creatures that surround him. — BG
“A poignant cinematic ode to father-son relationships, an elegy to the virtues of freedom in childhood, and a passionate defence of the integrity of nature’s few remaining paradises.” — Lee Marshall, Screendaily
“In today’s contemporary cinema landscape, Alamar’s purity of spirit and form comes as a revelation. ‘I was inspired by the simplicity of happiness,’ says director Pedro González-Rubio of this effortlessly beautiful work, set amid the Mexican Caribbean’s spectacular natural beauty and sleepy coastal villages – the Mayan fishing communities of the country’s fabled Banco Chinchorro (home to the world’s second-largest coral reef). Alamar is a crowning example of the renaissance in Mexican independent film, and a memorable testament to the fact that cinema still can draw inspiration from, and dare to capture, the simplicity of happiness.” — Jason Sanders, San Francisco International Film Festival