What is Novelda - Japan?

Novelda - Japan is the second film by the filmmaker from Alicante Alfredo Navarro Benito, author of Sueños de sal (Salt Dreams), a work awarded, among others prizes, with a Goya in 2016 in the category of the best Documentary Film and a Turia award in the category of the best Valencian Documentary Film in its 25th edition,among others.

In this occasion, Navarro gets embarked in a new personal project: a social documentary film designed for an international audience, which brings to life the essence of his previous work by telling us about the dreams and illusions of six people from different places all over the world. Six special lives, six special touching lives.

Venice, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg or Osaka will be just some of the cities that will foster this young filmmaker, who will turn into our host in more than one story, since we will be able to track his footsteps every day in his struggle to see his his dream fullfilled: travelling from Novelda (Alicante) to Japan.

NOVELDA-JAPAN has become the most personal project of Alfredo Navarro until now. This documentary film tells us about solidarity, personal goals and the constant evolution of the human being, an experience reflected on Navarro's own life when ten years ago, after suffering a car accident in which he almost lost his life, decided to leave everything behind and set for a great adventure: covering the distance between Spain and Japan carrying just a backpack, a camera recorder, a laptop and a tent.

This epiphanic experience was portrayed on the book “Mi diario de bitácora” (My binnacle diary), whose contents were taken as a base for this film's screenplay.

What was first intended to be a journey and adventure film, called "Novelda - Japan 0 euros", would become something deeper. Alfredo would soon find out, in every country he visited, that this long way in his search for means of transport, shelter and food was going to depend, more and more, on the solidarity of total strangers that would step on his path and who would finally become the real protagonists in this story: Miriam Zanoner, Lalaina Raharison, Segundo Castillo, Nathalia, Ingrid and Carlos Martínez.

They would rewrite the story of Novelda-Japan and would help Navarro to overcome hunger, sickness, exhaustion and other drawbacks; humble people who didn't have any doubts to uninterestedly help a young man with a camera, who claim to be recording a documentary film.

Left to right: Miriam Zanoner, Lalaina Raharison, Segundo Castillo, Nathalia, Ingrid y Carlos Martínez, Alfredo Navarro.

SHORT FILM: MIRIAM ZANONER-VENICE

Venice is one of the original shortfilms of the Novelda-Japan journey.

Novelda-Japan 0€ would lose its original meaning. Ten years later, its logo acquired new values, completely unlinked from money, since the solidarity the protagonists showed all along this adventure was stronger than any coin or any bank note. Thanks to them, this project was born. So the zero from "0€" was removed, giving way to a new image, one closer to those final values that were intented to be broadcasted.

Miriam Zanoner: 30 years old. Pàdova, Italy. She’s an Italian young woman. She lives in Venice now, where she studies Japanese at the university. Her dream has always been visiting Japan, a dream she shares with Alfredo Navarro; maybe that’s why she identified herself with him and tried to help him out. Miriam lives in a typical old little palace in Venice, by the channels, sharing her household with a musician and a poet. Keen on cats and Nature, she will provide a different point of view about the romantic and idealised vision tourists have. For Miriam, Venice is a cultural city crumbling down, a stopover that gets older and older and left behind by Venetians themselves.”People belive Venice is a really beautiful city with lots of contrasts, a place full of life, but that’s what only lies on its surface. Venice is, indeed…”.

Lalaina Raharison: 27 years old. Paris, France. Despite being a French citizen, she descends from settlers, from Madagascarian parents who migrated to France for academic reasons. Strongly embracing her roots, she will tell us her story, a story about the slavery and subjugation of all her ancestors,an experience suffered by her own grandfather. She will reveal to us the double sided morality that has pervaded France and how, even among the French people, there’s a discrimination focused on the descendants of settlers, descendants who, despite having a Parisian background, get marginalized and humiliated.

We will know the world of Capoeira, a martial art that she performs, a discipline she deeply feels attached to.

Lalaina is living in a constant evolution, in an inner journey. She aspires to travel to Spain and experience her own personal adventure in this new country.

Segundo Castillo: 57 years old. Cascas, Peru. Nowadays, he lives in Berlin, Germany. Segundo is the exponent of a whole Latin American community who abandonded their countries in search of a better life. This craftsman and poet dedicates his time to compose songs and write books of poems about his hometown, Cascas. He also dedicates to fundrising in order to help aunt Rosita, an old lady from Honduras, who outlived the demolition of the Berlin wall and married an English soldier in DDR times. Now she’s struggling for her life, as she finds herself in a very advanced stage of cancer.

Segundo Castillo will tell us about his past as an immigrant, how he was unfairly imprisoned, and his fight to not to get deported.

Ingrid and Carlos Martinez: 39 years old and 14 years old respectively. Colombians. Mother and son live now in Osaka, Japan. Ingrid travelled as a nanny for the daughter of a Japanese familiy and decided to stay in that new country, aiming to bring with her not only her 4 years old son with her, but his brother as well. Carlos dreams about being a professional footbal player; he trains hard and his dream is to know personally Cristiano Ronaldo. Ingrid will do everything it's in her hands to make her son’s dream come true.

Alfredo Navarro in Novelda-Japan shooting

NOVELDA JAPÓN

NOVELDA JAPÓN