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• 04 / 25 / 2009

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When the animated film Meñique is ready, more than 100 creators including cartoonists, artists, sculptors, scenographers, have left their mark on the first 3D film in the history of the Cuban cinema.

 

Ernesto Padrón, scriptwriter and director of the super production, believes that this will be a good trail, a positive one.

 

It is about a French story that José Martí adapted and recreated for his magazine The Golden Age by the end of the 19th century. Dedicated to children, the book, since then, has made the story so popular, that the time has changed its original name, Pulgarcito, by Meñique, as well as its author, the French Edouard Labouyale, by José Martí, to whom it is attributed the legendary story, and whose main moral in the story is that knowledge is more important than strength.

 

Turned into a 3D animated film, the nice and talented Meñique could be one of the future jewels of the Cuban cinema dedicated to children. It is, at least, the inspiration of the production group and especially Padrón’s, whose answers in this conversation give a notion of much effort they are putting into it now.

The feature film should be ready by the end of 2011. This is a super production that was originally intended to be made in classic animation, in 2D.

Silvio Rodriguez will not only write the songs for Meñique, but also the soundtrack of the movie. The songs he has written are beautiful; so beautiful that we are having a difficult time when creating the images that accompany them on the screen. He says the contrary: that the images are so beautiful, that he has to make a great effort with the songs. And we only have a version of the songs. They need orchestration and recording. But they have already the magic of the melody and poetry that Silvio can provide so well as a whole, and express magnificently the content of the work.

 

Silvio’s enthusiasm for the film was a love at second sight, since Meñique is one of his favorite and loved stories. He read the script of this free version that I wrote and he liked it. Since then, he has not only helped me with the music direction, but also with ideas about the story, the actors who recorded the characters’ voices, the physique or personality of the characters; and even he was the first one to come up with the subversive idea to make the whole movie in 3D.

This free version of the story is like paying off an outstanding cinematographic debt with Martí, and also with countless of Cuban generations that since they were born received such a lesson, and still carry it in their lives as adults, or better said: from children who pretend to be adults.

Source: CubaNow