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El Salvador: Cuatro Puntos Cardinales (The Four Cardinal Points) is a documentary project that aspires to portray stories from northern, southern, eastern and western parts of this Central American country. The objective is to show the cultural, social and ecological diversity of the region – and to create a film that distances itself from media discourses characteristic of Central America often monopolized by violence.

For this, we want to focus mainly on four characters that live – although in the same country – in quite different environments. From surfing communities to coffee plantations, from ex guerrilla-warzones to towns that live almost entirely on handicrafts: in such a small country as El Salvador there’s plenty to see – and many stories to tell.

The final product will have an approximate length of 60 minutes (although we don’t rule out the possibility of making a full-length documentary). At the moment we are on the research stage and during the next weeks I’ll be spending most of my time on locations in order to get documented and to really know the people and surroundings.

My first stop will be the town of Concepción de Ataco, on the western part of the country. Ataco is a colorful little town on the Apaneca mountain range that depends greatly on the coffee market. During the last decade it has experienced a touristic boom and now many foreigners have made Ataco their home. However, many locals can easily tell you how the ups and downs of the coffee market have greatly affected the region over decades.

Next, I plan to visit the municipality of La Palma, in Chalatenango, a department at the northern part of the country. Besides being near to the highest mountain of El Salvador and thus enjoying a great climate, La Palma is known for its handicrafts. The story of how traditional craftworks became a self-organized industry employing hundreds of artisans in this area – even during the Civil War – is exciting and worth telling.

Furthermore, on the eastern part of the country one finds Perquín, a city once dominated by the guerrilla movement. The Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992) is still an actual topic in this area since it suffered a great deal through military attacks throughout the conflict. However, their inhabitants – some of which were active fighters – strive to live peacefully, sharing with the visitors stories of all they lived during the war.

And finally, the last stop will be a small community situated on a beach called El Zonte, on the southern part of El Salvador. El Zonte has excellent surfing conditions and this sport has taken over the lifestyle of most of its inhabitants. Interestingly enough, the community is trying to break the pattern by gaining control of the growth produced by tourism. On the other side, multiculturalism is a big theme here, and many humanitarian groups have made El Zonte their base when visiting El Salvador.

With your support will be funding all phases of production: research, shooting and post-production. As said before, I’ll be conducting research over the next few weeks and will update pictures and notes on our web and facebook page. After that, we’ll enter the shooting phase wholly, although this might take a couple of months since we’ll have to wait for the rainy season to be over – and anyone who has lived a Central American rainy season will understand this. We expect to finish post-production by the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012.   

So, once again, thanks for your support. With your help, we hope to contribute our bit to changing the image of Central America by telling stories that, to our knowledge, no one has been telling. We want to distant ourselves from the violence narrative.

We want to show you the other side.

To learn more, find us at:

Cuatropuntoscardinales.com

Facebook: El Salvador Cuatro Puntos Cardinales

Fact Sheet:

Director: Javier Kafie

Producer: Juan Carlos Saavedra

Length: The final documentary will have a length of aprox. 60 min.

Format: HD1080p

Filmed with Nikon DSLR and Canon prosumer handy cam.

A co-production of: Monos Metafísicos and Monstruo-Lab