EMILIO ZOZAYA, itinerant Venezuelan musician, 60/65 years old, comes back to Caracas
during Christmas time after ten years of self exile. His intention is to get to know better his grandson, MANUEL, 23, a student
of Social Communication at the Catholic University of Caracas. Emilio,
Manuel and his girlfriend LUCIA, 20, theater guide and actress, celebrate in a restaurant the anniversary of Angel, Emilio´s
dead ex wife. While toasting to their health a holdup takes place and they are taken hostage by YOTAMA, 30. The four, clustered in Manuel´s apartment hide from the police that is looking
for Yotama. Anguish and violence escalates in the closed circle, but the affective needs of both Emilio and Yotama entices
them to establish an intense relationship.
The couple brings VICTORIA, Yotama´s mischievous daughter to the apartment,
thus constituting an highly unusual “family”. A little bird knocks itself unconscious on the window pane. The
five direct their attention towards caring for him. Due to a previously
known coronary problem, Emilio passes away on Christmas day, not before leaving his will recorded on video. After the incineration,
at night, the four silently celebrate Christmas dinner. Yotama swallows Emilio´s ashes, in a primitive and sacred ritual.
Next day, in response to Victoria´s repeated and obsessive appeals,
the four leave for a visit to the zoo. The little girl has slipped Emilio´s gun into her knack sack. It’s dark and the apartment continues empty….. The four characters have
not come back. The objects left behind seem frozen in time and space, the little bird, who has recuperated, flies away from
its cage….
NOTE OF INTENTION
YOTAMA = YO TE AMO (I LOVE
YOU), fragile words that easily “fly away”…
Fear and hate ends, yielding in face of the most
elemental human emotions
"YOTAMA GOES FLYING" shows the encounter of two parallel worlds: of the
assailant and of a retired musician. The relationship between them begins during a concurrence at the border of violence and
death. The tension discloses the similitudes and differences between the characters, acting as a catalizer, revealing the
authentic human relations that the characters try to hide. Emilio, lives in the memory of his past, Yotama, since young,
has been the product of violence. Emilio´s relationship with
the assailant is a revelation for both of them: for Emilio it is the reaffirmation that he can still live a present. For
Yotama: that it still exists the possibility of tenderness and human contact – even between the most diverse people. Fear and hate ends by yielding in face of the most elemental human emotions.
Victoria, the small child, is the catalizer and the aperture towards the future. This makes "YOTAMA GOES FLYING”
film of hope and love….only destiny, in face of which, neither love, generosity, education, nor humor have the
last word…
Technical
notes
Color, 35mm 1:85 – Dolby Digital SR – 90 minutes
A film by Luis Armando Roche
A Marie Françoise Roche production for Arsiete C.A. and the Centro Nacional Autónomo de Cinematografía.
Screenplay by Luis Armando Roche – Carlos Brito – Jacques Espagne
Starring by alphabethical
order
Asdrúbal Meléndez, Oriana Meléndez, Edgar Ramirez, Martha Tarazona, Beatriz Vázquez
