ERNESTO'S ISLAND

It is about the big and the small things, about family, friends, about love. But above all it is about the place, that every persons pictures differently, but that is always wonderful in the same way: It is a place, where you can be your true self. Where you fell safe and secure, where you maybe even feel loved.

Does such a place exist? And if it does exist, does it have anything to do with East and West? Does it even have to be an actual place? On a journey through Cuba we are getting to the bottom of all of these questions. In this state that is slowly falling apart, where the old has not vanished and the new not yet arrived. On this journey we experience hand in hand the sad and the funny, the longing and the hurtful. Simply all the things that we cannot find answers without.

You.

Because our movie has - just like This Ain’t California - it’s very unique style.
The script of Ernesto’s Island got enriched and has grown while we were already shooting, because we left space for the unwritten: It got filled with life by the people we met on the spot. They weaved their stories into the movie. They gave us an intimate glimpse into their relationships to their homes and made this movie a true affair of the heart.

As projects like this are very hard to evaluate in advance, it is almost impossible for sponsors and movie buyers to support them.
Nevertheless we were able to begin with Ernesto’s Island thanks to the support of arte, RBB and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, who were the only ones who involved themselves in this - at the time - unpredictable adventure.

So the main part of our big journey is successfully completed. But to make it to the finish line and to bring it on the big screen we need your support.

We will finish the movie with this money.

In detail and in this will be finishing the edit, which is still some way to go, while composing score and buying music license rights. When this is done we’ll have to do some more work on sound and sound design, which also still is a huge job. We will record the narrator’s voice (Voice Over), have actors synchronize certain parts again, where the original sound is crappy and do Voice Overs themselves. Then this all will get mixed into cinema files and a Dolby 5.1 Mix and a stereo TV mix and another 100 things our sound designer will come up with, to make his 50% of the movie. Sound tells the story on another level and if it’s done well you won’t have to open your eyes to feel the place you are at.
But what am I telling you, I bet you all know these things yourself..

Then we will have to do the online (relinking small edit files to the original 4k footage), have retouching and compositing done, where the screen is not yet showing the right thing. And then the colorist will grab this whole movie and do his magic to colors and contrast and work the hidden things out of the dark corners. Sounds so easy, but these artists also make the movie a world that fits together and that you enjoy experiencing.

In the end picture and sound will be brought together and the movie will be exported to all different kinds of data formats that are necessary in order to publish like DCP for cinema and also then we’ll have different language versions done (by professionals, of course. Unlike this text;) …

Then we’ll gather our last bits of energy and money in order to make sure this movie can be seen elsewhere besides German television. Festival applications cost money, press work has to be done as well as Trailers, Poster, Graphics and Print work to get this movie into cinemas all over the world.