Santa Ana.

Personal Project
Short Film

After Tramuntana, a film about the famed the Tramuntana wind in the Mediterranean, César Pesquera (director) and Christian Lopez (art director) teamed up with Kako Mendez (writer) in order to make a second film about winds, in this case, the Santa Ana winds.

This time literary references are combined with classic cinema references resulting in a film, part documentary, part art-film, that tries to elucidate the link between evil and the famed Santa Ana winds.

The Santa Ana winds are extremely dry down-slope winds that originate inland and affect coastal Southern California and northern Baja California. They are commonly portrayed in fiction as being responsible for a tense, uneasy, wrathful mood among Angelenos.

Some of the more well-known literary references include the Philip Marlowe story Red Wind by Raymond Chandler, and Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

The film was shot in the desert of Nevada and California, very close to the border with Mexico, an area where Mexican illegal immigrants try to cross to US soil.

Santa Ana is ultimately a project about evil, violence, and fear using the wind and its cultural connotations as a starting point to investigate the relations between the inhabitants of the USA and their environment.

Despite investigating the wind’s literary and supernatural connotations the project is very connected to the reality, the reality of a country where the conflicts derived from racial tensions and immigration are evident, now more than ever.

Featured on NOWNESS

Awards
2018. Salute Your Shorts. Honorable mention Best documentary.

Selected Screenings
2018. Aesthetica Short Film Festival. York (UK)
2018. Lago Film Fest. Revine Lago (IT)
2018. LA OLA. Los Angeles, New York, CDMX (USA, MX)
2018. Imagine Film Festival. Amsterdam (NL)
2018. South By Southwest (US). Nominee SXSW Grand Jury Award.
2018. Fest. Int. Cartage de Indias (CO)
2018. Guadalajara Film Festival (MX)
2018. Slamdance Festival (US)
2017. Sochi Film Festival (RU)
2017. Interfilm Festival. Berlin. (DE)
2017. BFI London Film Festival (UK)
2017. Sitges Film Festival (ES)
2017. Raindance Film Festival. London (UK)

Credits
A PANDORA: project
Produced by STORY: In Association with Wild Goats Creative

Directed by César Pesquera
Written by Kako Mendez, Christian López and César Pesquera
Art Direction: Christian López, César Pesquera and Kako Mendez
Executive Producers: Víctor Mata and Ana Laura Solís
Produced by Salvador Gutiérrez Chacón and Víctor Mata
Co-Produced by Cecilia Salguero and Aldo Chacón
Director of Photography: José Luis Bernal
Still Photographer: Javier Tles
Costume Designer: Mairi Chisholm
Editor: César Pesquera
Music and sound design: Nick Smith
Colorist: Marc Morató
Title Lettering: Marta Cerdà
CGI: Entropy
VFX: Lastcrit

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