yearbook 2004/05 - The European Film College

Creating the documentary on Don Robaina
By Helle Windeløv
I was a student at the EFC during 2000/2001.
From the very beginning of my stay, I knew that
documentary was the genre I would love to explore,
and during the 8 months at the college I
produced three. During the last month of my
stay I realized that before leaving the college I
had to find out what I could do afterwards to
combine my 8-month-stay here in safe and caring
surroundings with the “real world outside”.
It simply had to be done while I was still in the
centre of the creative and inventive energy that
would enable me to start up a larger documentary-production
before I would be thrown before
the “cruel and scary Film-industry”. A new
project would keep me on tracks with what I
had learnt at the EFC and preserve my passion
and drive for the universe of the documentary
process.
So when everybody else was doing their finals I
sat down to write on the idea that in the summer
of 2003 – after some years of hard work – is
now realized as the 50 minute long documentary
from Cuba on “The Love of Don Robaina”.
Don Robaina
Each movie has its own individual “history of
birth”, often a very long and tough birth that
starts with the motivation of working with the
media and the idea that you have in your head
and your heart. My idea for “The Love of Don
Robaina” started with my father’s passion for cigars
– he is what you call a “cigar-afficionado”
– with an admiration for the Cuban cigar-legend
Don Alejandro Robaina and his exclusive
tobacco. My father has for many years had a
big, beautiful black and white photograph of
Don Robaina and he has told me many stories
about the dignified Cuban tobacco-farmer and
his beautiful personality. He also told me that
Don Robaina is known for being the best producer
of tobacco in the whole wide world, as
well as being a very humble and loving person. I
appreciate this combination of professionalism
and humbleness very much, and therefore I de-
cided that I wanted to meet this man and make
a portrait of him. His beautiful 83-years-old
wrinkled face made me even more motivated
for doing the movie. Apart from that, I had for
several years wanted to see Cuba and I loved the
challenge it would be to film in a country That
you have never worked in before been – and in
this case it is not a particularly organized place
to work in! My father then passed a handwritten
letter from me to Don Robaina asking him
permission to make a film about him, his family
and the workers on the farm and having received
a positive answer to that, I left for Cuba
in November 2001 – after having applied to
The Danish Film Institute for support for writing
the manuscript.
El Niño dies
A week before departure I received a mail from
a friend who told me that the whole area had
been ravaged by a tremendous hurricane and
that Don Robaina’s plantation might be totally
ruined. It was too late to cancel the ticket so I
thought that if so, I would have to make a film
about him in that new situation instead. Fortunately
the hurricane had passed around his estate
and I was allowed to shoot what I wanted together
with my female Cuban assistant. I spent
a month in Cuba shooting everything from
the very beginning of the planting of the small
seeds for tobacco, the workers, members of the
family – and not least Don Robaina. While I
was in Cuba I had a mail from the Danish Film
Institute that I might get the financial support
for the manuscript and they wanted a meeting
with me when I returned. Fortunately I got the
money that enabled me to return to Cuba with
a photographer 3 months later, in February
2002, to film the harvest of the tobacco and collect
the final shots of the family and the estate.
Equipment was rented from DR-TV with a
premature agreement on screening my movie in
their slot called TV-talents. But once more ob-