A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to meet the US film director James F. Robinson in Guatemala City who is working on his latest feature, “The Little Kite.”
Robinson first came Guatemala over 30 years ago. He fell in love with the Mayan traditions after spending time in the highlands, especially in Chichicastenango and Santiago Sacatepéquez.
His latest film is a world away from probably his most famous feature, “Still Breathing” which stared Brendon Fraser and the Oscar winner Celeste Holm, the story of a Texan artist who falls in love with a Los Angeles’s woman who has a shady past.
Robinson feels that so many films from Central America deal with immigration to the north or civil wars and wants to show another side. All but one of the cast of “The Little Kite,” are non-actors from Chichicastenango. The one known
actor, born in Cuba (I cannot mention names as he is yet to sign but had roles in both “Ugly Betty” and “American Housewives”). 70% of the film will be in Spanish and the rest interestingly in K’iche’ and Kaqchikel.
The theme of “The Little Kite,” is that of the resilience of the human spirit. Tomasa is an 8-year-old girl. She lives with
her mother and grandmother in Chichicastenango. They both are pressuring her to learn the art of weaving, as they and their ancestors have done before them which she hates. Her grandfather becomes seriously ill and under pressure starts to make a weaving for him. Frustrated, she rips it apart and guess what? The next day her grandfather dies!
Full of guilt, the family leave Chichicastenango for Santiago Sacatépequez for his funeral. There, she discovers the beauty and heritage of kite making and out of her guilt and sorrow decides to make a kite to honor her grandfather.
