SHORT FILM
Dúdú and the Color Pencil of the Skin
APPROXIMATELY 18 MINUTES
“Can I have a skin-colored pencil?” Who, as a child, did not hear such question? Something said in seemingly unsuspecting manner can raise a terrible issue of racism. This is the starting point for the film main conflict. A current theme addressed by the child’s point of view in a plain, true and emotional plot that can hold the attention of audience of all ages and origins. Dúdú and the Color Pencil of the Skin depicts a child’s speech on an issue restricted to the “world of adults”. No one can be more sincere than a child, right ? So nothing better than a child to talk about issues like identity, cultural values and race.
SYNOPSIS
Dúdú is a black, smart and imaginative boy that studies in a medium-class private school in São Paulo. During an arts class, his teacher, Sônia, asks him to use what she calls a “skin-colored pencil” to make a painting. Such term raises an identity crisis for Dúdú. With all ingenuousness of a child of his age, Dúdú carries the pencil in question wherever he goes in order to find someone who could clarifies his doubts.
JUSTIFICATION
The child’s purity and awakening for his own identify make up the ideal angle through which the viewer can see concealed prejudices, but without finger-pointing. The viewer’s perception is like that of a child that is gradually brought to reason. The idea is to make characters and audience more sympathetic. The same happens with Madalena who takes Dúdú to an ice-cream parlor and reveals to him a world of lucidity and truth. Understood the theme relevance, applying it to a short audiovisual work requires condensation and reaching the main point. Search for simplicity is intentional and aims an easier permeability with the viewer, widening thus the possible range of audience. In short, Dúdú and the Color Pencil of the Skin is the plain revelation of colors of a delicate issue many times taken for granted.
Director: Miguel Rodrigues
Written by: Cleber Marques
Director of Photography: Marcelo Coutinho
Set and Art Direction: Carol Gomes
Music: Armandinho Ferrante
Executive Producer: Leandra Aieedo
Production Manager: Karin Camarinha
Content Producer: Mayanderson Lage
Designer: Paloma Dantas
