The shoot is under way for Caballero Bonald: Fragmentos de navegante, an experimental meta-documentary directed by Paula Romero that commemorates the 100th birthday of author José Manuel Caballero Bonald via a work that intertwines memory, fiction and poetry on a journey between Andalusia and Colombia. A far cry from a traditional biopic, the film adopts a hybrid narrative structure in which an actor undergoes a transformation process to play the writer during three different eras: childhood, youth and adulthood. This journey manifests itself as an inverted voyage towards innocence, exploring memory as an unstable terrain where reality and imagination fuse together.

The movie is set in key locations from the life and work of the author, ranging from Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) and the Guadalquivir River in Spain to the Magdalena River in Colombia, thus striking up a symbolic dialogue between both countries. This core focus on rivers not only provides the backbone of the story, but also links two cultural milieus that marked Caballero Bonald’s literary journey.

After a first leg taking place in Jerez, the shoot will continue over the spring in various Andalusian locations, such as Sanlúcar and Doñana, before then shifting to Colombia and finally returning to Jerez. The movie is making use of a unique creative process: it is being assembled at the same time as it is filmed, with editing progressing in parallel with the shoot. This focus will culminate in an open-ended final event, where a fake ending to the doc will be projected while the real denouement is filmed, incorporating the participants themselves and the public within the narrative process and thus reinforcing the meta-documentary nature of the picture.

Paula Romero first established a bond with the writer in 2011, when she interviewed him as a journalism student. A year later, she travelled to Colombia, where she recreated the journey that Caballero Bonald had embarked upon around the Magdalena department. Years later, she salvaged this material and, in conjunction with the Caballero Bonald Foundation, its head Josefa Parra, and production company La Zanfoña Producciones, she found the ideal context to develop the project: the 2026 commemoration of his 100th birthday. Pilar Campano, executive producer at La Zanfoña Producciones, states: “In 2021, we were intending to be able to count on Caballero Bonald’s involvement in the shoot for the film Siete jereles, directed by Pedro G Romero and Gonzalo García Pelayo, but he passed away that very year. When Paula suggested making this documentary, I thought it would be a way to bring things full circle.”

The movie brings in interviews with figures from the literary and cultural world, such as fellow writers Josefa Parra, Juan José Téllez and José María Velázquez, alongside testimonies from people close to the author. Likewise, the project sees the participation of schools, bolstering its educational and intergenerational dimension. These voices enter into a dialogue with unseen archival material, live performances and a sonic approach in which flamenco assumes a central role: artists of the likes of Lela Soto, José de los Camarones, Jesús Méndez, La Tomasa and Alfredo Lagos contribute a sensorial layer that connects the author’s words with the collective imagination of Andalusia. The project is being presented as a cinematic work that seeks to revive Caballero Bonald’s legacy from the perspective of the present.

Caballero Bonald: Fragmentos de navegante is a feature being staged by Spanish outfits La Zanfoña Producciones and Santa Paciencia Films, together with Colombia’s Fuega Cine, which has secured support from the Caballero Bonald Foundation, the Jerez Film Office, Canal Sur, the Andalusian regional government and the ICAA.