GRACIA
A heartbroken bike messenger gets rewarded by a complete stranger that transforms her life forever.
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Pedro Patricio JimenezDirector
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Ryan Michael ConnollyProducer
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Pedro Patricio JimenezWriter
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Project Title (Original Language):GRACIA
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Project Type:Short Script
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Genres:Drama, Comedy
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Number of Pages:5
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Country of Origin:United States
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
Pedro Patricio is an award wining American-Chilean director, writer, producer and actor. He was born in Nicaragua and brought up in extremely diverse cities and cultures: Guinea-Bissau, New York and Santiago, forging his multicultural roots, bilingual fluency and original voice and passion in directing, storytelling.
After his undergrad theater studies at UChile (2000), he created and directed a company where he toured through Chile and Italy with experimental theatrical productions. In 2013 he’s accepted to the prestigious film production program at USC, where he works in several short film productions learning in depth all aspects of filmmaking. He focuses his curriculum in directing and writing, completing his MFA by shooting his thesis short film ‘Tirachinas’ (2017).
Currently he’s working on a trilogy of dramatic crime fiction, psychological thriller short films. The first film ‘Kids Don’t Die’ (2019) won best short film awards at Film Invasion (2020) and Snowdance (2021), the second film ‘I Did’ (2023) is starting its international film festival run and the last part of the trilogy ‘Forever’ is in pre-production.
Pedro was part of the Hola Mexico Film Festival with ‘Kids Don’t Die’ and completed the prestigious career and inclusivity development program ‘Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today’ presented by HBO, Warner Media and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
This past spring Pedro shot his newest short film ‘Bailando Con El Muro’ (‘Dancing With The Wall’) in El Paso, Texas.
My main motivation in writing and wanting to tell this story is an essential human trait, inherently present in all human beings. Something we all learned at some point in our lives, the powerful quality of benevolent actions, human kindness. And how we naturally begin to exercise this extraordinary human act, within every social circle we are able to interact with.
During the most recent pandemic, I became fascinated with the idea that natural disasters sometimes bring out the best in humanity. Seeing how complete strangers helped each other, how some relatives went out of their human capacity in order to help their loved ones. Here in New York City, where I live, I was shocked when everything completely shutdown, and I started seeing these delivery couriers that kept working, they kept going, trying to help anyone they could. In my mind, I saw them as exemplary humans, almost like super heroes, and they really inspired me. I saw ordinary citizens, doing heroic actions without the ‘Batman’ suit. And even stronger, I imagined that the main driving force behind our story, should be played by a young Latino woman who’s behind the wheel. And this is how our lead character ‘Gracia’ was born. Gracia is a name of Latin origin and it means "favor" or “blessing." Her journey through this short story leaves us with a powerful premise:
‘Love and kindness will always survive and surpass our darkest
hours’.
I think this story will be able to reach and connect with both past and current generations of immigrants that have come to the United States seeking the ‘American dream’. I deeply care about the positive social themes behind this film. I believe that it’s very powerful, to explore and create a dramatic storyline that talk about spreading human kindness, stories that trigger affectionate tears, which nowadays we rarely get to see.