Susan Artigas (left) and Ivonne Coll (center) in a scene from Hurricane Nena at the Hollywood staged reading.
It is the story of campy, frenetic Nena Huracan -- a menopausal, crazy Cuban exile, on the day that Fidel Castro dies and all hell breaks loose in Miami and her life!
Nena decides she must go back to Cuba and reclaim her father's hand-made cigar factory. Her dysfunctional family and Nena's campy sense of sytle clash as she struggles to keep them all together and simultaneously make her father's ghost proud of her by suing the government in international court.
Ivonne Coll did a wonderful "star turn" performance as Nena in the recent staged reading at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood, CA, and I would love to cast her as the lead when the film gets produced.
I have created a sort of "Pitch/Business Plan" for the picture, which you can download here:
NENA BUSINESS PLAN
(3.6 MB .pdf download)
It's a great time for this movie about a hypothetical future. Simultaneously, everyone knows Castro really is about to die -- as soon as he does, everyone will compare and contrast the happenings in the picture to the real life events.
Interestingly, we recently had a close call with death at Castro's door, who is presently over 80 years old, and things began to transpire exactly as in the screenplay -- people partying on the streets in Miami and going nuts! And everyone trying to figure out Nena's ultimate conundrum: What happens next?
Interested Producers/Financiers may contact me at:
HURRICANE NENA
original comedy screenplay
by
Felix Pire
Hurricane Nena was written under the mentorship of Josefina Lopez (writer, Real Women Have Curves) and her HBO Latino Screenwriting Workshop.
It was subsequently nominated by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) for the 2003 ABC New Talent Grant, and was in turn awarded a “Certificate in Recognition of Creative Excellence” by ABC Entertainment Television Group's Talent Development Programs.
I directed a very successful staged reading of Hurricane Nena at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood in the summer of 2005.
That fall, the screenplay became a semi-finalist in the 2005 Cynosure Screenwriting Competition (dedicated towards the positive portrayal of minorities onscreen).
In Sept. of 2006, the Latino Independent Film Institute and Panamax Films announced that Hurricane Nena is in their top 25 finalists for their screenwriting lab competition.
I am working towards producing this film with Ivonne Coll starring, and myself doing double-duty -- directing and playing her son, "Usmail".
DOWNLOAD AN EXCERPT FROM THE SCREENPLAY
Ideal Location: Miami and Puerto Rico for Cuba.
Budgeted at: 3 Million USD - shot as an independent feature film.
Cast: Mostly Latino.
Subject Matter: Guaranteed to cause SCANDAL.