Alta California Screen Play

ALTA CALIFORNIA BIBLE:

LOGLINE:

In 1780 colonial California, a mixed-heritage scout must choose between his loyalty to a Spanish expedition and his spiritual connection to the oppressed native peoples, navigating racism and cultural clash in his quest for identity.

PLACE:

All action takes place in California during the “Mission Era.”  [“Alta California”] is a highly original historical drama that tells the dark and often overlooked story about how missionaries in 18th century California brought destruction to indigenous tribes” (Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, London).

“Alta California” has won over 60 national and international screenplay writing awards.  See website.  It has been compared to “The Revenant.”

TOP 5% OF DISCOVERABLE PROJECTS ON COVERFLY!

CENTRAL CHARACTERS:

PACO PALIDO (21), A fictional character.  Mixed blood (mother raped by Spanish soldier), native scout, tall, muscular, good-looking.  Deerskin clothing.  When young, his tribe was attacked, and indigenous mother murdered. He is taken to a residential school where he rebels.   “Rescued” by Captain de Neve, he is now an unbaptized, army scout.  Although trusted by Neve, his refusal to accept baptism puts him at odds with Padre Junipero Serra.  Paco is acutely aware of the hypocrisy of the Spaniards who physically abusing the natives while purportedly saving them from hell.  Paco seeks a home, a place he belongs, amidst his own people.  Characteristics: Dislikes verbal and/or physical misuse of natives.  Born of a rape by the Spanish, Paco is enraged by attitude of Spanish soldiers, particularly to native women.  

PADRE JUNIPERO SERRA (68), an historical figure.  Short of stature, his eyes burn with intensity. Contemporaries describe him as proud, arrogant, determined to convert heathens, and refusal to compromise in his desire to convert the “savages.”   He was aware of how he was guilty of the sin of pride yet succumbed to it often.  He is buried in the Mission, San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel, California. 

"Serra's legacy in California has been reevaluated in recent decades in light of the many native peoples who were forced to live and work at the missions where they endured physical abuse.  Thousands died."  (Adam Beam, Associated Press, Chico E-R, November 15, 2022). 

For the violent reaction to the Canonization of Padre Junipero Serra by Pope Francis in 2015 see https://altacaliforniamovie.com/

CAPTAIN (COMMANDANTE GENERAL) FELIPE de NEVE (60s), an historical figure.  Neve,  a descendant of a Spanish aristocratic family, served as fourth governor of the Californias.   He was tall, aristocratic, and powerful yet humane soldier, and King Carlos of Spain’s secular authority in Alta California.  Neve, Serra’s adversary, believed that all, even unbaptized, had basic, human rights.  He clashed often with Serra over attitude to natives, misspent monies, and authority over soldiers. 

Neve was married but, because of King Carlos’ trust in his bureaucratic expertise, Neve was shipped off to Mexico soon after his marriage.  Sadly, never once in the ensuing 27 years did he return to his wife in Spain.  He is buried in an unmarked grave in Mexico.

Neve wrote an ordinance (the Reglamento) “mandating the curtailment of the religious power of Fra Junipero Serra’s Franciscan missionaries.”  Some aspects of it are still the basis of today’s California laws.

Captain Felipe de Neve remains California’s forgotten figure.  There is a statue of him in Los Angeles. 

PADRE CRESPI (60), an historical figure and assistant to Serra.  Contemporary accounts see him as gentler, more willing to accept compromise than Serra.  Crespi attempts to make Paco accept baptism and settle down as a “mission Indian” (neophyte).

SERGEANT CAMACHO and CORPORAL CORDERO.  Actual historical figures.  Spanish soldiers who regard all indigenous, even “neophytes” (baptized) as heathen animals, savages.  Historical tales tell of women rushing to the hills if aware that these two soldiers were in a military column.  They desire to serve their time and return to Spain with soldiers’ pensions.

SERGEANT CAMACHO (35), historical figure.  He is short, squat, scruffy beard, and facial hair.

CORPORAL CORDERO (30), historical figure, tall, face twisted in a permanent snarl. He has an eye patch on his right eye, and a vicious scar across his right cheek.

ANNA-MARIA, fictional, 18    Young, passive, neophyte.  Pursues Paco, trying to make him, like her, a neophyte.  

Contrasts with IFAPI, fictional, 18,   “Heathen” from “wild” Chumash tribe.  Long black hair over her shoulders, dark eyes, deerskin clothing, emerges from the forest.  

SECONDARY FIGURES:

GUADALUPE, 50, fictional, a large, matronly, middle-aged neophyte tries to protect females from Spanish soldiers.

JUAN, 40, fictional, a large, powerful native with long black hair.  Mute.  His tongue was cut out because of repeated refusal to say mass.  After one too many beatings he leaves the Spanish and returns to his people.

PACO PALIDO'S MOTHER, 28, fictional, tall, beautiful, native woman.   She is killed by a Spanish soldier.  Returns as ghostly figure to Paco during the Chumash ceremony. 

MISSION INDIANS/NEOPHYTES

SPANISH SOLDIERS

FRANCISCANS/PADRES

The HEADMAN, 50s, fictional, of the local tribe comes out of the forest. He is very skinny, dressed in ragged clothes.

YOUNG CHUMASH WOMEN, teens, and twenties.  Friends of IFAPI.

CHUMASH HEADMAN, older, fictional, feathered headdress, and SHAMAN, older, head covered with plants. Both men are covered in war paint.

YOUNG PLUMED DANCERS, fictional. Faces and bodies painted in vivid colors. Multi-colored clothing covered with feathers. Bells jingle as they dance.

BALTHAZAR (50s), fictional, thin, ragged, lecherous drunk.  He is typical of  those “chosen” through Serra’s orders  as “headman” of neophytes.

PADRE MIGUEL (58), fictional, overweight, drunk, plucks at a battered guitar.  He is sick of the sound and smell of his neophytes.  Typical of many padres.

THE HUNTER (40s), fictional.  White, dirty, tobacco-stained teeth, many missing, lengthy beard, weathered, dirty bandana around his neck. Long hair.  Typical of the white men coming to California from the East.

STRUCTURE:

ALTA CALIFORNIA divides into three parts: 1. Pre-Santa Barbara; 2. Santa Barbara; and 3. Post Santa Barbara. 

Part 1: Pre-Santa Barbara.

1. We learn of Paco Palido’s mother’s death, his “rescue” by the Franciscans, and his rejection of Catholicism,  signified by his refusal, despite beatings to relinquish his mother’s gift: a clamshell necklace.
2. Introduction of Padre Serra, tenacious in his determination to convert those he regards as savages and pagans.
3. Captain Felipe de Neve, secular authority, and Serra’s opponent, has a more humane understanding of native Californians, including Paco Palido.  He “saves” Paco from boarding school.
4.  Paco witnesses Serra and Neve’s continuing battle over finances, safety, and treatment of the indigenous peoples.
5.  Sergeant Comacho and Corporal Cordero invite Paco to “hunt animals,” a euphemism for rape of local native women.  He refuses and is imprisoned. 
6. On Neve’s orders, Paco visits the local Headman who foretells the death of those two soldiers by poison.  He also forecasts Paco’s finding his “lost home” with the Chumash of Santa Barbara.
7. Captain de Neve informs Padre Serra of the planned movement south to establish a mission in the Santa Barbara region.  The “wild” Chumash Indians of this area are the final blockade to the planned Calle Real: Missions from San Diego to San Francisco.

Part 2: Santa Barbara

1. The hostile Chumash of Santa Barbara are last to be “civilized and Christianized.” 
2. When Paco is caught by them, he is spared because of the clamshell necklace his mother gave him.
3. He meets Ifapi, a young “savage.”  A developing attraction.
4. Paco tries to explain some elements of Christianity to Ifapi and her friends.  Impossible.  Reveals the clash of cultures and ways of seeing between the indigenous and the invaders.
5. Ifapi invites Paco to return to an upcoming ceremony in the darkened “Big House.”
6. Serra is infuriated that Paco will return to the Chumash—alone!  It is he, Serra, not Paco who is God’s minister on earth.
7. But Neve insists Paco go alone.  Threatens Serra with imprisonment.  
8. Upon his return to the “Big House,” Paco participates in a ceremony where he meets the ghost of his dead mother.  He has found his people and his home.
1. But, with more work to be done for his people, Paco returns to the Spanish camp. 

Part 3: Post-Santa Barbara

1. The Spanish prepare to leave California.  What should be done with the baptized Indians ("neophytes") to protect them from the white men from the East?
2. Padre Serra and de Neve have radically different solutions (historical fact).   Serra wants the neophytes to remain in the mission where God will protect them.  King Carlos and Neve want them to leave and find their home in the surrounding villages.
3. Paco is given the task of communicating King Carlos and Captain Felipe de Neve’s official answer to the various padres. 
4. But Serra, using Machiavellian tactics, determines that his solution wins.  As a result, the native peoples face possible extinction.
5. Serra is now a saint.  Neve is California’s forgotten man.
6. Paco leaves, hoping to find his home with Ifapi and the Chumash.

General note: 

The need to explore American history more critically is a hot topic. Currently, early California history focuses solely on Padre Serra and his Christianization of the “heathen.” Little is said of Captain Felipe de Neve, a tragic, forgotten figure, who challenged and confronted Serra.

The recent canonization of Serra was met with rage by California’s native peoples, including the destruction by fire of the San Gabriel Mission. 

Recently, California Assembly Bill 338 (2021) removed the “controversial” Serra statue from the State Capitol grounds in favor of a tribute to California’s indigenous peoples (see my vimeo). 

“It’s called genocide,” Governor Newsom said. “That’s what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books.”  (2019)

"Junipero Serra was a brutal colonist.  So why did Pope Francis just make him a saint?"  VOX magazine, September 24, 2015. 

(https://www.vox.com/2015/9/24/9391995/junipero-serra-saint-pope-francis)

We live in challenging times.  Political, economic, religious, historical, and scientific questions abound in our changing world.  We all seek a home, a place we belong in these challenging times.

“One of the script's most attractive qualities is the fact that the writer addresses the displacement and dislocation that many mixed race people have historically felt within the world of the Spanish and their occupation of the "New World". This helps develop thematic threads surrounding identity, home, and family that are still relevant to many people today” (NYC Screenwriting Festival)

"The script also seemed to be saying something about humanity and this was well integrated into the piece and arose out of it organically."  (Nicholl Fellowship, 2023)