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The Memories I Ran From Found Me

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The Memories I Ran From Found Me

Feb. 7, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET
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By Iñaki Dubourg

Mr. Dubourg is a documentary filmmaker.

In 2017, I lived in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, and was pursuing my master’s in alternative cinema. I was struggling to find the story I wanted to tell for my thesis film. To distract myself, I played soccer every afternoon with a group of young locals. Inspired by those meet-ups and with no clear narrative direction, I set out to document them, trusting that eventually, those soccer games would inspire a film.

Almost two years after my return, I began to dream about those shoots and the material I got out of them. In the middle of the night, I couldn’t really tell what I had filmed and what was just my imagination. The doubt that kept me awake turned into the film I’d been searching for.

For me, the short documentary above is a celebration of the deep and extreme experiences people can live through while away from home, the memories of which they may never understand entirely.

Iñaki Dubourg is an Argentine filmmaker from Tandil, Buenos Aires Province.

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