The Account: The True, True Journey of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
Logline
A failed expedition to Florida from Cuba, gold seeking Conquistadors (ca 1519) are shipwrecked in Texas. After travail, the four learn survival. From Texas to Mexico on foot and among Indians and after a spiritual enlightenment they begin to travel and heal fellow humans across Texas and of Mexico.
Genre
Historical Fiction,Adventure,Epic
Short Summary
The narrator begins the story as an account to the King of Spain from a prison cell.
The four men navigate back to Europeans after a near decade long travail and privation, which witnessed betrayal, brutality, cannibalism (by Europeans), and finally an assimilation of the four sojourners with the Indians as changed men--intent on not subjugating native Americans.
Setting
Pre European Florida, Texas and Mexico
Based on a True Story
Yes
Plot - Premise
Internal Journey/Rebirth,Quest,Rebellion Against 'The One',Overcoming Monster/Villain,Voyage and Return
Plot - Other Elements
Philosophical Questions,Happy Ending,Meaningful Message
Mature Audience Themes
Nudity,Extreme Violence
Main Character Details
Name: Cabeza de Vaca
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Role: Protagonist
Key Traits: Adventurous,Engaging,Faithful,Religious,Patriotic,Modest,Selfless,Visionary,Strong Moral Code,Naive,Heroic,Decisive,Charming,Gracious,Flexible
Additional Character Details
Name: Estevanico
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Role: Skeptic
Key Traits: Aspiring,Adventurous,Badass,Charming,Sexy,Underdog,Masculine,Blunt,Selfless,Complex,Faithful,Skillful,Funny,Romantic,Heartthrob,Honorable
Additional Character Details
Name: Pamfilio Navarrez
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Role: antagonist
Key Traits: Villainous,Narcisstic,Uneducated,Power Hungry,Sarcastic,Leader,Desperate,Confident,Clumsy,Aggressive,Greedy,Insecure
Additional Character Details
Name: Andres Dorantes
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Role: sidekick
Key Traits: Adventurous,Clumsy,Charming,Funny,Secretive,Sophisticated
Development Pitch
After a failed expedition to Cuba as Conquistadors (ca 1519) and shipwrecked, a group four men must learn survival from Texas to Mexico among Indians and after a spiritual intervention begin to travel and heal fellow humans across Texas and of Mexico. It is a powerful redemption story, it is certainly a fish out of water tale, and it is the epic Christian story that counters the secular notion of the Gospel being foisted upon native peoples only with the notion of Conquest. That this purpose occurred outside Church and State of the day makes it the epic story. This treatment seeks in no way to emulate or borrow from the excellent 1991 Mexican film, Cabeza de Vaca written by Guillermo Sheridan and Directed by Nicolás Echevarría. Sheridan’s version draws on the account by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca but also secular scholars[i] who dismiss De Vaca’s spiritual base, namely, a fourteenth Century Catholic world view. Sheridan and Echevarría’s portrayal twenty-four years ago is of Cabeza as a convert to shamanism and departs from Cabeza’s La Relación and his Catholicity as it is portrayed by Alvar Nunez de Cabeza De Vaca himself in the “Account”. This treatment and then a script and ensuing film will tell the true account of Cabeza from his point of view: his faith as a Christian man when presented with unthinkable obstacles; his relation of being the first European (along with two Spanish colleagues and an African slave) to walk across North America.