International Competition

On July 13, 1924, Ernest Hemingway was on a balcony in Pamplona, Spain and saw a wounded main lying on the other side of the street. He became consumed with the feeling that he was that man, seeing himself in the near-dead Spaniard who had been attacked by bulls. ‘I am him,’ Hemingway later wrote. It was the very first time he wanted to be someone else, so he created the character of the adventurous writer. ‘Notes on the Other’ follows the example of Hemingway’s remarkable sensation in the form of an annual Hemingway lookalike contest in Key West, Florida. Dozens of older men do their utmost to be Hemingway, but what are they looking for? The film investigates the idea of the ‘other,’ of being able to see things from another perspective, beyond one’s own field of vision. What is the reality of our own existence and how fascinating would it be to escape that reality and see what we cannot observe ourselves? Inspired by the photo of the Spaniard who lay on the street in Pamplona in 1924, the film uses relatively simple means to generate curiosity for alternate perception, for stepping outside of ourselves to contemplate the world in a different way, if only for a little while.