The blue marlin is a luminous and fierce fish. It is considered the fastest swimmer in the ocean, and is notoriously difficult to catch. When I think of it, I think of my grandfather. He was the one who showed me the sea for the first time, who taught me how to swim and how to listen to the sound of the waves from inside a seashell. The memories I carry of him feel like fleeting flashes of light, like sunlight shimmering over the tides before disappearing again.

The film began as an attempt to reconnect with him after his death. His name was José, a Spanish immigrant who settled in a small town in southeastern Brazil after leaving his homeland in search of a better life. During my childhood, we were very close. He had a vast library, could draw beautifully, and carried a presence that was mesmerizing. Yet there was always something about him that seemed to exist just beyond my reach, as if impossible to fully grasp.

As I grew older, our relationship slowly changed. I drifted away from my family, and our conversations became increasingly rare. By the time I realized I wanted to approach him again, it somehow already felt too late. At the age of ninety, a few years after the death of my grandmother, José took his own life.

Making this film became a way of continuing a conversation that had already ended, in search of a form of reconnection not only with him, but also with parts of myself I feared had disappeared along the tides. Over time, it became clear that Blue Marlin was not about answers, but about what has already slipped away, what was left unsaid, and about the understanding that we can never fully return to who we once were.

This year, Blue Marlin was selected for the 2026 Research & Development Lab at UnionDocs in New York. Participating in the lab represents an incredibly important step in the development of the project and a rare opportunity to deepen the film alongside artists and filmmakers whose work continues to expand the possibilities of documentary cinema.

As an independent filmmaker from Brazil, accessing spaces like this often involves financial barriers that are difficult to overcome alone. Your support will help cover travel, housing, and participation costs during the lab, allowing Blue Marlin to continue growing with the care, time, and artistic depth this story requires.

To thank those who support the project, I’m preparing a series of small but heartfelt rewards connected to the film’s universe. Each of them will be unique and carefully selected for its recipient, carrying bits of memory that, I hope, may resonate with you beyond the story itself. I warmly invite you to explore the rewards offered through the campaign and become part of this journey.

In the end, your support gives Blue Marlin the time, care, and space it needs to continue growing. Every contribution, no matter the size, brings this film one stroke closer to shore.

Thank you for reading, and for sailing along with me.

Bio

My name is Dario, and I’m a Brazilian filmmaker from a small town in southeastern Brazil, the same town where my grandfather eventually settled. I’m drawn to intimate, character-driven stories that explore memory, loneliness, and the landscapes of inner life.

My latest short film, Quarterfinals, premiered at the Mostra de Cinema de Tiradentes, one of Brazil’s most important film festivals, and was later selected through a public call to open the premiere screening of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent at CineBrasília.

Through documentary cinema, I found a way to transform sensitivity and personal experience into stories that may resonate beyond myself. I continue searching for growth through spaces of artistic exchange, critical dialogue, and cinematic experimentation, where these stories can evolve in conversation with other filmmakers and audiences.

About the Summer Documentary Labs:

The UnionDocs Summer Documentary Lab are a program for a select group of media artists from the US and abroad. Based in one of NYC’s most exciting neighborhoods, Ridgewood, Queens, the Summer Labs offer a platform for participants to spend the Summer making strides and clarify the creative direction of their projects to attract the potential team members, funders and producers they need to find their way to the finish. An intensive schedule of screenings, open seminar discussions, weekly industry “field trips,” and inspiring artist visits from some of the most dynamic voices across the field of documentary, the SUMMER DOCUMENTARY LABS are tightly structured environments that bring participants into a select group of emerging filmmakers to get challenged and encouraged to think through every aspect of their works-in-progress.

Drawing inspiration from across disciplines, this intensive program should not be mistaken for an industrial, journalistic, or traditional documentary training. Scholar Scott MacDonald highlighted in The New York Times that, “UnionDocs has a healthy sense that the older definitions of what constitutes ‘experimental’ cinema and what constitutes ‘documentary’ are up for grabs.” Much emphasis is placed on workshopping lab participants’ writing about their projects as a way to both clarify the creative direction and attract potential team members, funders and producers. Participants receive focused, honest and helpful feedback on their project proposals from prominent documentary artists and industry experts.

The Research and Development Lab in August is for projects preparing to go into production. Filmmakers are developing their conceptual approaches to their work and are aiming to strengthen their proposals and sharpen their creative ideas, as they approach the production stage and plan for the entire process all the way through to distribution.