A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN was just funded for Bob Carter’s film project, Rodolfo, well over the target amount needed. Filming of Rodolfo is estimated to take 4-5 weeks and will begin February/March of 2014. Post production is the most time-consuming element of the production. It’s Carter’s hope that the film will be released in December 2014.
Lives are made up of moments and people. Sometimes, those moments are strung together to form an adventure and the person is so unique that he can touch someone for a lifetime.
Bob Carter, a 1962 Battle Ground High School graduate, had such an encounter 40 years ago. From that chance meeting, a feature film is being shot in Puglia, Italy after a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Upon finishing high school, Carter went to Clark College and completed his degree in Bellingham at Western Washington University. He then traveled to Alaska to become a crew member on fishing boats. There, he fell in love with fishing and gained enough experience to captain vessels after a few years. He’d fish 4-6 months of the year and travel around Europe with the money he saved. It was on one of these European excursions, in 1973, that Carter met a man known as Rudolph Valentino the Second.
Carter found himself in Rome, a little lonely and dejected after being robbed and losing his passport. He was staring at the huge board that lists arriving and departing trains at Termini station when a very distinguished-looking man wearing a white suit with a flower in his lapel walked right up to him.
“I thought, ‘This guy looks like Rudolph Valentino,’” Carter said. “He introduced himself as Rudolph Valentino the Second, just like that. He immediately said I should come down to his villa in the south of Italy ... He lived in San Michele down by Lecce.”
As quickly as the invitation had been extended, the enigmatic Italian disappeared. Carter continued his travels in Italy for another 10 days, but curiosity overcame him and he found himself hopping a train to Brindisi and then a bus to San Michele. Before he knew it, he was in a bar in a town he’d never been to, inquiring to the locals about a man who called himself Rudolph Valentino the Second.
Ten minutes later, Carter found himself in front of a shack, not a villa. The 70-year-old lady who answered the door would soon be established as Rudolph Valentino the Second’s mother, and the vehicle Valentino the Second drove was far from a sports car. In fact, on their 36-hour adventure, they ran out of gas and ended up pushing the car half- way home.
It’s clear talking with Carter decades later, that the time he spent with Valentino the Second was haunting. His inexplicable zest for life was at once contagious and perplexing. It would later be revealed that there was a sadness, in fact an illness, to this man but it did not take away from the uniqueness of him. Ten years later, tragically, Valentino the Second committed suicide.
Fast forward to 2013. Carter is in Puglia with a passionate film crew interviewing people who knew Valentino the Second. According to Carter, there has not been one person who ever met Valentino the Second who could forget this man. Every month or two, he’d put on a show in the town theatre and 300-500 people would come to watch his performance. He was the kind of crazy that makes people question and envy simultaneously.
“This had been such an unbelievable experience, and this Rodolfo was such an unbelievable character and I was overtaken with such emotion, that I didn’t understand,’’ Carter said. “Forty years later, I still think of Rodolfo.”
Chance may have caused Carter’s and Rodolfo’s lives to intersect, but synergy is bringing the experience to the big screen. Bob’s long-time best friend lived with him near Ketchikan, AK with his sons, Ishmael, Caleb and Cain for a time. For bedtime stories, he would tell them about his adventures with Valentino the Second. Caleb grew up to become a director and Cain has come on as the producer of Rodolfo.
A Kickstarter campaign was just funded, well over the target amount, and Carter is thrilled to be in the midst of such a creative endeavor.
“Here, I’m almost 70 years old and I’m involved in something that’s so ‘wow,’” Carter said. “I feel very humbled and grateful to have this chance in my life in the later stages of my life. You’re 70 and you’re making something this wonderful.”
Filming of Rodolfo is estimated to take 4-5 weeks and will begin February/March of 2014. Post production is the most time-consuming element of the production and that is where Caleb’s expertise will come into play. It’s Carter’s hope that the film will be released in December of 2014.
For more information, search “Rodolfo-The Film’’ on www.kickstarter.com or go to www.swingthehammerfilms.com.
