Rony Calderon was one of the golden footballers of his age. He played for mighty Ajax and represented Israel on the global stage, but then he turned to the dark side and became an international drug lord. He served time and then he disappeared. Erez Laufer and Hilla Medalia tell BDE more about Kalderon’s life of two halves, and how they will document it.
Not every 17-year-old gets to play football with Johan Cruyff before dreaming of becoming another Pablo Escobar but that is what Roni Kalderon did.
According to co-director Laufer, no player could handle a ball like Kalderon; defenders never knew what he would do next. “It seems to be that the way he moved the ball, that’s the way he moved his life,” he says.
Kalderon found himself in Brazil, where he was imprisoned for 32 years before breaking out of jail. Since then, no one has seen or heard from him. There have been rumors that he was killed by drug dealers in Brazil and that he is living as an Orthodox Jew in New York. He might be dead or he might still be alive…
“As the director says, his story has all the elements a scriptwriter wants: football, love, passion and crime. Roni is such a living legend that even after his disappearance myths continue to live long after,” said Medalia.
“Like every good story it’s about strong characters,” says Laufer. “When you follow his character from childhood with the background that he came from this poor neighborhood in Tel Aviv and his parents deserted him when he was 12 years old and moved to America. I guess it probably influenced a lot of his choices down the line like women relationships. He had a wife and two daughters that he deserted and then another woman in America. And then we of course we have the Brazilian wife which you can see her [in the project].”
“The film also asks this big universal question,” adds co-director Hilla Medalia. “Are choices that we make in life really our own? And if everything is already (pre)decided, if you believe in it from get-go, can we create another destiny for ourselves? So there are all kinds of bigger universal questions but I think that the heart of the film is the story itself. It’s just such a great story.”
Medalia (who reveals she was also once a competitive triple jumper) adds that the project is also rip-roaringly entertaining. “It’s fun! That’s what people want now especially. Sometimes I feel like within doc community we forget those films are super important and they’re also important to break outside traditional documentary audience so we hope that we’re able to reach wider audience with this film and have fun.”
“I think we both have a lot of experience that we can make a film that can be very popular for wide audience but still be a festival film,” adds Laufer of the €489,133 budgeted film, over half of which is secured (including €150,000 from Israeli broadcaster yesDocu).
They will not comment on the whereabouts or current status (alive or dead) of Kalderon, or whether they are aware of any of these things. However, what they do admit is that in act three of the film their main concern becomes finding him, or her for most of it is already “in the can” and there’s just one more trip to New York left to go (Covid allowing).
Their plans for MIA extend beyond the Kalderon project. “Every market is an opportunity to meet new people, make new friends, form new connections and forge new partnerships that lead to something bigger, both for this film and for other films and other projects we’re involved with,” says Medalia. “With this film we’re looking for partners, we’re looking for distribution. We want more countries to come on board as partners so we can make the film we want to make but also deliver it to the audience.”
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