Preliminary work has started on creating a film to honour the life and achievements of Guernsey’s William Le Lacheur.
He is revered in Costa Rica where he was instrumental in developing its coffee trade.
Now, filmmakers want to share his story with the world.
They were in Guernsey recently meeting descendants of William Le Lacheur and his crew, and scoping out locations relevant to his backstory.
Jose Palma, from Meliora Productions, was excited to see where Le Lacheur had come from.
“We’re on a beautiful journey to tell a story between Costa Rica and Guernsey that has never been told before. This connection leads back to 1843 and we want to make sure we use the medium of film to tell this underrepresented story, not just for Costa Rica, but also for Guernsey.
“The Guernsey aspect comes in with Captain William Le Lacheur, which was a figure in our country for many, many years. He was on our money, he was on our stamps, he was on our flag, all these sort of great things that a lot of people in the island don’t necessarily realise. But for us, we wanted to come here not only to get a really good idea of who William was but to get a good idea of Guernsey itself, because Guernsey is representative of who William was.
“He is national hero to Costa Rica, and his personality would have been a reflection of the island itself and other people and we wanted to see that for ourselves, to see where he lived, where he went to church as he was a very devoted individual, and we’ve learned more about him from the people in Guernsey.”
Mr Palma met States Members and historians as well as local film industry personnel during his visit to the island.
He said everyone is keen to work together on this.
“Thanks to the Guernsey Economic Development team we’ve been able to go to the library, to the museum, and get facts that we can get anywhere else about William and his crew, and that is just incredible information that we couldn’t have done if we would have been here ourselves.”
No dates have yet been set for when work on the film will start, but Mr Palma is definite that it will happen.
“Whilst we would love to start filming tomorrow, we need to make sure we have got every piece of detail to help us and guide our story to tell it right.
“I myself, I really don’t like when I see a historical film and it is not accurate, especially when someone talks about Latin America or anything like that. So for us to do the same mistake wouldn’t make sense so we need to get things right.
“We’re definitely in a development stage and we’ve been very overwhelmed with the support that we’ve had from the Costa Rican Film Commission, from the Costa Rican Society, and everyone in Costa Rica who already knows about the story, whether social interests, educational interests, and now financial interest is very, very wonderful, and we’re trying to come to Guernsey to hopefully be able to research and hopefully get the same thing from from the people in Guernsey.”