Fan Casting Survival

A movie about the incredible survival of Ludger Sylbaris. Ludger Sylbaris was a common laborer in the capital city of Saint-Pierre on the island Martinique. On the night of May 7, 1902 he was involved in either a bar fight or a street brawl and was arrested. The police ordered him to be put in solitary confinement and he was locked in a single windowless cell built partially underground which was only ventilated through a narrow grating in the door. This imprisonment turned out to be a blessing in disguise when the next morning May 8, 1902 at 7:52 AM, Mount Pelee the volcano overlooking Saint-Pierre erupted sending a massive pyroclastic flow towards the city of Saint-Pierre. The entiere city was destroyed and almost the entire population, somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 people were killed. Ludger Sylbaris in his reinforced prison cell was on of only three survivors of the eruption. He was pulled out of the rubble four days later badly burned but alive. He would later become the first black man to star in Barnum and Bailey's circus where he told the story of his incredible survival.