Natalia and Carlos, both aged 20, are in love and struggling to survive in today’s Spain. Their limited resources prevent them from getting ahead as they’d like to. They have no great ambitions because they have no great hopes. To earn some money, they decide to shoot an amateur porno film. The birth of their daughter Julia is the main catalyst for the changes they make.

Statement of the Director/s:
The film combines images made by the film crew on 16mm negatives with images the actors took of themselves with their own amateur devices (mini-DV/iPhone/web-cam). Of the total film, 80% of the images were shot by the film crew and 20% were taken with amateur devices.

In a world flooded with the production and consumption of all types of images, if my aim was to capture that reality meticulously, I could not ignore the production and consumption formats, places and forms of those images. Each technology implies a psychological distance. It is the distance of the observer with respect to the one being observed. In this film, there are some scenes in which this distance does not exist because it is produced by the actor himself (the observer and the one observed overlap).

In this film, Ingrid was essential. She not only played the main character but also set the tone for all the other actors’ performances. She was not just a member of the band; instead, she was the musician the others followed.

To play the part of Natalia, I wanted an actress with a broad dramatic range. An actress with a strong personality capable of bringing a variety of nuances to the character. Someone with a lot of light, joy, and friendliness but also with a dark, determined, and decisive side. She needed to be partly naïve and partly mature. Very few people possess all these qualities. It is very hard for any actress to truly create a performance with two starkly different poles. Ingrid is quite intuitive in her technique. She has huge natural talent. She makes acting look easy because she is extremely self-assured. Fortunately, she is not satisfied to just do a scene; she aims to achieve excellence, to give her very best.

Biography of the Director/s:
Jaime Rosales, director and screenwriter
Barcelona, 1970.

After receiving a degree in Business Economics from ESADE, his devotion to film was fostered when he won a scholarship in 1996 to study film at the prestigious International Film and Television School in San Antonio de los Baños (EICTV) in Havana and then at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in Sydney. Since 2000 he has developed all his projects as a director with his production company Fresdeval Films. His films are about our inability to communicate with each other, the complexity of the family universe and violence that bursts unexpectedly into everyday life. A tireless explorer of the possibilities audiovisual media may offer, Jaime Rosales’ films reflect their director’s great interest in finding new expressive forms far from the habitual conventions of cinematographic language.

Filmography:

The Hours of the Day
Cannes Festival 2003. Directors’ Fortnight
FIPRESCI International Critics’ Award

Solitary Fragments
Cannes Festival2007. Un Certain Regard
Winner, Goya Award for Best Film, Best Director, Best New Actor

Bullet in the Head
San Sebastián Film Festival 2008. In Competition
FIPRESCI International Critics’ Award

The Dream and The Silence
Cannes Festival 2012. Directors’ Fortnight

Beautiful Youth
Cannes Festival 2012. Un Certain Regard
Special Mention Oecumenical Jury Prize

Awards Won:
Cannes Film Festival 2012. Un Certain Regard
Special Mention Oecumenical Jury Prize

World Sales:
NDM
Fiorella Moretti
Sultepec 47 Col. H. Condesa
Mexico, 06170 Mexico City, Mexico
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +(525) 552739307
Website: http://www.mantarraya.com/

Press:
Wanda Visión
Yolanda Ferrer
Avenida Europa 16 portal 2
Madrid, 28243 Pozuelo de alarcon, Spain
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +(34) 696 965896
Website: http://www.wanda.es/