Spain

Escaping her overwhelming life in the city, thirty-year-old Natalia finds refuge in the small village of La Escapa, deep in the Spanish countryside. In a rustic derelict house, flanked by a wild and clumsy dog at her side, the young woman aims to rebuild anew. When confronted with the hostility of her landlord and the distrust of the local villagers, Nat finds herself giving in to an unsettling sexual proposal from her neighbour Andreas.
From this strange and conflicting encounter sparks a devouring and obsessive passion that will consume Nat fully, forcing her to reconsider the woman she thought she was.
Based on the eponymous best-selling novel by Sara Mesa, UN AMOR is a striking account of existential doubt and the transformative power of carnal desire, exploring the subversive nature of gender roles.

Directed by: Isabel Coixet
Written by: Isabel Coixet, Laura Ferrero
Produced by: Marisa Fernández Armenteros, Sandra Hermida Múñiz
Cinematography: Bet Rourich
Editing: Jordi Azategui
Production Design: Uxua Castelló
Costume Design: Suevia Sampelayo
Make-Up & Hair: Ainhoa Eskisabel, Izaskun Macua
Sound: Enrique G. Bermejo, Albert Gay, Carlos Jiménez
Visual Effects: Xavier Latorre
Cast: Laia Costa (Nat), Hovik Keuchkerian (Andreas), Hugo Silva (Piter), Luis Bermejo (Casero), Ingrid García-Jonsson (Lara), Francesco Carril (Carlos)

Statement of the director:
We all see a film in our minds when we read a book, and this film belongs only to us. Sometimes, the protagonists of the novel have our faces or the faces of our loved or hated ones. Sometimes, the faces are known actors, others, the faces of strangers who are the sum of thousands of faces we have come across in life. If the text is especially good, we smell what the protagonists smell. We feel the damp, the cold, the sweat, the contact of warm skin, the disgust at an animal squashed on the road or the thrill of rain after weeks of drought.
When I read ‘Un amor’ by Sara Mesa, the last thing I was looking for was a novel to adapt for the cinema. I admired the merciless prose I had discovered in ‘Cicatriz’ and it had made me wait impatiently for her books. I remember reading it in one sitting. First, the impact, like a thump to the breastbone; the identification with Nat, her protagonist I have been Nat, and I suppose that camouflaged somewhere under a thin varnish of maturity and fragile equilibrium, I am still Nat.
The second time I read the book I saw the film. I don't mean that I knew exactly how it would be, but I did see the atmosphere, the ominous sensation of calm under which throbbed a sea of suspicion, mistrust, vileness. I saw Nat’s hand digging in the wet soil, dragging the mold behind a broken tile in the kitchen. Sometimes, one detail is enough to drive you to make a film: some hands, the face of a dog that avoids your eyes, damp stains, the sound of empty bottles in a crate when someone kicks them. All these things and many more are in UN AMOR.
Coming across surprises during the shoot, thanks to the invaluable collaboration of the most wildly harmonic cast of actors I have ever worked with, gave me hope again in the power of stories for understanding the world. My DNA is in every frame of this film. I have made it for many reasons, among them the most important: Because I couldn’t not make it.

Production:
Buenapinta Media
www.buenapintamedia.com

World Sales:
Film Constellation
https://filmconstellation.com