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FILMS Spain

Liars tell truth in Brechner’s Bad Day To Go Fishing

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After a successful tour of international film festivals, kicking off with its screening in Cannes Critics’ Week, Spanish/Uruguayan co-production Bad Day To Go Fishing [+see also:
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, the debut feature by Álvaro Brechner, was presented last Saturday at the 47th Gijón Film Festival. It was enthusiastically received by both critics and audiences, as is traditional at the well-attended and participatory Asturian event.

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The film opens with a journey at dusk. Two strangers arrive in a remote South American village. Elegant and pony-tailed, one is called Orsini and is a prince of the Kingdom of Siena (brilliantly portrayed by Gary Piquer). The other, heavily-built and wild-looking, is Jacob van Oppen (played by Finnish actor Jouko Ahola), a former world wrestling champion training in order to reclaim his crown. The two men have something in common: they are both suspected impostors.

Newly arrived in the village, Orsini launches a challenge: whoever manages to last three minutes in the ring with Jacob will win 1,000 dollars. Although the prince would like Jacob to fight against a former boxer with whom he has rigged the result, young and determined Adriana sees to it that the opponent is her boyfriend, known as “the Turk” on account of his moustache and “the Matador” for his fury.

From that moment onwards, the line separating reality from the characters’ make-believe grows more indistinct and the characters move towards their inevitable fate.

The setting, enhanced by the outstanding work of cinematographer Álvaro Gutiérrez and art director Gustavo Ramírez, recalls classic westerns, in its point of departure (two strangers arrive in a village and arouse the distrust of its inhabitants) and the mythical, almost atemporal, nature of the story, in which destiny plays an important role.

Bad Day To Go Fishing was 70% produced by Spain (via Tomás Cimadevilla’s Telespan 2000 and Brechner’s company Baobab) and 30% by Uruguay (Express Producciones). It will be released in Spain on December 11 by recently-founded Vértice Cine (see news). International sales are being managed by Germany’s Bavaria Film International (see news).

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(Translated from Spanish)

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