17/02/2023 - Alberto Gastesi brings melancholy, nostalgia and jazzy rhythm to a first black and white film that takes place in two periods of time and reality (or probability)

In El columpio (1993), Álvaro Fernández Armero's first short film, a very young, shy and indecisive Coque Malla and Ariadna Gil waste nine minutes on the lonely platform of a metro station drowned by the desire (never realised) to talk to that unknown person they really like. Five years later, a first-time director Peter Howitt also had Gwyneth Paltrow in the romantic comedy Sliding Doors take two paths: the first followed the girl when she managed to get on the underground at the very last second (and thus discovered something that would turn their sentimental relationship upside down) and the second followed the same woman when the train doors closed in front of her, and she had to wait for the next one. If in the first title indecision, immaturity and cowardice were the driving forces of the plot, in the second it played with the existential concept of the crucial possibilities and the optional paths we take - or not - along our life journey.

In a completely different tone to his two previous works and in the 21st century, Alberto Gastesi from San Sebastian uses these same concepts. Based on (according to his own confession - read interview) the idea of portraying two human beings inside an empty building, he directs a film entitled Stillness in the Storm [+see also:
trailer
interview: Alberto Gastesi
film profile] which, above all, leaves a delicate melancholic aftertaste after viewing it, caused by nostalgic thoughts of what could have been and was not when youth begins to become a distant past. The film joins the seventh Ibiza International Independent Film Festival this week.

Through the reunion of two people (played by Íñigo Gastesi and Loreto Mauleón, the great breakthrough of the series Patria [+see also:
series review
series profile]) who met briefly years ago, it shows what their present time is like (more or less routine, without those young dreams coming true) for each of them separately, and what could have happened if they had engaged in a dialogue which had instead ended in fleeting and elusive glances under the rain.

Everyday decisions, lost opportunities and ideals that evaporated with the passing of time and the end of youth hang over the black and white images in 4:3 format of a film shot in a photogenic San Sebastian that also has something of a generational portrait, with a certain poetry, a jazzy musicality and several scenes in a natural acting style.

The Stillness of the Storm is a production by Vidania Films with the participation of EiTB. The film had already participated in the 2022 Gijón and San Sebastian film festivals.

(Translated from Spanish)