04/05/2023 - Filmax is handling the international sales of Omar Al Abdul Razzak’s film, which gets a Spanish theatrical release at the end of May

Killing Crabs [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Omar Al Abdul Razzak
film profile], directed by Omar Al Abdul Razzak, has already pocketed the Silver Biznagas for Best Film and Best Actress in the Zonazine section of the most recent Málaga Film Festival, as well as the Best Feature Award in the Canarias Cinema section of Las Palmas.

The lead roles in the movie are played by Paula Campos (who won an award at Málaga) and Agustín Díaz, who were chosen after a long casting process. The rest of the cast comprises Sigrid Ojel, Nino Hernández and other non-professional actors from Tenerife. The feature tells of how eight-year-old Rayco and his sister Paula, who’s 14, kill time while waiting for Michel Jackson to arrive on the island in 1993.

The film’s writer-director, who is originally from the Canary Islands and is of Syrian heritage, trained in Madrid, Paris and Montreal, and was previously selected for Berlinale Talents, Biennale College Cinema at Venice, the Rotterdam Lab, Punto de Vista Festival’s XFilms Project, and TorinoFilmLab Up&Coming for emerging producers. He has also directed Paradiso (2014) and The Calm Tempest (2016) as well as the short films Confined Spaces (2019) and La prima cosa (2021), which premiered at Annecy and was nominated for a Goya Award.

On the topic of the wonderful dialogue in the film, the director told Cineuropa (see the interview): “It was written and rewritten. First of all, we listened to how the non-professional actors said things, and then we tweaked it. It was forbidden to learn the text by heart, but the performers knew where they were starting from and where they had to end up, as it was all marked out. I like that kind of dialogue: I really enjoy writing it. And we plucked many things from real life, like the odd conversation I heard during the location scouting, which some nearby teenagers were engrossed in.”

Killing Crabs is a production by Spanish outfit Tourmalet Films, in co-production with IJswater Films (Netherlands), which secured funding from the ICAA, the Canary Island Government, TEA Island Council of Tenerife and Creative Europe – MEDIA, and it boasted the involvement of Televisión Canaria. Filmax is in charge of its international sales and will release it in Spain on Friday 26 May.

Watch our exclusive trailer below:

(Translated from Spanish)