Lluís Miñarro has filmed Emergency Exit
- Marisa Paredes, Oriol Pla, Emma Suárez, Albert Pla, Naomi Kawase and Francesc Orella star in a surreal and ironic road movie, produced by the filmmaker with El Viaje Films
Filming has recently finished on Emergency Exit, the new feature film by Lluís Miñarro, a road movie that explores the dichotomy between dream and reality, life and death, with a tone guided by irony and the absurd, filmed between Catalonia and the Canary Islands of La Gomera and Tenerife.
The film features an international cast including Marisa Paredes (acclaimed for her work in All About My Mother and the more recent Petra [+see also:
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interview: Jaime Rosales
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Q&A: Pedro Almodóvar
film profile] and The Next Skin [+see also:
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interview: Isa Campo, Isaki Lacuesta
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interview: Jaime Rosales
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interview: Elena Martín Gimeno
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series profile]), Francesc Orella (recently seen in the series The Asunta Case [+see also:
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series profile]), Gonzalo Cunill (Dúo), Aida Folch (soon to star in Fernando Trueba’s new film, Haunted Heart [+see also:
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film profile]), Lu Colomina, Miquel Barberà, Laia Brugarolas and Jhonattan Burjack, along with Arielle Dombasle (known for Pauline at the Beach and nominated for a César in 1999 for L’ennui), Myriam Mézières (Fleurs de sang), and Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase (winner of the Camera d’Or and Grand Jury Prize at Cannes with Suzaku and The Mourning Forest respectively, and Still The Water [+see also:
trailer
film profile] which Miñarro himself produced).
Its script, written by Miñarro together with Lu Colomina, tells how 14 characters travel in a mysterious vehicle that they cannot easily get out of. Along the way, they fabricate about their identity and travel through unreal landscapes on a journey between life and death, sleep and wakefulness. According to the synopsis, "a tragicomedy with no certainties".
The director and producer of this film said that, "my interest in this project is to provide a singular register, an updated vision of the magical realism that writers such as Arturo Uslar Pietri, Gabriel García Márquez and Alejo Carpentier or filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel, Raoul Ruiz and João César Monteiro have been able to capture so well. There’s a fascinating imagery not represented cinematographically that corresponds to painters such as Remei Varo and Leonor Carrington, who we also relate to on an aesthetic level. I would like to be able to offer a personal vision that connects with this essence of early cinema: its lights and shadows,”
The Barcelona-born filmmaker has previously directed the fiction feature films Love Me Not [+see also:
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interview: Lluís Miñarro
film profile] (2019) and Falling Star [+see also:
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interview: Luis Miñarro
film profile] (2014), both presented at the IFFR, plus the documentaries Blow Horn (Locarno 2009) and Familystrip [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Karlovy Vary 2009). In 1989 he founded the company Eddie Saeta, with which he has produced 45 feature films that have won more than 140 awards. Among them, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives [+see also:
trailer
film profile] which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010, as well as films by Manoel de Oliveira, Lisandro Alonso, Albert Serra, Marc Recha, José Luis Guerín and Javier Rebollo. He also manages Luis Miñarro Albero, his most personal label, and has also been awarded the 2010 City of Barcelona and 2020 Pepón Coromina awards.
Emergency Exit is produced by Lluís Miñarro in co-production with El Viaje Films with the support of the ICEC, the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation and the Island Council of Tenerife.
(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)
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