The Exiles [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film], the second fiction feature by Belén Funes (winner of the Goya Award for Best New Director in 2019 for her feature debut, A Thief’s Daughter [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Belén Funes
scheda film]), will be world-premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, in the Centrepiece strand.

The movie, which was shot in Barcelona and Jaén (see the news), talks about grief, loss and how to grapple with these feelings in a world that is moving too fast. It stars Chilean thesp Antonia Zegers (whom we saw recently in El conde and The Punishment) and first-timer Elvira Lara, who are the protagonists of a story penned by Marçal Cebrián and Belén Funes. After the death of Julián, his wife Delia and their daughter Anabel must face life without him. The threat of eviction will suddenly put their fragile finances at stake, eclipsing their other cares. Together, they will have to find a way to support each other and get through this painful, albeit necessary, process called grief.

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The filmmaker stated: “My father is from a tiny town in Jaén, and my mother is from an Aragonese village. As they were very young, and because of the uncertainties inherent in that area, they left the place where they were born and headed off to the industrial belts of the city of Barcelona to seek out new opportunities, a new beginning and a brighter future for their children than they themselves had faced. This rural exodus to the cities that my parents undertook was by no means an isolated incident. During the 1970s, thousands of people departed from their towns, just like them, and settled in the outskirts of the big cities, hoping their fortunes would change and longing to conquer the coveted middle class. Those who upped sticks and left, carrying everything on their backs, were christened Tortugas [lit. “Tortoises”], and today, in spoken language, they are still known this way. But this film is not set in that period; rather, it’s set in 2023, in the city of Barcelona and in Jaén’s olive groves. It talks about Andalusian immigrants, their daughters, being uprooted… And above all, it talks about grief: about how it courses through us and tears holes in our flesh,” sums up the Catalonian filmmaker.

The Exiles is a production by Olmo Figueredo González-Quevedo and Antonio Chavarrías, together with Alba Bosch-Duran, Sara Gómez and Carlos Rosado Sibón, for Oberon Media, La Claqueta PC and Los Tortuga AIE, in co-production with Quijote Films (Chile) and Giancarlo Nasi. It boasts the support of the Ministry of Culture – ICAA, the Generalitat de Catalunya – ICEC, the Andalusian Agency of Cultural Institutions and Ibermedia, as well as the involvement of RTVE, Canal Sur Radio y Televisión, TV3 and Movistar Plus+, with the patronage of the Jaén Provincial Council. It will be released in Spanish theatres by A Contracorriente, and its international sales are managed by Film Factory.

Check out our exclusive international teaser poster below: