Just over a week ago, filming came to an end in Barcelona for The Nest, a movie directed by Hugo Stuven (Anomalous [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], Alone [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film]), which is now in post-production and is toplined by Michelle Jenner (a Goya nominee for Don't Be Afraid [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Montxo Armendáriz
scheda film], whom we also saw this year in El secreto del orfebre), Luisa Gavasa (a Goya winner for The Bride [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Paula Ortiz
scheda film], nominated last year for The Teacher Who Promised the Sea), Pablo Derqui (seen recently in the series Rage [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Pau Freixas
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Written by Santiago Lallana, César de Nicolás and Stuven himself, the film tells of how Marta (played by Michelle Jenner) is obsessed with protecting her family from the terrifying outside world. To that end, she keeps her mother (portrayed by Luisa Gavasa) and her young son (Dylan Radley) shut inside her home. Everything seems to be in order until the day Velasco (Pablo Derqui) arrives, a man capable of awakening in Marta the darkness she harbours within.

According to its director, “The Nest is a psychological thriller with a dense, restless, almost oppressive atmosphere, fuelled by the secrets that everyone is hiding. And at the centre of that emotional labyrinth is our protagonist (Jenner), whose precise, gut-wrenching performance sustains the tension as if she were carrying the whole house on her shoulders. It teeters between the intimate and the unsettling.”

For her part, Laura Fernández Brites, of Filmax, explains the origins of the project: “For years, we had wanted to work with Hugo Stuven as producers on a fiction feature after our fruitful collaborations on documentary series and as distributors of his previous works. Together, we embarked on this project: a contained suspense thriller, with precise pacing and a minimalist story that has no need for artifice. The atmosphere that Hugo builds up makes everything exude truth within a tale as restrained as it is unsettling.”

After several shorts, in 2015, Stuven made his feature debut with Anomalous, a thriller shot in English in New York and Barcelona, and three years later, his second film, Alone, based on a true survival story, premiered at the 21st Málaga Film Festival (a US remake is currently in the works). In 2020, he directed The Challenge: ETA, Amazon Prime Video’s first original (mini-)documentary series in Spain, which was nominated for the Feroz and Iris Awards. For the same platform, he directed several sports documentaries, and lastly, this past October, he premiered Tell Me Your Name, his first horror series as creator, director and screenwriter (together with Alejandro Hernández and César de Nicolás), also starring Michelle Jenner alongside Darío Grandinetti, Elena Rivera, Younes Bouab and Raúl Arévalo.

The Nest is a production by Carlos Fernández and Laura Fernández Brites for Filmax, with the support of RTVE, Movistar Plus+ and the ICAA. Filmax is also handling its international sales and Spanish distribution.