18/02/2011

Thanks to the success of Buried [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Cortés
film profile], Rodrigo Cortés has rather more resources for his next film: from his previous flick featuring just one actor (even if it was Ryan Reynolds), a coffin, a lighter and a mobile phone, he has moved on to a cast starring Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver, and that’s just to start with. This is just one of the advantages of having become, at 38, one of the world’s most renowned directors, especially in the United States, where his original approach to genre cinema has not gone unnoticed.

After a ten-week pre-production phase, Cortés started shooting Red Lights on February 14. Filming will take place between Barcelona and Toronto. Like Buried, the title will be produced by Barcelona-based Versus Entertainment, this time in collaboration with US company Cindy Cowan Entertainment, Antena 3 TV and Televisió de Catalunya (TVC), with backing from the ICIC and ICAA.

Scripted by Cortés, the film centres on veteran Doctor Margaret Matheson (Weaver) and her young assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy), who study the wide range of psychic phenomena with the aim of proving its fraudulent basis. Legendary psychic Simon Silver (De Niro) returns after a 30-year absence and becomes the biggest challenge to orthodox science in the world. Tom develops an obsession with Silver, whose magnetism is reinforced with each new sign of obscure and inexplicable phenomena.

Red Lights, the Galician director’s third feature after The Contestant [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2007) and Buried (2010), will be lensed by DoP Xavi Giménez. Meanwhile, Cortés will do the editing (a skill that has just earned him a Goya for Buried).

(Translated from Spanish)