Alberto Morais wraps his fourth film, La madre
- The filmmaker once again tackles the neglect of youngsters, defenceless people and defeat in his new work, which is now in the middle of post-production after the shoot wrapped two weeks ago
On 20 September, the shoot wrapped for La madre [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alberto Morais
film profile] (lit. “The Mother”), a co-production between Spain (Olivo Films) and Romania (Fundatia Teatru Contemporan), directed by Alberto Morais (born in Valladolid in 1976). Starring Javier Mendo, a newcomer to film, Nieve de Medina, Ovidiu Crisan, Alexandru Stanciu and Laila Marull – who already worked with Morais in The Waves [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – it was one of the 15 movies selected at the Cinéfondation Atelier at the last Cannes Film Festival (it was there that a distribution deal was sealed with Paulo Branco for Portugal and France), and is benefiting from backing from Eurimages, the ICAA’s project support and assistance from the IVAC (the Valencian Film Institute).
As a matter of fact, as was the case in The Kids from the Port [+see also:
trailer
film profile], his previous film, the city of Valencia and its surroundings (the port of Sagunto, Vinalesa, Borbotó, Foios and La Punta) served as the setting for the shoot of this title, the editing of which will be completed at the end of November in Madrid; post-production will then continue in Romania, and the movie should be ready for the festivals in March 2016.
With a budget in the mid to low range, albeit double that of The Kids from the Port, La madre follows 14-year-old Miguel (a name that crops up time and again in Morais’ films), whose mother is a volatile and aloof woman. He doesn’t want to go back to the juvenile detention centre, where social services are trying to lock him up, and instead seeks refuge in the house of a Romanian man who used to be his mother’s lover, keeping his head above water by doing all kinds of odd jobs. He also befriends María, the proprietor of a bar, who will forge a mother-like relationship with him.
With a screenplay written by Morais himself (who is once again acting as a producer on a film of his), Ignacio Gutiérrez-Solana and Verónica García (also serving as executive producer), La madre “marks a change in style for Alberto, as the handheld camera sticks to the main character like glue, foregrounding the whole emotional part of it – the result is that this time, the canvas is the character’s face”, according to García.
(Translated from Spanish)
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