Official Selection - Competition 2012 / La lapidation de Saint Etienne / Spain, France 2012
Etienne is a sick old man living alone in a cramped apartment full of stuff, and he refuses to leave it although it no longer belongs to him. Here, the topics of old age and loneliness are not conceived as a traditional psychological story. Instead, in the spirit of contemporary Catalan cinema, the filmmaker aims for the greatest concision, even to the point of abstraction.
Etienne is a sick old man living alone in a cramped apartment full of stuff. He won’t get rid of it all and he would never think of moving out, even though the flat doesn’t belong to him. He refuses to talk to the social worker, his neighbours or to the owner of the flat believing that the souls of his dead wife and daughter are still present within its walls. The symptoms betrayed by the main character in the film, whose title is inspired by the frequent depiction of the myth of St Stephen’s martyrdom, are in no way unusual in the modern world. The themes of old age and loneliness are not conceived within a traditional psychological narrative, where the film develops a story for the central character with varying degrees of intensity. We discover very little about Etienne’s past and can only surmise the reasons for his strange behaviour from the indications he gives us. In the spirit of contemporary Catalan cinema, the filmmaker aims for stringency, even to the point of abstraction. He entrusted the role of Etienne to Lou Castel, who faithfully embodies the irritating combination of corporeality and intellect.
80 min / Color, DCP
World premiere
Director Pere Vilà i Barceló
/ Screenplay Pere Vilà i Barceló, Laura Merino
/ Dir. of Photography Jose Luis Bernal
/ Music Jordi Casadevall
/ Editor David Perez
/ Producer Luis Miñarro
/ Production Eddie Saeta S.A.
/ Cast Lou Castel, Marie Payen, Luis Rego
/ Contact Eddie Saeta S.A., Media Luna New Films UG
Pere Vilà i Barceló (b. 1975, Girona, Spain) studied screenwriting at Centre Calassanç in Barcelona as the pupil of famous director and screenwriter Joaquin Jordà. He has written a number of screenplays and has made various short films. He won the Elsa Peretti Foundation prize for his film The Fish of the River Lethe (Els peixos del riu Leteo). In 2006 he shot his first feature film, Railroad Crossing (Pas a nivell), presented at several festivals, including Rotterdam. He then made the short documentary Origin (Origen, 2008) while also shooting the civil war documentary Unknown Soldiers (Soldats anònims, 2008), which he co-directed with Isaki Lacuesta.
Eddie Saeta S.A.
Pasaje Permanyer 14, 080 09, Barcelona
Spain
Phone: +34 934 677 040
Fax: +34 934 677 489
E-mail: [email protected]
Media Luna New Films UG
Aachener Strasse 24, 506 74, Cologne
Germany
Phone: +49 221 510 918 91
Fax: +49 221 510 918 99
E-mail: [email protected]
Lluís Miñarro
Film Director / Producer
Pere Vilà i Barceló
Film Director
Lou Castel
Actor
Monica Garcia Massague
Film Institution Rep.
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