Whisky
Another View 2004 / Whisky / Uruguay, Argentina, Spain, Germany 2004
For several days, three older people, little known to each other, accept the rules of a family game. It lands them in humorously absurd situations, depicted by the filmmakers with understanding and compassion. Cannes 2004: FIPRESCI Award, Jury Prize in the Un certain regard section¨.
Synopsis
Jacobo Koeller, the owner of a failing sock factory, lives a quiet, bachelor life until the day his brother shows up, a man he hasn’t seen in years. In order not to feel inferior in front of his more successful brother, Jacobo comes up with the idea of asking his faithful employee Marta to pretend to be his wife. The aging woman fulfils this new task as inventively as everything else she has done for her impractical employer. Almost strangers to each other, the three characters accept the rules of the game: they will play members of a loving family while the energetic Hermann is visiting. Not surprisingly, this leads to a number of absurd situations. Whisky is the second feature from the Uruguayan duo Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. The film takes place in Montevideo but it could have played out anywhere as a universal story of loneliness exacerbated by the characters’ age.
About the film
95 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Juan Pablo Rebella, Pablo Stoll
/ Screenplay Pablo Stoll, Juan Pablo Rebella, Gonzalo Delgado Galiana
/ Dir. of Photography Bárbara Álvarez
/ Music Pequena Orquesta Reincidentes
/ Editor Fernando Epstein
/ Producer Fernando Epstein
/ Production Control-Z Films, Co-production: Rizoma Films, Wanda Visión, Pandora Filmproduktion
/ Cast Andrés Pazos, Mirella Pascual, Jorge Bolani
About the director
Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll (both b. 1974, Montevideo) met at university where they studied mass communications. Together they wrote and filmed an animated series called “El service.” In 2001 they wrote, shot and produced the low-budget film 25 Watts, screened in the Forum of Indepedents at Karlovy Vary in 2001, and awarded at many festivals. Their next film, Whisky, was highly popular with both critics and audiences at this year’s Cannes festival, winning the Jury Prize in the section Un certain regard, as well as Best Screenplay from the Sundance Institute. Director Stoll had this to say about the film: “We started to realize that perhaps these characters were not much different from ourselves... That they could be a projection...of what we might be in twenty, thirty years.”
Guests
Stefanie Zeitler
Distributor
Thorsten Schaumann
Festival Organizer
Michael Weber
Buyer, Sales Agent
Tobias Pausinger
