Another View 2017 / Las hijas de Abril / Mexico 2017
Mexican director, screenwriter and producer Michel Franco has four writer-director feature films and four presentations at Cannes to his name, and this year saw him revisiting the French Riviera with a precisely structured tale of the complex relationship between two half-sisters and their mother. Assailing the audience with its masterful build-up of tension, this familiar domestic drama setup won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard.
Mexican director, screenwriter and producer Michel Franco has four writer-director feature films and four presentations at Cannes to his name, and this year saw him revisiting the French Riviera with a precisely structured tale of the complex relationship between two half-sisters and their mother. Emma Suárez, who came to Karlovy Vary last year to present the films The Next Skin and Julieta, gives a broad-spectrum performance as she brings to life the elegant and unpredictable April. The latter arrives in the Mexican resort of Puerto Vallarta to help her younger daughter Valeria who, at the age of 17, is pregnant by her boyfriend, also seventeen. Her initial warmth and support, however, evaporate after the baby’s birth, and it soon becomes clear why the feisty girl decided to leave her mother in the first place. Assailing the audience with a masterfully tense build-up, this familiar domestic drama won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard.
Karel Och
103 min / Color, DCP
Director Michel Franco
/ Screenplay Michel Franco
/ Dir. of Photography Yves Cape
/ Music Alejandro de Icaza
/ Editor Jorge Weisz, Michel Franco
/ Art Director Miguel Ramirez
/ Producer Michel Franco, Lorenzo Vigas, Moisés Zonana
/ Production Lucía Films
/ Cast Emma Suárez, Ana Valeria Becerril, Enrique Arrizon, Hernán Mendoza, Joanna Larequi
/ Sales mk2 Films
Michel Franco (b. 1979, Mexico City), a standout talent of Mexican cinema, has enjoyed his greatest success to date with the drama Chronic, which won Best Screenplay in the main competition at Cannes in 2015. His feature debut Daniel & Anna (2009) was also a hit at Cannes after its selection for the festival’s Directors’ Fortnight, while his next film After Lucia (2012) won the main prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. Through the Eyes (2014), co-directed with his sister Victoria Franco, was screened at KVIFF in 2015. Franco is also a successful producer and was involved in the production of 600 Miles by Gabriel Ripstein (Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale in 2015) and From Afar by Lorenzo Vigas (Golden Lion at Venice 2015 for Best Film).
mk2 Films
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Phone: +33 144 673 111
Fax: +33 143 072 963
E-mail: [email protected]
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