Moscow IFF Competition: The Waves/Las Olas

23-06-2011

Moscow IFF Competition: The Waves/Las Olas

By Nailya Golman

The Waves is the first feature fiction film of Alberto Morais, whose credits include several short films and the documentary Un lugar en el cine.

{mosimage}The leads are played by Carlos Álvarez-Nóvoa (winner of a Goya prize as Breakthrough Actor of the year in 1999) and Laia Marull (winner of three Goya prizes: Best Female Performance in a Leading Role in 2004, Best New Actress in 2001, and Best Cast Actress in 2011).

The story concerns a man named Miguel who sets out on a journey that he has been anticipating for sixty years, from Valencia to a small town in the south of France called Argelès-sur-Mer, the last stop for thousands of refugees not long ago and the site of a concentration camp. He is old, his reflexes are failing him and he suffers from a kind of narcolepsy. After the funeral of his wife, he prepares for his long-awaited journey. He wishes to return to a place where he lost many things, almost all of them irretrievable, ranging from his companion Emilia to a way of understanding the world. All this is buried under the sands of Argelès-surMer.

{mosimage}The director claims that the basis for the plot was a line Theo Angelopoulos once said in an interview which he gave to Morais five years ago: "Conversing with history is conversing with oneself." Referring to the thought that every man of his generation has to carry the burden of the past, Morais researches the cinematic roots of the phenomenon of memory and history coexisting.

Speaking about the concentration camp at Argelès-sur-Mer, one of many in the south-east of France during the exodus, where half a million people were held, photographer Robert Capa described it as "...a hell on sand: the men there survived under makeshift tents and straw huts offering scant protection against sand and wind. To top it off, there is no drinkable water, only salty water extracted from holes dug in the sand."

The director said of his film, "It is my intention, then, to approach History from a certain distance, hand in hand with the protagonist, his hand the more subjective and thus more approachable."

The executive producer is Cesar Martinez, who produced and directed of Arena en los bolsillos, Cuando todo esté en orden and Manos de seda. He is also executive producer of the feature length films La Mula by Michael Radford, and El amor se mueve, by Mercedes Afonso, among others. He produced the short film Sueños, by Daniel Guzmán, winner of the 2004 GOYA award.

The Waves has its world premiere in the Main Competition of the Moscow International Film Festival. It has not yet been picked up for Russian distribution, and has no international distributor.

The director, main actor and main actress will attend the festival's 28 June 2011 screening to personally present the film.

Credits:

ALBERTO MORAIS (Director, Script-writer)

XAVIER GUALLAR (Director of production)

CÉSAR MARTÍNEZ (Executive Producer)

JOAN BENET (Director of Photography)

MANEL BARRIERE (Editor)

UXUA CASTELLO (Art director)

Production Company:

OLIVO FILMS S.L.

ALBERTO MORAIS

Producer