Return to Ithaca, by French film director Laurent Cantet and inspired by a story by writer Leonardo Padura, won the award for the informative section for authors in the 71st International Venice Film Festival.
The official jury for the Venice Days section, which included fourteen documentaries and fictional works and was chaired by Argentinean director Diego Lerman argued about the film: “Under very limited time and space, the filmmaker successfully delivered a complex and emotional work on the secrets of the past.”
The award is endowed with 20,000 Euros ($ 26,000) to be distributed among Cantet and international distribution company Funny Balloons. The distributor will have to use its share of the prize to promote the winning film.
This award is a significant recognition for the film, which premiered in Venice and began its tour through major international festivals.
This film addresses universal themes as loyalty, friendship, love, hate, betrayal, fear and disappointment. Filmed on locations in Centro Habana, specifically on a rooftop, with the boardwalk as a backdrop, the story of Amadeo, who left Cuba even when immigration laws were very different, is narrated.
“It deals specifically on the chapter of the reunion with the Island of a Cuban who immigrated to Spain and decides to return home after many years. I think many will enjoy this film because it will identify my contemporaries. It tackles the problems of those who live in that era, the marked us the most. It is the story of a true chronicle of survival of a broken generation, ” Padura told OnCuba.
“I’m very happy about this prestigious award for a Cuban film; it is a great honor and appreciation to all who made it and I think that the Cuban public will feel it with great force by the problem it addresses, that is the prize,” the author added.
The action takes place in just hours from dusk until dawn the next day and its cast includes Isabel Santos, Jorge Perugorría, Fernando Hechevarría, Nestor Jimenez and Pedro Julio Diaz Ferran.
We talked with some of the actors about their experiences in the film.
“My character’s name is Tania, is the only woman,” Isabel Santos said. “Working with Cantet was wonderful despite the language barrier we understood each other pretty well. With great humility and tenderness this famed director, one of the most important of contemporary Europe, came to direct us for the great script written by Padura. All actors at the end wondered when we will have a project like this again. The director let us contribute to all aspects, phrases and experiences to our characters, both ours and to our friends. He was able to understand and accept all changes and suggestions that we would get all set out for best results. The film teaches us that friends are like clothes buttons that fall and we place them back. I feel very proud to have worked with this great director who reminds me so much Humberto Solas because despite being different, they have many things in common. ”
Néstor Jiménez plays Amadeo. “He’s a character who returns and is reunited with his friends after all this time. Those who have seen the film have told us how good it was the choreography that they created for Tania’s character and mine. This is an impromptu dance between them on the song California dreaming by The Mamas and the papas. There was no any installation, only two actors feel and improvising the scene. That was it, contributing a lot of us as people. It’s a film that addresses our generation and its main problems, and when you Cubans see it they will see that to these characters many things happen to them which they also went through. The characters bring to light their envy, resentment and frustrations, but also their joys. It was a rewarding experience that we all want to repeat, “said the star of The Lair of the mole.
Fernando Echevarría gives life to Rafa, a fifty year old painter, great friend of his friends as the same actor expressed. “Rafa is a prominent member of that select club that friendship plays an important role. The story moves between satisfactions and frustrations of his characters still bleeding wounds of daily life one leads to the friendship that gives the sour taste that gives real meaning. This film in which all of us are leading actors has the peculiarity that each of the characters has its peak at a certain time. It was very interesting what they accomplished both with the script as Padura and Cantet in direction, due to the coherence of actions. It was a very pleasant experience to meet friends who had never acted together, although we knew each other from ever and repeated experiences with other big players in my country, “said the prominent actor.
Perugorría and Pedro Julio interpret Eddy and Aldo respectively and also valued the experience as satisfactory by the high professional level they performed and celebrating these days the first of the awards with the film of their generation has won, as Padura described it.
