Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Antonio Banderas were the stars of the film’s roll-out in cinemas all over the globe. “Official Competition”A trailer has been released.
Varietyhas had exclusive access to its international subtitled version. Buena Vista international will release “Official Competition”Spanish cinemas, February 25,
Spanish producer The Mediapro Studio and London-based international sales agent Protagonist Pictures already dropped a 48-second teaser trailer in late July, just before the film’s announced selection – appositely – for Official Competition at September’s Venice Film Festival, where it world premiered in September and was pretty much liked by everyone.
The now dropped official trailer is a minute longer and hits the movie’s main plot points: “Official Competition”It all begins with a billionaire businessman who decides to make a movie that will leave a mark on history. So he hires Cannes Palme d’Or winning filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Cruz), whose oeuvre includes “The Inverted Rain,” Hollywood hearthrob Félix Rivero (Banderas) and radical theater thespian Iván Torres (Argentina’s Oscar Martínez, winner of a Venice Best Actor Award for “The Distinguished Citizen”).
They’re the best in their class. ‘Trouble is their classes are miles apart. Rivero and Torres are both extremely talented but have bigger egos. Lola concocts an array of imaginative challenges to try and instill some humility while the movie remains in nine-day preproduction. Cuevas makes the couple sit down under a big bolder, binding them to their chairs, and then dropping their various acting awards into an iron shredder.
“Given immediate comic presence by the poodle-sized perm planted on her head, Cruz is quite obviously having a ball sending up the ivory-tower vanities and mannerisms of the prodigious auteurs she’s worked with over the years,”Varietyreviewer Guy Lodge writes. “It’s a performance of fizzy, frenzied, physically elastic inventiveness.”
“Martínez generally underplays to Banderas’ marvelous preening — an unflattering self-portrait that will probably earn the biggest, broadest laughs from industry insiders and outsiders alike.”
Lodge points out that the film is grounded in reality. “human sincerity” of Cuevas’ daft artistic aspirations, and even outsider audiences are invited to feel insiders is this sometimes near surreal send-up of movie-making.
Directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, some of Argentina’s broadest audience arthouse auteurs, “Official Competition” is written by the directors and Andrés Duprat. Jaume Roures, Mediapro’s head of production, produced it.
Laura Fernández Espeso, Javier Mendez, Javier Pons at The Mediapro Studio, plus Banderas, Cruz and Martínez all serve as executive producer, in association with RTVE, TV3 and Orange España.
Its wide appeal can be seen in another way “Official Competition” has done robust business with Protagonist unveiling a slew of pre-sales in March to major distributors such as Italy’s Lucky Red, Studiocanal for Germany, Madman for Australia and Hakuhodo for Japan.
IFC Films took U.S. rights in a deal announced in October after the film’s successful run at not only Venice but Toronto and San Sebastian.
Official Competition
Pictures by Protagonist