The "moderately" does not allude to its ideology or its feeling of belonging, but to the fact that the first is of Colombian production and is directed by Fernando Trueba; the third is a co-production with Argentina, directed by Mariana Barassi, and the one in the middle is a comedy by Fernando Colomo, a citizen of the world, especially of the Madrid world.
And these titles, so different from each other, have brought to this city and its Film Festival their directors and some of their popular actors. Fernando Trueba, Fernando Colomo, Karra Elejalde, Toni Acosta, Quim Ávila, Javier Cámara and Clara Lago are the protagonists of the final stretch of the BCN Film Festival, which closes this weekend with the French film Entre rosas, by Pierre Pinaud.
Fernando Trueba has had to explain here his motivations for tackling El olvido que seremos, such a Colombian drama about the figure of doctor Héctor Abad Gómez and his story as a professor and social activist in the hornet's nest of Medellín in the seventies. The answer is clear: he had before him the splendid and nostalgic novel by Héctor Abad Faciolince, son of the character, and it was an undeniable temptation to put it into images. Black and white images of a present, and images in a melancholic color for the great flashback of the family history, told, in a way, from the childlike eyes of the protagonist's son. The character is played, with a Colombian accent that is more than convincing, by Javier Cámara, magnificent in the changes of tone from the endearing family chronicle to the thorny social and political drama. The passion of the character and the actor transmit the light and atmosphere that the story needs to be truly moving, and also, at times, fresh and funny.
Fernando Colomo's Polyamory for Beginners is radically different; it's an open, lighthearted comedy full of wit and acidity about some of the current ways of approaching matters as transcendental for human beings as sexual activity and the media. Everything is very homemade, very domestic, with a run-of-the-mill YouTuber and a gang of polyamorous people who will offer the non-proselytizing viewer the opportunity to cultivate themselves in these gardens, or at least to peek over the fence. The story is light, even a bit frivolous, but it has moments of uncontrollable laughter, like when father and son (Karra Elejalde and Quim Ávila) attend an explanatory session on polyamory and its varieties, well-detailed in their relationships and geometric fluid exchanges. A film to enjoy and, if possible, to draw no conclusions about.
Argentine director Mariana Barassi signs Chronicle of a Storm, co-produced by Gerardo Herrero and starring Clara Lago and Ernesto Alterio, two actors who handle comedy wonderfully, but who here are forced to change register, as it is an intense labor and personal drama in the office of the director of an important newspaper. The story unfolds over one night, whose conflicts grow with the yeast of ambition, hidden desires, corrupt journalistic practices, and an intrigue full of morals and moralizing. Only Ernesto Alterio's haircut and hairstyle would deserve a good witty paragraph or a battery of emojis of all colors; instead, Clara Lago strains to give her character an ambiguity that raises suspicions (and hairs) like noodles in a fideuá.