THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO has started filming again of “Official Competition”, a film directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat (“The Distinguished Citizen”, “My Masterpiece”, “4x4”, “The Man Next Door”) and written by the renowned Argentinian filmmakers together with Andrés Duprat.
Starring Penélope Cruz (winner of an Oscar® for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” by Woody Allen and produced by MEDIAPRO, and Best Actress at Cannes for “Volver” by Pedro Almodóvar), Antonio Banderas (Best Actor award at Cannes for Almodóvar’s “Pain & Glory” and Oscar Martínez (Best Actor Award at Venice Film Festival for “The Distinguished Citizen” by Cohn and Duprat).
During confinement, the directors have been working non-stop on the creative aspects of the film, and here’s what they had to say on the subject:
Gastón Duprat: “Among all the negative aspects of interrupting a shoot, there were positives: we had an unusually long time to study the material we’d already shot, and to work with the script that remains to be filmed under the microscope. The material we already have is superb: Penelope, Antonio and Oscar are extraordinary. The scenes have what we wanted: an uncomfortable mix of tension and sarcasm, in an aesthetic framework with a lot of conceptual strength. We’re restarting filming with the certainty that we have something incredibly powerful in our hands.”
Mariano Cohn: “This film contains the experiences and learnings we’ve acquired after so many years of filming, like in a logbook. The film has our DNA as directors, but also that of Penelope, Antonio and Oscar since they made generous contributions of their own experiences. In this film, you are going to see an intense distillate of the universe we know best: that of directors and actors trying to do one of the most unnatural and complex things in the world for me: shoot a movie.”
The cast of “Official Competition” also features José Luis Gómez, Nagore Aramburu, Irene Escolar, Manolo Solo and Pilar Castro and is the third movie produced by THE MEDIAPRO STUDIO with renowned Argentine directors Cohn and Duprat after “My Masterpiece” and “4x4”.
International distribution of the production, in association with Orange España, will be managed by Protagonist Pictures.
Plot
In search of transcendence and social prestige, a multimillionaire businessman decides to make a film to leaves a mark. For this, he hires the best: a stellar team consisting of famed filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz) and two well-known actors, both of whom are huge talents, but with even bigger egos: Hollywood actor Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas ) and the radical theater actor Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez). Both legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric tests designed by Lola, Felix and Ivan must face not only each other, but also with their own legacies.
