Feature films Nobodys Watching (Nadie nos mira) by Julia Solomoff and Tormentero by Rubén Imaz participated in the Official Selection of the Rome Film Festival
The twelfth edition of the Italian festival took place between October 26 and November 5 at the Parco della Musica and other venues in the city of Rome. An official selection of 39 outstanding films and documentaries were showcased for their cinematographic quality. Independent, genre, experimental, entertainment, animated, and documentary films were all included in the selection.
Colombia was present in the Official Selection this year with two feature films. One of them was Nobody’s Watching (Nadie nos mira), a co-production between Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States. The film is Argentine director Julia Solomonoff's third feature and was created in co-production with the Colombian company MadLove. It had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and was presented at the Special Screenings section of the Warsaw Festival.
Nobody’s Watching tells the story of Nico, a relatively successful Argentine actor who has come to try his luck in New York, only to discover that he is "too blond to be a Latino, but his accent too strong to be a gringo." He survives on occasional jobs and babysitting for a friend's baby. His life is not the sacrificial postcard of the illegal immigrant, but we discover how little he has – materially, socially, and emotionally – and how much pretending he has to do to pull it off. His relationship with the baby seems to be his only authentic one, his emotional anchoring. When an old flame comes to visit, his simulated life collapses and he is confronted with the real reasons for his departure.
Tormentero by Rubén Imaz was screened in Rome as well. Co-produced by Contravía Films in Colombia, it received the Hubert Bals Fund Development Support (2011), the FOPROCINE Production Incentive (2013), the Riviera LAB Prize (2011) and the Ibermedia Program Development and Co-Production Grants (2011-2012). It had its international premiere at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and later went on to the Guanajuato International Film Festival 2017 where it won the Best Actor Award and the Mérida and Yucatán International Film Festival where it took the award for Best Director. It was also part of the Colombian Film Official Competition at the 57th Cartagena International Film Festival (FICCI), the Lima International Film Festival, the Fine Arts Festival in the Dominican Republic, and the 41st São Paulo International Film Festival, among others.
Tormentero tells the story of Romero Kantún, a retired fisherman who leads an isolated and solitary life in his modest home on the Island of Tris. Don Rome lives engulfed in nostalgia, kept company by the ghosts of the life he could not have, by spirits who live with him or around him. Thus, alcoholic and schizophrenic, Don Rome manages to whittle away the last days of his life caught between loneliness and his hallucinated guests. Deep down though, he feels that it is time to recover the love that was snatched away from him decades ago, when fate led him to discover the great oil field that put an end to fishing on the island and earned him the scorn of his fellows.
The Rome Film Festival was born in 2006. Since its inception, it has positioned itself as one of the most important international film events. In 2014, the conventional competitions were abolished, allowing the public to decide which films would take awards. The festival is organized by the Cinema per Roma Foundation.
