La Vuelta, court-métrage

SYNOPSIS 

Twenty years. When Mariana enters the big birthday party of her best friend from childhood, she doesn’t know anybody. Actually, she hasn’t stepped her hometown Buenos Aires since she was 11 years old. Despite the years, Luly hasn’t changed: so confident, shining, pretty, skinny… and of course brilliant, funny, loved by everyone else. Luly is also dating Federico, their good friend from primary school. Invaded by a mix of fascination and frustration, Mariana observes, remembers and then doubts: who has she really become, away from her roots all that time? And who will she become? In the end, isn’t it the present moment that matters above all the rest? 

DETAILED SYNOPSIS

The thirty years: identity crisis and modern love

The adult age. It’s a very well anchored expression of the every-day talk that seems absurd and illogical.  Who would dare contradict that we don’t do any other thing than play the grown-ups during years, before actually turning into one? Who became, at thirty years old, the “adult person” he was pretending to be while blowing the twenty years old candles?  Chronicle of friendship and love, La Vuelta (“The come back” in English) is a french-argentine dramatic comedy of 20 minutes. If the dramatic universe of the story talks about exile, reunions, expectations and - light - traumas from the past, the subtext explores the evolution of love relationships, the harshness of accepting one’s body, identity crisis, including sexual identity. 

The story centers in Mariana, in her late 20’s, whose beliefs fall apart for one night, softly. Everything was going fine with her life that she had to build in Spain due to the Argentinian economic crisis of the 2000's that forced her, like thousands of compatriots, to leave the country. Now, as a European woman, Mariana is a girl of today. She is a grounded, sophisticated and kind of a happy person. She is conscious that the fleeting expectations for life that we have at 25 belong to the ghost world. Thanks to her savings after doing a Working Holiday in New Zealand, she is able to go back for the first time to Argentina, just to visit. She starts losing confidence in herself when she assists her childhood friend Luly's 30th birthday party, for who Mariana has always felt a particular admiration…

The short film captures this exact situation: when somebody becomes an adolescent again, awkward in their own skin and anxious about the judgment of others. The moment when driven by hysteria (in a Freudian sense of the word), we can’t resist the idea of being liked by a boy (and/or a girl) although we know we’d rather stay away from that person. That delicate moment when we abandon ourselves to the necessity of emotions or strong sensations, maybe to test our own limits one more time.  

TREATMENT

The staging of La Vuelta has been thought to be very close to its characters, with the objective of touching the deepness of their emotions, all inside a festive context, realistic and high on colours. The image will receive and transmit a hypnotic approach from a plastic point of view, thanks to the lightning and a meticulous artistic design.  

GENESIS

A French woman leading a South American team

I, a French woman of 25 years of age, decided to move to the other side of the world with the hopes of achieving my dream of making films come true and stripping myself of classic paradigms. It’s been four years already that I finished my studies in communication in image and media in Paris, which have helped me make a university exchange with a film school in Spain. Back in France, I worked as a cultural journalist for Le Figaro (newspaper), Première (cinema magazine) and France Inter (public radio), specialized in film critique. Having lived in Uruguay at the age of 13 because of my father’s job, I felt a need of emancipation of my roots to take a chance and change course, towards realisation and latin American culture, that seems to be sticked in my skin. And I was not wrong : while Argentina can be perceived as a complicated country, I was welcomed with open arms from day one, coming here by myself two years ago. I haven’t stopped building myself as an individual and future movie maker in this new environment, which now is mine… without completely being, because, although I’m far from the “Hexagon” I am and will be French. I’m getting ready to complete this enriching experience through La Vuelta, my first short film, being in Spanish language, leading a South American team composed by Argentinians, a Peruvian and a Chilean.

The portrait of a generation 

The script of La Vuelta was written by my Argentinian friend Denise Etchichury, whom I met at Cinema School of Buenos Aires (IDAC). Besides helping me integrate with this new life, thousands of miles away from my home, meeting her has been one of the greatest encounters through my way in the seventh art. Indeed, we look in the same artistic direction. I loved her script, which is very personal, from the first reading, and I immediately imagined myself filming it. I feel, evidently,  a very close affection towards the Mariana character because of my personal history between France, Uruguay, Spain, and Argentina (more info about my life below, in the biography section). I recognized myself in the situation, in what the protagonist feelings generate (the idea of not belonging anywhere is very strong to me). Denise and I worked as a binary to make the secondary characters the most charismatic as possible. The project grew towards a very nice direction and we hope, with the production team, that we can give life to the script in great conditions. This is why we need you, to achieve the financing of the film! 

PRODUCTION TEAM: Who are we? 

A group of friends in love with cinema

Julia Beyer Agostini, Director 

Denise Gala Etchichury, Screenwriter, Producer 

Lucía Porcel, Director’s Assistant 

Jaime Totino Rios, Director of Photography 

Guillermina Enquin, Art Director 

Nicolás Bagnulo, Sound Director