It’s about to be film festival season again when things really kick off in May at the Cannes Film Festival, and so what better time than to release the trailer for “Official Competition,” a comedy that skewers Cannes, red carpet glitz, and the entire film festival industrial complex. One of the delightful stand outs of last year’s Venice Film Festival, “Official Competition,” the film skewers the entire business and does so with leads Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, along with Oscar Martínez, José Luis Gómez, Nagore Aranburu, Irene Escolar, Manolo Solo, Pilar Castro, and Koldo Olabarri.
Directed by Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, our reviewer from Venice described the film as a diverting amusement: “Controlled pacing, visual punchlines, and an insider knowledge of the varied pretensions within filmmaking make this a consistently amusing — if never downright hilarious—vehicle for the well-honed comic sides of two of Spain’s most famous exports.”
That’s a pretty good endorsement. Here’s the synopsis from Venice:
In search of significance and social prestige, a billionaire businessman decides to make a film to leave his mark. To do so, he hires the best: a stellar team formed by famous filmmaker Lola Cuevas and two renowned actors, both enormously talented, but with even bigger egos: the Hollywood actor Félix Rivero and radical theater thespian Iván Torres. Both legends, but not exactly the best of friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric challenges set by Lola, Felix and Iván must face not only each other, but also their own legacies.
In a director’s statement, Duprat said, “There are many films that show how a film is made, the production problems, the difficulties and issues of carrying out a project. But there’s nothing exactly like the kind of stuff actors get up to, to make us cry, to make us laugh, to generate emotion. This film investigates this complex and extraordinary relationship, generally hidden from the view of the general public. The film illuminates how these three acting talents build emotion in the viewers at the same time that it addresses issues such as the process of artistic creation, professional competence, egos, and the need for prestige and recognition.”
“Official Competition” is in theaters this summer on June 17 via IFC Films. Watch the trailer below.