10 · 12 · 07

Polarization and social solidarity

Doris Morales/Translated by Vicente Castañar

[imagen]Rodrigo Plá’s first film is based on a El otro lado by Laura Santullo, the story is about a top security housing complex for the wealthy, it has got a highly sophisticated guarding system, not even the police can come in without an order.

In spite of such high security there is a burglary and a murder, three young robbers do this crime and two are shot while escaping, the survivor becomes the objective of the highly organized community.

La Zona is the name of this housing complex, it is a little world where big differences can be seen, the people inside live “protected” from the unsafe streets outside, where there is mugging, kidnapping, the zone is surrounded by low socioeconomic neighbors.

This film portrays how citizens are tired of corruption and incompetence by the police. The people, from all social classes, are justice thirsty, the worst part of humans surfaces until they become mass murderers.

Rodrigo Pla talked about adapting the story, at the press conference he said:
“we always thought about doing this project because we knew that a lot of things happened in it, it was current and adapting it wasn’t that difficult because it is based on a short story, so we just added to it. This gave us more freedom, we kept the main themes but we added parts to them. The policeman part of the story was just about some unknown pressure he had, and we transformed this into a thriller.”

The characters
"The policeman is hopeful about changing the events, and the zone itself became a character. We had the opportunity to work with more characters with this clear topic, and we had more time. We created this representative character of the zone, through which other people speak.”

[imagen]Laura Santullo, who wrote the story and then the script with Rodrigo Plá, said;
"the story isn’t really a crime story, its main theme is the relationship between the two young men, the robber and the inhabitant of the zone. We thought it would be a good idea to make it a genre movie because it has important topics.”

What is La zona? Is it something similar to Atenco?Rodrigo Plá said:
“La zona deals with many topics, polarization, injustice, totalitarianism, and solidarity. The polarization is really stressed; it is something we live through every day. It is important to highlight what may happen in the near future. The streets are private; they belong to the numerous people that become poor while the rich become richer. We must all create equality.

We also understand the people who hide behind their private neighborhoods, but this is not a solution. It is not about digging our trenches, going out on bullet-proof cars, having private security, why isn’t it that we aren’t searching for better solutions? There must be better justice. We thought we should show this topic and now people must do what they should do, if they really believe on all this.”

La Zona has been shown at the following Festivals: Toronto, Venice and Athens.
It will also be shown at the United Arab Emirates, London, Stockholm and Valladolid, and it will also be shown in all Spain.In Mexico it will be premiered at the beginning of 2008, it will be distributed by Gussi, Artecinema.