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Helena, by Alejandro Sugich, premiered at the 15th FICM

Gabriel Andrade Espinosa

Helena (2017), by director Alejandro Sugich was presented at Cinépolis Morelia Centro as part of the Mexican premieres of the fifteenth edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

The film is a reinterpretation of the novel White Nights of the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevski, acclimated in the present-time Mexico. The characters are Juliet, a cellist married to a classical musician, and Ivan, a young DJ. They both meet when her husband fails to make an appointment and they begin a brief but intense relationship.

 It is the second feature of the director, who previously made the film Casi treinta (2014), in addition to several short films. Before filmmaking, he was an economist, a profession that, he says, has served him well in his career as a director.

 The film was presented by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, vice president of FICM. At the end of the screening, a Q&A session was held, attended by the director, Alejandro Sugich; the producer Gastón Pavlovich, and the actors Alfonso André and Natalia Varela.

 Concerning the work dynamics, Pavlovich said: "We worked hard in the production, creating a shell-like structure in which all the talented people took their place, looking for everything to flow in the best possible way. We are really satisfied with the results."

 Alejandro Sugich commented on the value of the film: "Certainly the resources are very optimized, but the cost of a production, rather than being measured with money, is measured in time, talent and effort. In that sense, it's a movie with great value."