The presentation of Los Paisajes at the 16th FICM

Marco Mejía @MiqkelMejia

During the sixteenth edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) a special screening of the film Los Paisajes, by Rodrigo Cervantes, took place and was attended by Daniela Michel, founder and director of the festival; the actors Darío Yazbek Bernal, Pía Laborde Noguez; the producers Víctor Shuchleib and Juan Sarquís, and the musical composer Diego Lozano.

Juan Sarquís, Darío Yazbek, Daniela Michel, Pía Laborde Noguez and Víctor Shuchleib.

Los Paisajes tells the story of Alonso, a young man who, after being expelled from school, flees to Paris to reconnect with his brother Pablo, who cut all family relationships off and lives away from everything with his girlfriend Valeria. The sudden appearance of Alonso affects Pablo's, evidencing his emotional detachment and the lies under which he built his new life. A trip to the French province will further damage their relationship and force Pablo to return to a life he had left behind.

At the end of the screening, during a round of Q&A, Darío Yazbek Bernal described the process of character development, which led him to play a young man who's distanced from his family and his world in general: "It was interesting because we always departed from the idea that Greek tragedies where what is going to happen is already announced, in this case, with the life of my character; the fact that he had no will and was already dead in life; how hard it is for him to make emotional connections, even with his brother."

"The film talks a lot about that feeling and how a human being can become what he didn't want to be, because in the story we see a character who is there, without necessarily being there," Darío added.

Regarding that conception of the character, Yazbek also indicated that he had conversations with the director of the film to "work on the small things in each scene and work on images that provide some remembrance and thus direct the thoughts to other things, not necessarily as what one ends up seeing on the screen".

For her part, the actress Pia Laborde Noguez reflected on the impotence that sometimes human beings experience when they know that there are feelings or situations that can't change no matter how much one wants it: "I identify with the frustration of belonging to something that you can't escape and that is something that the characters experience, because they are tied to feelings that are stronger than ourselves, and you recognize the inequalities of life and how much you can or can’t do, as well as the sadness that entails".