Jean-Marc Barr and Mateo Gil Join Miami Film Festival 2018 Marquee Lineup
Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Miami Film Festival (MFF) is importing film artists Jean-Marc Barr and Mateo Gil to accompany two Marquee events at the international festival’s upcoming 35th anniversary edition (March 9 – 18). The Miami Film Festival, under director Jaie Laplante, showcases Ibero-American cinema — and rising talent –and provides a North American launch pad for new international and documentary films.
In the last five years, the Festival has screened films from more than 60 countries, including 300 World, International, North American, U.S. and East Coast Premieres, and attracted more than 60,000 attendees, including 400 filmmakers and industry professionals.
The Festival’s Marquee series features screenings along with in-depth conversations with contemporary film personalities. Spanish filmmaker Mateo Gil will present the World premiere of his latest film, “The Laws of Thermodynamics” (“Las leyes de la termodinámica”), a romantic comedy starring Vito Sanz (“Maria (and the Others)”) as a Sciences graduate student who blames his disastrous love life and recently departed girlfriend (Berta Vázquez) on the mysterious laws of cosmic thermodynamics. Gil will participate in an extended conversation about co-writing the Oscar-winning film “The Sea Inside,” “Open Your Eyes” (remade as “Vanilla Sky” with Tom Cruise) and his other Goya Award-winning films.
Co-produced by Spain’s Zeta Cinema and Atresmedia), the film will compete in the Knight Competition and HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Competition.
French-American actor and filmmaker Jean-Marc Barr will attend the North American premiere of Lefteris Charitos’ new documentary “Dolphin Man,” about the life and legacy of the French free diving legend Jacques Mayol, whom Barr played in Luc Besson’s 1988 international smash “The Big Blue.” Barr is featured prominently in “Dolphin Man,” which covers the beginning of Mayol’s career working with dolphins at Miami Seaquarium in the 1950s. Barr will give a Q & A covering his work with Lars von Trier (“Europa,” “Breaking the Waves.” “Dancer in the Dark” and “Dogville”) as well his most recent film “Grain,” winner of the 2017 Grand Prize at Tokyo Film Festival, and his work as a director, screenwriter and producer in collaboration with Pascal Arnold (“Lovers,” “American Translation”).
Presented by Telefilm Canada as a Canadian co-production, “Dolphin Man” will compete for the audience-voted Knight Documentary Achievement Award.
The Festival is also bringing two more high-profile new Spanish films to premiere for US audiences: Daniel Calparsoro’s “The Warning” (“El aviso”), a high-octane thriller from Chris Sparling (the American screenwriter of Ryan Reynolds’ “Buried”) and Alex de la Iglesia’s frequent screenwriter Jorge Guerricaechevarría, starring Raúl Arévalo and Aura Garrido. The supernatural thriller, which is being compared to Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys,” will debut in two of the Festival’s competition sections, Knight Competition and HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Competition.
First-time feature writer-director Samu Fuentes’ “The Skin of the Wolf” (“Bajo la piel de lobo”), a dramatic thriller starring Spanish mega-star Mario Casas, Ruth Díaz, and Irene Escolar, boasts complexly designed wide-screen photography set in Spain’s spectacular Asturias-Huescas region, will debut in the Festival’s Jordan Ressler Screenwriting Competition, as well as the HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Competition.
