Implosión
Director: Javier Van de Couter
Argentina | 2020 | Spanish with English subtitles | 84 min | Rated PG
*Geo-blocked for viewing in Canada only.
Join us during the festival for a conversation via VLAFF’s FACEBOOK LIVE with director Javier Van de Couter from Argentina and the 2021 Youth Jury. Sun Aug 29 12:00 PT
COMMUNITY PARTNER:
View IN-PERSON at The Cinematheque: Friday, Aug 27, 8:30pm
View ONLINE (from anywhere in Canada): August 26 – September 5
The lead actors Pablo Saldías and Rodrigo Torres are two real survivors of Latin America’s first school massacre in a small town in Argentine Patagonia. When they were fifteen years old, a classmate shot them with the weapon he stole from his father who served in the army, killed three of their classmates and seriously injured other students. Now thirty years old, Pablo and Rodrigo play themselves in a narrative film built on a hypothesis: they travel over 1000 kilometres to try to find and confront the classmate who shot them. Implosión is an unforeseeable journey that unveils how two real people deal with their past through fiction.
Bafici Grand Prize, National Cinema Section.
“With Implosión, Javier Van de Couter won the Bafici Grand Prize in the National Cinema Section. With subtlety and originality, he returns to a story that made catastrophic news in 2004: the Carmen de Patagones massacre. Two survivors, almost 20 years later, return to the scene following the tracks of the aggressor. The film follows them … accompanies them … pushes them …” – Página12, Carmen de Patagones
Entre el deseo de venganza y la necesidad de comprender para superar su trauma, dos amigos se lanzan a una devoradora investigación para encontrar al compañero que hace quince años desencadenó una masacre en su instituto, a la que ellos sobrevivieron.
JAVIER VAN DE COUTER is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art. He is a director and screenwriter for film, theatre, and television. Implosión, his second feature film, was distinguished as the Best Project at the V Europe – Latin America Co-Production Forum of the San Sebastián Festival. He also earned scholarships from the National Fund for the Arts and Patronage of Buenos Aires.
He has worked in the development of various television series for Fox, Viacom, Telefe, Underground Contenidos, Pampa Films, La Flia Producciones, among others.
His debut film Mía was the winner of the Coral Award for Best Unpublished Script at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, Cuba and distinguished with the Maguey Award for Best Film at the 27th Guadalajara International Film Festival.