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Gael García Bernal

CRITICS’ WEEK SELECTION PAYS HOMAGE TO GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL, WHO ALSO STARTS AS A DIRECTOR

The oldest parallel selection to the Cannes Festival, completing 60 years, is the Critics’ Week, which reaches this year its 46th edition. The Critics week will be dedicated to Mexican actor – and now director - Gael García Bernal, recalling that it was this organization that revealed him seven years ago with AMORES PERROS, first film by Alejandro González Iñarritu, having been granted its highest award.

The Critics week recalls in its site http://www.semainedelacritique.com that Gael García Bernal’s career rose right afterwards to the international star category acting in films by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries), Pedro Almodóvar (LA MALA EDUCACIÓN) and BABEL, again by Iñarritu, side by side with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, in competition in 2006. Gael started his career in his hometown, Guadalajara, where he acted as a teenager in popular soap operas on TV.

Besides being elevated to Cinema Ambassador by the Critics’ week, the traditional parallel section of the festival will pay homage to Gael presenting his first movie as a director, DÉFICIT, which has high chances of getting the Câmera d’or Award at the Cannes Festival.

With DÉFICIT Gael reveals an intelligent x-ray of modern Mexican society involved in corruption and extreme class division. Gael’s first film, in which he also acts, follows a day in the life of Cristobal, a young and rich hip-hop fan, economy student and son of a very corrupt Mexican politician. The film is a production by Canana Films, which he founded in partnership with Diego Luna, with whom he acted in 2001 in another Mexican film of international success – Y Tu Mamá También, by Alfonso Cuarón.

Along with Gael’s film, the 46th Critic’s week has a strong Mexican representation. One of the seven features in the selection is PÁRPADOS AZULES, by Ernesto Contreras, which won in March the 22nd Guadalajara Festival. And another recent Mexican production, MALOS HÁBITOS, by Simon Bross, equally awarded at the last Guadalajara Festival, will have a special screening at Cannes in behalf of the Critics’ week.

Two other Latin American highlights in the selection are Brazilian A VIA LÁCTEA, by Lina Chamie and XXV, by the Argentinean beginner Lucía Puenzo. The selection goes on with FUNUKE, SHOW SOME LOVE, YOU LOSERS!, by Japanese Daihachi Yoshida; NOS RETROUVAILLES, by French David Oelhoffen; VOLEURS DE CHEVAUX, by Belgian Micha Wald and LES MÉDUSES, by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, French-Israeli co-production.

For further information:
www.festival-cannes.org


English version: Laura Rebessi