Mariano Cohn and Gaston Dupret are frequent guests at Venice Film Festival. Their first time at Lido was in 2016 with the bittersweet comedy El Ciuddadano Ilustre, the story of a Nobel winner writer who comes back to his birthplace to receive an award from his fellow citizens. They returned in 2018 with Mi Obra Maestra, directed by Duprat alone but produced by Cohn. This year are back behind the camera together for Competencia Official.
The artistic field the couple investigates this time is cinema itself. A very rich billionaire wants to be considered in cultural and intellectual circles. He decides to produce a movie, budget is not a problem, so he hires a talented director, the vulcanic Lola Cuevas, and two of the greatest living actors, Félix Rivero, a bright Hollywood star, and Ivàn Torres, a refined stage actor. They both have a massive ego, a problem that Lola knows how to handle.
«There are many films that show how a film is made» explains Gastón Duprat. «But there’s nothing exactly like the kind of stuff actors get up to, to make us cry, to make us laugh, to generate emotion. This film investigates this complex and extraordinary relationship».
Then Competencia Official needed great actors to be credible. Actors like Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martinez.
Penelope Cruz is once more behind a camera here in Venice 78. She was a photographer in Almodovar’s opening movie Madres Paralelas. She’s the director Lola Cuevas and works again with Antonio Banderas two years after Dolor y Gloria, the very personal movie by Almodovar who discovered and made famous both of them. Banderas plays the international Félix Rivero.
Mariano Cohn reveals that «for some time now we’ve been meaning to get a movie made together with Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas. Finally, we met in London to exchange ideas and we shared with them the seed of what would end up being the central axis of Competencia Oficial». The main cast is completed by Oscar Martinez who worked again with the two directors Competencia Official.
Competencia Official
Argentina, Spain, 2021. Directed by Mariano Cohn, Gaston Dupret. With Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martinez. Durata 114’
