The anticipated feature debut of Aritz Moreno, Advantages of Traveling by Train is produced by San Sebastian-based Señor y Señora, owned by Moreno and producer-director Leire Apellaniz.
Madrid’s Morena Films previous credits include Oliver Stone’s Fidel Castro docu-trilogy, Soderbergh’s Che and movies by Spain’s Iciar Bollain (“Even the Rain”), Daniel Monzon (“Cell 211”) and Daniel Calparsoro (“Rob a Thief,” Spain’s No. 1 local box-office hit this year).
Advantages of Traveling by Train is penned by Javier Gullon, the writer of Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, marking Señor y Señora’s first fiction feature.
It adapts the cult novel by Spain’s Antonio Orejudo, published in 2000, turning on a literary agent, Helga, who is forced to intern her husband in a psychiatric clinic.
Boarding a train home, she meets one of the sanatorium’s psychiatrists, Agustin Sangustín, who diagnoses patients through their writings, which he carries around in a red folder. He offers to tell her his life story, narrating three stories about one patient. But when Sangustin gets off the train to buy a sandwich, it sails off without him, leaving the folder in Helga’s possession.
A story of stories within stories, told with verve by highly unreliable narrators, Advantages is “a film about what is true and not true, what we believe and don’t believe, what’s important and not, and the multifarious forms of derangement which we live with in society,” said Apellaniz.
“The most interesting part of the project is Aritz Moreno, the director, and Leire Apellaniz, the producer. They are a fantastic team. We saw Aritz’s shorts, which we really liked. ‘Colera’ in fact is one of my favorites,” said Morena Films founder-producer Juan Gordon.
EOnes Seville International and Morena have a good working relationship, Seville acquiring world sales rights to “El Olivo” and Julio Medem’s “Ma ma,” starring Penelope Cruz.
A director in her own right, Apellaniz helmed the docu-feature The Last Summer, about an open-air cinema impresario, which was selected for Karlovy Vary Film Fest.
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