Natalia Almada’s narrative debut has secured U.S. distribution. Cinema Tropical snagged the rights to “Everything Else,” a press release announced. After making its world premiere at the 2016 New York Film Festival, the award-winning drama went on to screen at fests including Rio de Janeiro, Palm Springs, and Göteborg.
“Everything Else” sees Oscar-nominated actress Adriana Barraza (“Amores Perros,” “Babel”) playing Doña Flor, a 63-year-old bureaucrat who lives in Mexico City. Barraza, whose outstanding acting career includes films with renowned international filmmakers such as Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Sally Potter, Robert Duvall, and Sam Raimi, delivers a bravura performance in her first starring role, in a nuanced and non-stereotypical character for a Latina actress. The pic explores her interior life “as she awakens from her bureaucratic malaise and yearns to become visible again,” according to its official synopsis. “Inspired by Hannah Arendt’s idea that bureaucratic dehumanization is a brutal form of violence, the story ultimately becomes a mesmerizing contemplation on solitude.”
“I always need a north star when I’m editing — one word which guides every cut. We like to think of our films as complex, and they are, but I believe they also have an essence which is quite simple,” Almada told us. “If you can capture that essence in one word then you have a guide when you get lost. My north star for this film was loneliness.”
Almada took home the 2009 Sundance Documentary Directing Award for “The General,” a portrait of her late great-grandfather, Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles. She also received an Indie Spirit Award nomination for the film. Her other doc credits include “The Night Watchman” and “Al Otro lado.”
“We’ve worked very closely with Natalia since the premiere of her debut feature ‘Al Otro Lado’ in 2005, and have followed her solid film career since then,” says Carlos A. Gutiérrez, co-founder and executive director of Cinema Tropical. “She has become one of the leading filmmakers of her generation in Mexico. We are thrilled to be working again with her in the release of her debut fiction film.’’
Cinema Tropical is the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the United States.
“As women — and minorities or any underprivileged, underrepresented people — I think we are more at risk of having our imaginations hijacked,” Almada observed in her interview with us. “First, we face the challenge of finding the sense of entitlement to even embark on the journey — to realize what is in our imagination. Then we face a tsunami of obstacles by a society which tends to undermine us, causing us to doubt ourselves. There is a kind of equivalent to mansplaining of the imagination and creative process,” she said. “The goal I think is to survive all of this with grace and integrity, and without bitterness and resentment.”
“Everything Else” will open in New York May 4 with additional cities to follow.
