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Since its release last December, disturbing thriller Avatar has screened at more than forty film festivals around the world.

The short film’s director, Lluis Quilez, and unit production manager, Jordi Herreros, both from Barcelona, are in Bermuda with their film during the festival. Quilez entered the short into several festivals and has been very successful in being screened at 42 of them. “We are not always travelling with the short,” laughed Herreros. “Sometimes the short is travelling alone.”

Avatar is a word defined by the filmmakers as: 1, an accidental event that usually implies a sudden change in the course of something. Change of fortune; 2, Trials somebody goes through, and; 3, Inconstancy or alternation of favourable and adverse events.

In the film, we watch a woman care for a paralyzed man. She places him in the bathtub, and goes off to do the household chores as the water runs into the tub. Slowly, the helpless man slips lower and lower into the running water as the woman continues her chores. The film came from an idea of Quilez’s — not personal experience, he is quick to add — but an idea he had based on things he had seen or felt in his own life.

Quilez said, “The film is very visceral and everybody remembers the story. It’s a thriller — a bizarre love story inside a thriller.”

The film has won awards in several festivals, the most important being, according to its director, the Silver Mèliés in the XVI International Fantastic Film Week of Málaga University. Winning this placed Avatar among the top ten short films in Europe, and they are awaiting word on who will be named the top film. Avatar also won First prize at the 7th Manresa Festival of Film Noir in the short film section, second prize at the 10th Saragossa National Festival of Young Directors, best short film at the 5th Short Film Festival Playa de las Américas Arona ‘05 and first prize at the 5th Short Film Festival Falla Corretgeria in Valencia. The film also won Best Script in Cortomieres 2006: 6º Festival de Cortometrajes de San Roque and second prize Cine in the XXVIII International Fantastic Film Week of the Málaga University.

This month, the film is screening in Germany, France, Holland, Colombia, the U.K. and here at the Bermuda International Film Festival.

“We chose Bermuda out of all those places,” Herreros said.

“For us, it’s very, very important, we very much appreciate this festival, because it is well connected with the Academy, especially for the shorts.

“For us, this is the most important thing, because it can be seen by very important people. That’s why we selected this festival to come to.”[[In-content Ad]]

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