2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Clara Roquet’s Libertad

We advanced the idea same time last year mentioning that this directorial debut checks off a lot of boxes in terms of the type of artist the Sundance programmers want to include. For starters, Clara Roquet‘s Libertad workshopped this project at the 2018 January Screenwriters Lab and subsequently, she saw a project she co-wrote in Mounia Akl’s Costa Brava Lebanon attend the 2019 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. She also took part in something called the Sundance Mediterranean Screenwriters Workshop in 2015. Let’s not forget her contributions to films such as 10,000 Km (2014), and Jaime Rosales’ Director’s Fortnight overlooked Petra (2018). Teaming with cinematographer Gris Jordana (her work can be seen in the just released 18 to Party – Giant Pictures) this coming-of-ager features the generational vast cast of Nora Navas, Maria Rodríguez Soto and Vicky Peña.
Gist: Set on Catalonia’s gorgeous Costa Brava, the feature turns on the Vidal family which is spending a summer with their Alzheimer-affected grandmother Ángela. Overprotected and shy, 14 year-old Nora goes through a difficult time after her parents’ separation, but what looked like another tedious, sad summer for Nora, turns into a dangerous coming of age experience with the arrival of Libertad, the wild 15-year daughter of Ángela’s Colombian caretaker.
Production Co./Producers: Tono Folguera, Sergi Moreno, Stefan Schmitz, María Zamora.
Prediction: WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION.
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Playtime.
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Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
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