'Even the Rain' (Tambien La Lluvia) Wins Panorama Audience Award at Berlin Film Festival

Berlin, February 19, 2011

The day after 'Even the Rain' opened in the United States, the film was honored with the Berlin Film Festival Panorama section Audience Award. On behalf of the filmmakers, of 'Even the Rain' screenwriter Paul Laverty issued this statement upon learning that the film won the Audience Award in Berlin:

IT IS A GREAT HONOUR TO RECEIVE THIS PRIZE FROM THE PUBLIC AND WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THEM ALL FOR THEIR SUPPORT. WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE FESTIVAL FOR THE THEIR HOSPITALITY AND EVERYONE INVOLVED FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND KIN

DNESS TO US.

ABOVE ALL WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE PEOPLE OF COCHABAMBA IN BOLIVIA WHO INSPIRED THE STORY. MANY OF THEM FACED TEN YEARS AGO IN THE WATER WARS WHAT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS NOW FACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA. ORDINARY CITIZENS SICKENED BY CORRUPTION AND POVERTY NOW RISK LIFE AND LIMB FOR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. WE SALUTE THEIR COURAGE AND THE HOPE THEY

GIVE US.

HOWARD ZINN, THE HISTORIAIN TO WHOM THIS FILM IS DEDICATED, ONCE SAID, "NOT TO BELIEVE IN THE POSSIBILITY OF DRAMATIC CHANGE IS TO FORGET THAT THINGS HAVE CHANGED, NOT ENOUGH OF COURSE, BUT ENOUGH TO SHOW WHAT IS POSSIBLE. WE HAVE BEEN SURPRISED BEFORE IN HISTORY. INDEED, WE CAN DO THE SURPRISING."

THANK YOU,

PAUL LAVERTY - WRITER

ICIAR BOLLAIN - DIRECTOR

JUAN GORDON - PRODUCER

About the Film:

A Spanish film crew arrives in Bolivia to make a film about Columbus in the New World. Idealistic director Sebastian (Gael García Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries) wants to denounce the injustices of the past, focusing on exploitation of the indigenous people. Practical producer Costa (Luis Tosar, Cell 211), working on a tight budget, has chosen Bolivia, one of Latin America's poorest countries, to stand in for Santo Domingo because extras will work for only $2 a day.

After an open casting call almost degenerates into a riot, Sebastian hires outspoken Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri) to play the rebel Indian leader. But when the locals begin demonstrations against a multinational's plans to privatize water-even the rain-Daniel is in the thick of them, endangering the film's shooting schedule.

The thought-provoking screenplay by frequent Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) cunningly parallels the Spanish conquest of the Americas with the modern spread of capitalism. This fascinating mixture of past and present, fiction and fact, features spectacular scenes of the period film within a film. Directed by Icíar Bollaín (Take My Eyes).

How did the Morena Films crew work with the Bolivian community in Cochabamba?
Producer Juan Gordon and director Iciar Bollain explain in this video. View the trailer for Even the Rain.
Read more about the award
Find Even the Rain in a theatre near you.

Vitagraph Films Acquires All North American Rights for Official Spanish Oscar Submission, TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA (EVEN THE RAIN) From Wild Bunch

Columbus Day, October 12, 2010 – Vitagraph Films, LLC partners David Shultz and Margot Gerber announced today that they acquired all North American rights for Spain’s official entry for ‘Best Foreign Language Film” for the 2011 Oscars, TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA (EVEN THE RAIN) from Wild Bunch, on behalf of producer Juan Gordon’s Morena Films. Ironically the deal was finalized in time to announce the acquisition on Columbus Day, as the “film-within-a-film” in TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA chronicles some of gold-seeking Christopher Columbus’ exploits with the indigenous people he encountered in the Americas, circa 1492.

An official selection of the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA is directed by Icíar Bollaín from a screenplay by Paul Laverty (ROUTE IRISH), a frequent Ken Loach collaborator. The film stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Luis Tosar and Carlos Aduviri.

The deal was negotiated on Vitagraph’s behalf by European agent, Guy Amon of the Paris-based Leisure and Multimedia Consulting. LMC has been representing films in France since the early 1980s and works with Munich based TMG/CONCORDE FILM ‘s Dr. Herbert Kloiber and Markus Zimmer on film and television acquisitions for German speaking territories and sales in the French market of TMG's productions.

TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA sets up an intriguing dialogue about Spanish imperialism through incidents taking place some 500 years apart, while examining the personal belief systems of the members of a film crew headed by director Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his producer Costa (Luis Tosar) who arrive in Bolivia to make a revisionist film about the conquest of Latin America. Set in February and March of 2000 when real-life protests against the privatization of water rocked the nation, the film reflexively blurs the line between fiction and reality in what Variety calls "a powerful, richly layered indictment of the plight of Latin America's dispossessed." Carlos Aduviri is dynamic as a local who is cast as a 15^th century native in the film, but when the make-up and loin cloth come off, he sails into action protesting his community’s deprivation of water at the hands of the government. Meanwhile, Gael Garcia Bernal’s Idealist film director is as relentless as Werner Herzog infamously was in making FITZCARALDO, pushing ahead against all odds, ignoring the prevailing danger about to disrupt at any moment. Despite the devastation emerging around him, Sebastian seems unable to engage with any emotion over than a dogmatic desire to get his film done. And of course, the film also recalls themes in Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD and the film-within-a-film scenes are as brutal as any in APOCALYPTO.

Founded in 1999, the Los Angeles based Vitagraph Films, LLC is a self contained theatrical and home optical, television distribution entity. Vitagraph currently has the documentary AHEAD OF TIME: The Remarkable Life Story of Ruth Gruber (directed by Bob Richman) in theatres and will open TODAY’s SPECIAL on November 19^th. In 2009, Vitagraph Films distributed VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR, a documentary on the Italian haute couture fashion designer Valentino and the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX: The Story of the Red Army Faction, a docudrama based on the West German terrorist group that formed in the late 1960s in opposition to the prevailing post-WWII government. In 2005, Vitagraph Films released Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesias’ EL CRIMEN FERPECTO in the U.S.

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