“You cannot escape who you are.” Spoken by a supporting character to the main character, Sergio (played by Mario Casas), it captures the central theme of Away [+lire aussi :
interview : Gerard Oms
fiche film]. This is the first feature film directed by Gerard Oms, who has coached actors such as Milena Smith, Bárbara Lennie and Casas himself, who won the Silver Biznaga for Best Male Performance at the Malaga Film Festival for this work, which was also highly rated by the critics' jury at the festival (read more). The film opens in Spanish cinemas this Friday 11 April, distributed by BTeam Pictures.

The Goya winner for Cross the Line [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : David Victori
fiche film] plays a thirty-something who, along with his brother and friends, attends an Espanyol football match in Utrecht. But there, in the middle of the stadium, he begins to feel unwell, an anxiety that will grow later that night. The next day, without much thought, he concocts a plan to avoid returning to his home country. He needs to escape from his past life, from who he is supposed to be and who he is meant to be. In a new and unwelcoming place, he must reinvent himself—be reborn, as symbolised by an image of him looking out at the world from the narrow window of his attic. This journey is far from easy, especially for an immigrant who doesn’t even speak the local language.

But Oms, who has poured his own personal experience into the film, ensures that we accompany Sergio in his ongoing struggle against the elements, toxic masculinity, the economic crisis of the first decade of this century and his most intimate emotions. He is a man silently battered by a society that continually demands that he conforms to a narrow and rigid way in order to fit into the heteronormative herd, represented by that testosterone-fuelled king of sports.

Sergio wants to play in a different league, but he doesn't dare. And so, in a place where nobody knows him, he is given a chance to be reborn. Yet the only support and understanding he finds comes from others like him: strangers in a distant land, continually struggling against the surrounding hostility and bad weather. Introverted and with an evasive gaze, he will also come to encounter a mirror that he is reluctant to face: Manel, another Catalan expatriate in the Netherlands, played without his usual charisma by David Verdaguer.

With a handheld camera and an abundance of sequence shots, Away not only evokes a documentary film, but above all the work of the Dardenne brothers—along with Spanish filmmakers such as Belén Funes, Álvaro Gago, and Neus Ballús (who also edited the film)—whom Oms deeply admires. The focus remains fixed on Sergio so that the viewer feels his same anxiety, distress and helplessness. And it works. So much so that when the moment of liberation finally comes, that slight discomfort that, until now, like Mario Casas’ character, has accompanied him throughout the film, vanishes from his chest.

Away is a production by Zabriskie Films and Revolver Amsterdam. Latido Films handles international sales.