Musa Camara (Mauritania, 28 years old) doesn’t have a job. He spends his days alone, wondering around the beautiful forests and chaotic residential areas that surround Cassà de la Selva, the village he lives in.
He tries to find pinecones and brushwood to gather which he later sells to small businesses in the area. With the tiny profit from these transactions, this young African man lives meagerly in a house shared with other migrants. Due to the risky nature of this work, Musa occasionally tries to find work in the residential areas.
Often though, he doesn’t know what to do and simply wanders around. He lives on the fringes of 21st century European society, but his job is the oldest in existence: the gathering of nature’s resources. With a slow tempo and few words, the camera follows Musa in his adventures around the daily life of a country that still suffers the ravaging consequences of a burst housing bubble. Musa fights to survive in a primitive, beautiful way.
UNDERGROWTH is a witness to the collision between a young African man and the Spanish society he unsuccessfully tries to integrate. Somehow, Musa seems to keep his spirits high: the rivers of his sadness ow underground.
I have always felt attracted to what’s different, to what breaks the uniformity and generates questions. And the place and time when I grew up, Vidreres, a small village close to Girona, in Catalonia, Spain in the late 80’s, early 90’s wasn’t diverse. It was around this time when people who looked nothing like me started arriving to that monochrome environment. They had darker skin and were devoted to professions I found strange. They weren’t well received by most people. They were the first Africans arriving in Catalonia and I liked them. Seeing these people with much darker skin than mine interested my childish and playful self.
Years later, with my energy devoted to the creation of cinema (or its attempt), I weighed the possibility of making a film about African immigration in rural Catalonia. I am talking about eight years ago, soon after I finished studying. While researching and exploring the possibility, I met many Africans and I realized with amazement that their reality was so different from my own, despite living just 200 meters from my grandmother’s house. It was as though I could travel to Mali by walking up the road. Getting to know the nine people that lived in a small apartment and ate with their hands, they told me they were returning from collecting pinecones in the forest. It fascinated me. But films aren’t made solely by an interest in another reality. After a few months, I abandoned the idea. I didn’t know how to proceed.
My life evolved and, having more knowledge about filmmaking, I started researching the topic again, simultaneously looking inside myself to find out what type of film I wanted to make. And slowly, while meeting a lot of people from the community, writing a sort of fiction script and making many screen tests of possible cast members, I started to find the tone of the film I wanted to make. But it wasn’t until I found Musa Camara that I knew that I had to start shooting as soon as possible. His look, his intelligence and his presence in front of the camera convinced me. He had to be the protagonist of the project. It was time to make the film.
Musa Camara
Sambia Diallo
Deborah Marín
Talula Watson
Rosa Torres
Francisco Sánchez
Josep Adroguer
Diarra Cissoko
Amadou Dembele
Bandiougou Diawara
Ahmed Yabara
Llorenç Soler
Arpad Pou
Assumpta Biel
Encarna Martínez
Aimar López
Concesa Marcos
Miquel Anicet
Bangaly Coulidaly
Felisia Casadevall
David Gutiérrez Camps (Vidreres, 1982) is a filmmaker based in Barcelona. He has directed two feature films: in 2013 he premiered The Juan Bushwick Diaries and this 2018 Undergrowth has been released. Both received a quite unanimous critical acclaim and have been shown in festivals like Seville, D’A Film festival Barcelona or New Horizons. He also directs commercials, music videos and documentaries, and is one of the filmmakers who contributes to the pedagogical program “cinema en curs”, teaching film to youngsters. He grew up in Vidreres (Girona, Spain) and studied Audiovisual Communication in Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and FAMU (Prague, Czech Republic). He also attended the New School in New York City in 2009.
Director of Photography: Aïda Torrent
Executive Production: John Bartleby, Albert Baquero
Production manager: John Bartleby
Script and editing: David Gutiérrez Camps
Music: Pau Guillamet
Poster design: Alejo Levis
Sound Design: Gabriel Hurtado, Idoia Iñárritu
Color correction: Albert Sellés
Image postproduction: Joaquín Jordán
Sound recording: Toni Grabulosa
Sound editing: Toni Grabulosa
Foley artists: Gabriel Hurtado, Idoia Iñárritu
Sound mixing: Pablo Gregorio
Production asistants: Enriqueta Camps, Pedro Cherino, Arieh Truzman
Camera assistant: Arpad Pou
COMMERCIAL RELEASE IN SPAIN IN OCTOBER 5th!
Screenings in MADRID
Cine Estudio, Círculo de Bellas Artes:
5/10/18, 22:00
6/10/18, 19:00
Screenings in BARCELONA
Zumzeig:
4/10/18, 19:00
7/10/18, 21:30
Cines Girona:
10/10/18, 20:00
17/10/18, 20:00
24/10/18, 20:00
31/10/18, 20:00
13/11/18, 22:00
Screenings in GIRONA
Temporada Alta, Cines Truffaut
23/10/18, 20:30
Cassà de la Selva, Saló recreatiu
28/10/18, 18:00
OTHER CITIES
Cinespaña. Festival de Cinema Espagnol de Toulouse
8/10/18, 19:40
10/10/18, 14:00
12/10/18, 16:00
Muestra de cine Iberoamericano de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
22/19/18, 20:30
SCREENINGS IN THE PAST:
7/11/2017. Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla.
Nervión Plaza, Sevilla, 20:30.
8/11/2017. Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla.
Nervión Plaza, Sevilla, 22:00.
9/11/2017. Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla.
Nervión Plaza, Sevilla, 17:00.
16/4/2018. “En la frontera”.
Sala Berlanga, Madrid. 19:00
18/4/2018. “En la frontera”.
Sala Berlanga, Madrid. 21:00
20/4/2018. “En la frontera”.
Sala Berlanga, Madrid. 21:00
29/4/2018. Festival de Cine Africano.
Tarifa, 21:15.
2/5/2018. D’A Film Festival Barcelona.
Teatro del CCCB, Barcelona. 18:00.
4/5/2018. Festival de Cine Africano.
Tarifa, 17:30.
18/5/2018
Cinefòrum Vidreres, 21:30.
18/5/2018
Nit dels museus, Santa Margarida i els Monjos: 20:30.
27/7/2018
New Horizons International Film Festival
Knh 6, Wroclaw (Poland). 19:00.
28/7/2018
New Horizons International Film Festival
Dcf, Wroclaw (Poland). 19:00.
28/9/18
Madrid, Cine estudio CBA, 17:00
29/9/18
Madrid, Cine estudio CBA, 21:30
30/9/18
Madrid, Cine estudio CBA, 20:00
OTHER LINKS:
QUOTES:
“Una obra pura y hermosa”, La Vanguardia
“La exposición de las condiciones laborales de los inmigrantes es reveladora”, El Mundo.
“Un bello poema visual”, Què fem?
“El filme tiene un raro efecto hipnótico que te atrae por su simplicidad” Javier Martín Corral, Redrum.
“Respira vida y verdad en cada fotograma” La Vanguardia
“Es el grito de denuncia de Gutiérrez Camps para hablar de una situación en la Europa actual”, La Razón.
“Un buen ejemplo de obra que cuestiona los límites estéticos o argumentales del documental, sirviéndose de ellos para crear un film muy interesante”, Cine Maldito.
sotaboscfilm@camillezonca.com
info@johnbartleby.com
T. 00 34 93 320 96 63
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