PRESS BOOK

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

SYNOPSIS
A story in two cities: Bilbao and Havana. Two men, two women and a song which explains many things. Words, music and some temporary feelings. An island and two ages: Salvador, an old architect whose time is coming to an end. Valeria, his daughter in her twenties, lives the present to the full along with her friend Nadia and does not want to know anything from him. Ral and Leonor are facing the end of their marriage. Ral, in his forties, has just known Valeria and can not stop thinking about her. It deals with love and its changeable appearences.

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DIRECTORs NOTEBOOK Ernesto del Ro

VALERIA DESCALZA is a feature where its main characters are asking themselves- nearly always without words- about what they are and what they would really like to be, being aware very deep down of the incompatibility of their desires of reality to come true and of the difficulty of their questions to be answered. The undertaken actions are handled by a subtle web of deep causes, unavoidable effects, eventful facts and decisive coincidences. These actions, and the way every character carries them out, make them to be submitted to a diversity of moods, going from despair to an always fleeting exaltation. Besides, the mentioned plot treatment tries to stand out the distinct approach to life and its realities (immediate and not so immediate) that four characters who might be adjoined to three different generations have. A game which allows to contemplate, by means of a staging which strengthens the metaphorical possibilities of the told story, two men (Salvador-Ral) and two women (Leonor-Valeria) as the same man and the same woman within two different times, which leads us to consider VALERIA DESCALZA as a kind of fable about the sense of love and pleasure in relation with the time which passes to each of us.

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

At the same time, the relationships these characters are knotting are useful to demonstrate to the spectator, on a both passionate and non-dramatical way, the illusion of the feelings, their fragility, roughness and the profound inadequacy, in the different states of consciousness of each of them, between the way they are living them and the circumstances where they are pushed into going ahead. A fictional construction based, as abovementioned described, on externalizing the personal relationships and internalizing spaces and places. Besides, as in life itself happens, the story told in VALERIA DESCALZA does not only exclude, but quite the opposite, some humour situations which contribute, on their way, to stand a screenplay which goes further the traditional genre conventions. A kind of dramatic unexpected event where the interior shots and locations, the light and colour, are no longer simple elements, more or less instrumental, to become genuine main characters which help to understand the development of the action and the emotional twists and turns being able, at the same time, of providing a sense which is going to succeed in surprising the spectator in quite a lot of moments.

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

Along with the light and colour there is a third element in VALERIA DESCALZA which is helpful to recreate the emotional plot of its main characters: the music. A song titled, Descalza, becomes an evident leit-motiv to the plot. The lyrics have been written by one of the characters, a woman on her forties, whose main hobby is writing love songs. The lyrics of these songs are good for building in the fiction vibrant metaphors about the impetuous and stormy relationships among the men and women of whatever age, class and place, all of them puzzled witnesses (in spite of themselves) of the contemporary of ourselves. Those men and women feel sometimes, as any of us, the urgent need of explaining themselves the present, revealing previously the dark sides and the past contradictions. Valeria and Ral, two of the main characters, are going to feel in all its harshness that need and they shall be finishing by realizing, with no possible turning back, the dangers imprisoned in love and its changeable appearences.

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

CAST & CREW

Title VALERIA DESCALZA / 101min. / color / 2011 Cast AITOR MAZO MAIKEN BEITIA GABRIELA GRIFFITH RUBN BREA GISELDA CALERO Director ERNESTO DEL RO Screenplay LUIS EGUIRAUN XENIA RIVERY Executive Producers MIKEL ARANBURUZABALA CAMILO VIVES Associated Producers BENITO DEL RO IAKI GOIKOETXETA Director of Photography JON D. DOMNGUEZ Editor JUAN ORTUOSTE Art Director MIKEL ARANBURUZABALA Music LVARO SEGOVIA Songs Descalza, Qu viva el amor, Lyrics and music CECILIA COFIO A co-production of SENDEJA FILMS / ICAIC with the participation of ETB and collaboration of the BASQUE GOVERNMENT Culture Department and IBERMEDIA

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

CAST
RAL Aitor Mazo VALERIA Gabriela Griffith

Maiken Beitia LEONOR

Rubn Brea SALVADOR

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

AITOR MAZO Bilbao 1961

Filmography:
Valeria descalza (2011) Piratas (2011) TV Vuelo IL8714 (2010) TV Acusados (2010) TV La mquina de pintar nubes (2009) 7 minutos (2009) 23F Historia de una traicin (2009) TV La familia Mata (2008) TV El comisario (2000-2007) TV Crculo rojo (2007) TV Cuntame (2007) TV Pelculas para no dormir: adivina quien soy (2006) TV Motivos personales (2005) TV Los nombres de Alicia (2005) Hospital Central (2004) TV Manolito gafotas (2004) TV El furgn (2003) Una nueva vida (2003) TV Cosa de brujas (2003) Policas, En el corazn de la calle (2002) TV El robo ms grande jams contado (2002) Lisstrata (2002) A mi madre le gustan las mujeres (2002) El deseo de ser piel roja (2002) Clara (2002) TV Visionarios (2001) Tuno negro (2001) La voz de su amo (2001) Pap (2001) TV La comunidad (2000) Carretera y manta (2000) Inferno (1999) Petra Delicado (1999) TV Querido maestro (1998) TV Compaeros (1998) TV Airbag (1997)
*To see more watch on IMDb filmography

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MAIKEN BEITIA Pamplona 1963

Filmography:
Valeria descalza (2011) No soy como t (2010) TV Karabudjan (2010) TV Euskolegas (2009) TV Mi gemela es hija nica (2008) TV Lex (2008) TV Nevando voy (2008) La que se avecina (2008) TV Road Spain (2008) Cuenta atrs (2007) TV Dos rivales casi iguales (2007) Amar en tiempos revueltos (2006) TV Obaba (2005) Hospital Central (2005) TV Javier ya no vive solo (2003) TV Policas, en el corazn de la calle (2002) TV La noche del escorpin (2002) TV Periodistas (2001) TV Silencio roto ((2001) Mi hijo Arturo (2001) Ione sube al cielo (1999) Entre todas las mujeres (1998) Cuestin de suerte (1996) Goenkale (1994) TV El annimovaya papeln! (1990)

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

GABRIELA GRIFFITH La Habana (Cuba) 1990

Filmography:
Valeria descalza (2011) Afinidades (2010)

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

RUBN BREA Pinar del Ro (Cuba) 1953

Filmography:
Valeria descalza (2011) Personal belongings (2006) La vida en rosa? (2004) Habanece (2003) Roble de olor (2002) Lista de espera (2000) Aire fro (1999) Mamb (1998) Amor vertical (1997) Los hombres que la amaron (1997) TV Sabor latino (1996) Guantanamera (1995) Cabinda (1987) TV

PRESS BOOK / BAREFOOT VALERIA www.valeriadescalza.com

ERNESTO DEL RO Bilbao 1954

Filmography:
Valeria descalza (2011) Hotel y domicilio (1995) No me compliques la vida (1991) El amor de ahora (1987) El ojo de la tormenta (1983) cortometraje Octubre, 12 (1982) cortometraje

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CONTACT
PRESS CONTACT SENDEJA FILMS C/ Cosme Echevarrieta 11, 3 48009 Bilbao, Spain Tel: +34 94 446 78 26 Fax: +34 94 413 02 00 sendejafilms@sarenet.es www.sendejafilms.com