Synopsys
Dali (31), a recent widow, travels to the beach to spend the Easter holidays with her son
Pepino (8) and her new boyfriend, Chávez (35). The family vacation is transformed when their
individual desires and ghosts from the past surface.
Dali, Pepe, and Chavez arrive to a little rundown but cozy beach hotel. The holiday routine
contains breakfast buffets, wave runner rides, karaoke parties and room service dinners.
Pepino has a hard time trying to bond with the rest of the kids in the hotel. In addition, he
competes and resists the relationship with Chavez, the newest member of the family. He
insists on calling his grandmother with whom he apparently has a very close relationship.
Dali maintains a silent dispute with her for her child’s attention and love. The mother-child
relationship is emerging as inconstant and stormy.
Chavez wants recognition, he is continually seeking to be a pater familias, but the past seems
to weigh heavily on both the child and the mother. Added to this, Chavez seems to have
financial complications, the holidays wobble.
The relations between them are strained to the point of making them go their separate ways.
Pepino wants to ride a wave runner but ends up on a horse and spending the day with a foreign
girl, also a hotel guest.
After a fight with Dali, Chavez decides to unleash his impulses and leaves the hotel with a
couple of wild teenagers he meets in the pool. Dali is left alone, wandering around the hotel
looking for them and not knowing well what to do.
Pepino finally conquers the group of children and ends officiating a sort of ceremony where
his extreme religiosity is outed. Chavez has a psychotropic experience that makes him come
clean first with himself and then with his partner. Dali takes the wave runner ride so coveted
by her son and enjoys a moment of emotional closeness with an american in his fifties in who
she feels recognized.
As the morning comes, the characters reunite. Hungover, guilty and transformed they await
what destiny holds for them.
Director’s note
SEMANA SANTA is the story of a new family that uses their first beach vacation together to
come closer. It introduces us to ordinary, middle class people driven by their aspirations to
attain things that are beyond them. Last, but not least, it is about how a family can only
survive if it is based on a realistic, and truthful foundation.
A few years ago, looking for a place to spend a holiday, I found an incredibly cheap deal at a
beach. I jumped on it.
To my surprise, when I arrived I found myself at the very resort where my family and I had gone
to spend what would be our last holiday together. A few months after that trip (twenty years
ago), my mother passed away changing my world forever.
Suddenly all the memories of that time, and of her, came back to me. The hallways, the
restaurants and the rooms felt “strangely familiar”. I was overcome by nostalgia, a feeling
that can be warm and cold at the same time.
It was here that I witnessed the scene that first brought me the idea to make this movie. I
saw a young woman sobbing inconsolably in front of a man in the pool area: melancholy in
paradise, misery in a place created specifically for recreation, for happiness. This contradiction
fascinated me.
That image took me back in time to when my mourning dad made a huge effort to take us on
vacations where we would enjoy ourselves.
I still have a collection of photos that are a testament to his efforts,. But neither a postcard
sunset nor any exclusive destination could relieve our hearts completely.
I’ve always been amazed by the world of memory. I find it very interesting that we are capable
of subtly altering our memories so that remembered experiences become more tolerable or
less confusing. We are our own invention, our own constantly evolving search for meaning.
This gap between who we are and who we would like to be was my point of departure in making
SEMANA SANTA. I think about the characters as contradictions: people who live lives that are
the opposite of what’s going on in their heads. People who laugh in order to avoid crying.
People who fill the inert, impersonal ambiance of
a hotel room with their most intimate emotions.
My film is a story about impossible relationships.
And about a vacation that emphasizes those
things that are simply not possible (as vacations
often do). It is a warm story about a family that
is typical, but somehow also unique, and still
very much “under construction.”
Cast
Technical Aspects
Directed by
Script
Produced by
Production Companies
Alejandra Márquez
Alejandra Márquez
Nicolás Celis, Sebastián Celis
Pimienta Films / Lado B Films /
Cinematográfica CR / Ítaca Films /
TV UNAM
Cinematography Santiago Sánchez
Art Director Jorge Barba
Sound Design Alejandro de Icaza
Post Producer Joakim Ziegler
Editor Yibrán Asaud Mujica
Cast Ana José Aldrete / Tenoch Huerta /
Esteban Ávila
Year2016
Original lenguaje Spanish
FormatDCP
Duration 85 minutes
Target audience Young adults from all genders
Alejandra Márquez Abella
Born in San luis Potosi, Mexico, raised in Mexico
City. She studied filmmaking at Centre d’Estudis
Cinematographics de Catalunya in Barcelona
where she lived for 6 years. She has written and
directed film and tv. Her short “5 Memories”
visited over 140 festivals and was awarded with
Best short and script at ZINEBI 2009, Best short at
Muestra de cine latinoamericano de Lleida 2010,
Jury’s special mentions in Morelia International
Film Festival (2009), Shorts shorts (2010), Albacete
Film Festival (2010) and in Lebu International
Film Festival in Chile (2010) among others. With
“Mal de tierra” she explored documentary film.
“Semana santa” is her first feature film. She is now working on next feature script.
FILMOGRAPHY
2006
2006-2010
2009
2010-2011
2011
2011
2013
2013
Writer, director. “Martirio” short, 16mm. CALABACITAZ TIERNAZ. 8
min. Aired in “Los protagonistas” (Tv show) during the World Cup
2006.
Director “Imaginantes”, Fundación Televisa. HD. 36 animated 1
minute shorts for Tv. Canal 22.
Writer, director “5 recuerdos” short, EMIGRE FILM, 12 min. 35mm.
Selected in KIMUAK 2010, for the Basque film archive. Selected in 140
international festivals winner of over 20 prices. Best short and script
in ZINEBI (Bilbao Film Festival), Best short in La Muestra de cine
latinoamericano de Lleida (2010), Jury’s special mentions in Morelia
International Film Festival (2009), Shorts shorts (2010), Albacete Film
Festival (2010) and in Lebu International Film Festival in Chile (2010),
among others.
Writer “Soy Tu Fan”, Tv series. CANANA. Canal Once. 2 seasons, 26
episodes. 2011 Writer, director “Mal de Tierra” documentary, EMIGRE
FILM, 76 min. HD.
Writer, director “Landsick”. Documentary. 76 min. DISTRITAL Festival.
Writer, director “Perra” short, EMIGRE FILM, 7 min. HD.
Writer “El asesinato de Villa: La conspiración”. Documentary. NAO
Films. Discovery Channel. HD
Writer, director “Semana Santa”. Feature film. Pimienta Films, LadoB
films, Ítaca Films, Terminal films. Con apoyo de EFICINE, Gabriel
Figueroa Film Fund y Tv Unam. 90 mins.
Contact
Esperanza 957-204,
Col. Narvarte,
Del. Benito Juárez,
C.P. 03020, México, D.F.
+52 55 5615 3925
[email protected]