Malditos
Synopsis
A group of actors in Madrid are cast in a theatre show conceived as a dance marathon and as an unscripted competition. Every night, they fight a surreal game on stage: in more than eighty performances during three years, the group had to come to terms with nerve-wracking and absurd situations, physical battles, chasing fleeting illusions. The film directors asked them to record themselves off stage to investigate how their lives were affected by this performance. ‘Malditos’ follows their drifting between success, failure, fame, and self-realization, interweaving non-fiction interventions and staged representations, constantly blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality.
Schedule
Credits
Elena Goatelli
Elena Goatelli is an Italian director and scriptwriter. Goatelli began her filmmaking career in 2002 and directed her first documentary in 2012 called Endometriosis, la punta del iceberg. The documentary follows the lives of women who struggle with endometriosis. In 2013 along with her partner Angel Esteban, Goatelli directed the documentary One Minute for Conductors, revealing the challenges of the prestigious Antonio Pedrotti International Conducting Competition. In 2020 she won the Best Directing Award for her film Malditos (2020) at the Cinalfama Lisbon International Film Festival. Goatelli’s most recent film My Upside Down World (2022) is co-directed with Esteban, and features ice climbing champion Angelika Rainer.
Angel Esteban
Born in Madrid, Spain, in 1976. After image and directing studies, he started to work as cinematographer in various projects, including doc series, documentary films, theater and music performances. With his fellow artist, Elena Goatelli, he founded KOTTOMfilms in 2012. Since then, they never stopped exploring new narratives and subjects. They usually direct together, merging their personal visions of life into their films. Among their filmography: One Minute for Conductors, which premiered at IDFA in 2013. Their latest film, Malditos, won Best Directing Award at Cinalfama Award Festival in Lisbon, Portugal.
