David Pantaleón directs this co-production with French company Noodles Production
Our Father (Rendir los padres) is the new film from Volcano Films, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife company founded by producer Sebastián Álvarez, which has been operating production services as its main line of business for more than 26 years.
The film sees Volcano co-producing once again with Jérôme Vidal’s company Noodles Production, with whom he shares a long and close relationship in cinematography. This has included highlights such as Evolution, the fantastic drama by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, winner of the Special Prize of the Jury and Best Cinematography at the 2015 San Sebastián International Film Festival, as well as international success through Wild Bunch.
Gran Canarian director David Pantaleón, one of the most awarded short filmmakers on the national scene, makes his feature film debut with this universal drama that tells a story of redemption between two brothers.
“We could define the film as a contemporary western reminiscent of a road movie”, explains Sebastián Álvarez.
Sons of Don Guillermo Cabrera, the most important goat farmer and cheese producer in the north of Fuerteventura, brothers Alejandro and Julio have been fighting with each other for years and also with their father.
When their father dies, his last wish is that his sons, in order to receive their inheritance, take the cattle to the far south of the island – a journey of over a hundred kilometres – and give it to Don Oswaldo, cattle farmer and cheese producer in the area and their father’s greatest antagonist.
With locations among the idyllic landscapes of Fuerteventura and Tenerife, one of the film’s most important sequences was shot in an old barn on a farm in Guaza, in the Tenerife district of Arona. Interior scenes were also filmed in another rural house in Arafo. In both cases the profile of the locations on Fuerteventura, which is where the story takes place, were respected.
Since it was founded in 1994, the main line of business for Volcano Films has been providing production services to national and international companies that are working in the Canary Islands, participating in projects like Exodus Gods and Kings by Ridley Scott. Since 2004, this activity has been developed through the Atlantic Volcano Films division.
This whole process and development as a service company has led Volcano to engage in close professional relationships with producers from around the world, as well as with an extensive team of technicians in Europe.
“Our experience has become the hallmark and essential grounding of the production company and has allowed us to access a flow of contacts and synergies that make it possible to set up our own projects”, commented Álvarez, for whom Our Father, their flagship project of the last decade, “defines Volcano’s editorial line of committed and universal, author-driven, peripheral cinema with a singular point of view”.
This project also connects with Volcano’s desire to produce Canarian talent, as they did previously with La Viajante (The Traveller), Miguel Mejías’ road movie; Puenting (Leap of Faith) by Bibiana Monje, and En la Próxima Estación (At the next Station) by Beatriz Rodríguez.
Álvarez, already in his fourth decade of making films on the Islands, has experienced first hand the birth of such well-known filmmakers as Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, in whose multiple award-winning and Oscar-nominated short film Esposados (Linked [1996]) he participated, as he did also with Intacto (Intact [2001]), his acclaimed début in feature length films.
“I have taken part in both the most humble local productions and in landing big Hollywood productions for the Islands”, he says. “And if there’s something constant that has not changed between back then and today it’s the feeling that we’re on the right track, but that we haven’t arrived yet”.
“The pandemic has highlighted the need to consume more audiovisual content than ever before, there are more and more productions to be made and a deluge is on the way. The Canary Islands, with their potential and tax incentives [with an extraordinary rebate of up to 50%] represent a unique opportunity”, he stresses.
The financing for Our Father was raised through Volcano’s own resources, 20% from the French side and with help from the Ministry of Culture through the ICAA, from Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, from Televisión Autonómica de Canarias and from the Canary Islands Government.
David Pantaleón’s Gran Canarian company Los de Lito Films was an associate producer for the project, and Tenerife companies Camera Rental Canarias (cameras) and The Boss Services (transport and supplies) were also involved in the production.
Currently undergoing editing processes, Our Father will be ready for release before the end of the year, and is expected to do well on the festival circuit.
