TFL Films & Series
El Father Plays Himself
A father and his son return to the Amazon jungle to shoot a deeply personal film. Fiction and reality clash as the father plays himself.
Main info
Title: El Father Plays Himself
Year: 2020
Directed by: Mo Scarpelli
Premiere & awards: Visions du Réel 2020, International Feature Film Competition, Special Mention
Produced by: Ardimages UK – United Kingdom
In co-production with: La Faena Films – Canada, Rake Films – Italy, Channel 6 Media – Canada, Tres Cinematografía – Venezuela
Countries: United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Venezuela
A young film director returns to Venezuela, inspired to make a film based on his father’s life in the Amazon jungle. He casts his father to play himself. What starts as an act of love and ambition spirals into a process which confronts the father’s struggles with addiction and his life devoid of his son. EL FATHER PLAYS himself holds a steady lens to the ways the act of cinema unearths, binds, heals and destroys.
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