Leading Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba (Chico & Rita; They Shot the Piano Player; The Artist and the Model) tackles the acclaimed memoir by Héctor Abad Faciolince (Forgotten We’ll Be) about his relationship with his father, Colombian medical practitioner, professor and human rights activist Héctor Abad Gómez, played by the immensely sympathetic Spanish actor Javier Cámara (Talk to Her; Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed).
Gomez’s insistence on what he identifies as the five basic human rights (air; water; food; shelter and affection) makes him a popular figure on the streets of Medellín, but less so with the right wing authorities who set out to harass him and suppress his influence at every turn. His son’s admiration is only tempered by the personal cost the activist must pay for his convictions.
This is a wonderfully sympathetic, deeply felt and tenderly funny family drama with a novelistic attention to details and episodes – a little like Alfonso Cuáron’s Roma, about growing up in a similar era in Mexico City. Cámara thoroughly inhabits the figure of Gómez: unselfconsciously inspiring and lovable.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Trueba excels at those well-meaning, exquisitely realized, vividly acted human dramas.
Carlos Aguilar, The Wrap
Book Tickets
Sunday January 07, 8:15 pm, VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre Book Now
