Pornomelancholia
TFI Suppport
TFI Network 2020
Logline
Lalo is a prolific online sex influencer from Oaxaca, Mexico who shares homemade erotic videos to his thousands of followers on social media. Filmmaker Manuel Abramovich uses Lalo’s pornography as a starting point to reflect on the complex relationship between intimacy and performance and the duality of our virtual and everyday lives in an ever-connected world.
Manuel Abramovich
Director
Manuel Abramovich (b. Buenos Aires, 1987) is a director and cinematographer. In 2019, he received the Silver Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale and the Best Short Film Award at BAFICI for his short BLUE BOY.
He has directed the films LA REINA (THE QUEEN, 2013), LAS LUCES (THE LIGHTS, 2014), SOLAR (2016), SOLDADO (SOLDIER, 2017), and AÑOS LUZ (LIGHT YEARS, 2017). His films have screened at prestigious festivals (Berlinale, Venice, MoMA, Tribeca, Cinéma du Réel, IDFA, San Sebastián, Film Society of Lincoln Center) and have received numerous awards.
His first short, LA REINA, received 50 awards worldwide, including the Condor Award for Best Argentinian Short Film in 2014. It was also nominated for the 2014 International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards and the Cinema Eye Honors.
SOLAR, his first feature film, premiered at the BAFICI 2016 competition in Argentina and received the ACCA Award from critics. It screened at MoMA, Karlovy Vary, and Documenta Madrid, among other festivals.
In 2017, Abramovich premiered two feature films: SOLDIER (Berlinale; winner of the FIPRESCI Award, Best Screenplay, and Best Sound at the Mar del Plata Festival) and AÑOS LUZ (Venice), a portrait of the filmmaker Lucrecia Martel during the filming of ZAMA.
He’s a former fellow of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Buenos Aires, 2013), the Artistic Research Center (Buenos Aires, 2015), the European Media Art Exchange Exchange (Halle, 2016), and Ikusmira Berriak (San Sebastián, 2018).
Abramovich is currently part of the prestigious grant Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD 2019, in Berlin, where he works on the development of two new projects.
Rachel Daisy Ellis
Producer
Rachel Daisy Ellis holds a Master's degree in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and previously worked in international development until 2009. In 2010, she co-founded DESVIA with director/writer Gabriel Mascaro. Rachel is a creative producer whose work focuses on all phases of production, from script & project development through post-production & distribution. Her work has a particular focus on international co-production. She has worked with directors such as Gabriel Mascaro, Benjamin Naishtat, Tatiana Huezo, Manuel Abramovich, and Sonia Kronlund. The films she has produced have all screened in competition at important festivals including Venice, Sundance, Berlin, Locarno, Toronto, San Sebastian & IDFA, winning over 100 awards and critical acclaim.
Gema Juarez Allen
Producer
Gema Juarez Allen is a documentary producer since 2003. She produced the work of Victor Kossakovsky, Alejo Hoijman, Felipe Guerrero, Fredrik Gertten, Viviane Blumenschein among others. Member of Eurodoc since 2010.