Trailer for Tisch students’ film released today

It’s about a man haunted by ghosts

A trailer for Olvidadizo, a film produced, written and directed by a group of NYU Tisch students starring Spanish actors Ana Torrent, Gal Soler, and Paula Bertolin was released today.

This incredible film is about a man, Miguel, who loses his daughter thus decides to leave his village, however the ghosts of his dead relatives haunt him with a plot to kill him.

Still by Konstantin Lyubimov

Development for Olvidadizo began in October 2015 when the director, Arturo Alanis, together with the Producer and Director of Photography, Konstantin Lyubimov, started working on the story and went through 14 drafts of the script within one month. 

Alanis said: “We first came up with the concept of an old man that is surrounded by the ghosts of his dead relatives. From there we imagined a scene in which the ghosts are eating breakfast and the naked old man walks past them in the kitchen as they stare, baffled. We developed the first draft from that initial scene and ended up scrapping the nudity. I personally was very influenced by the literary genre Magical Realism when writing the script with Konstantin.”

Laia, one of the main characters, and the sea. Photograph by Olga Ush

In order to make Olvidadizo, a top notch crew of nearly twenty NYU students from across the globe came together to shoot the film for ten days over January break in S’Agaro, Spain. The cast and crew worked hand in hand to shoot on boats, beaches, churches, windy walkways, rock staircases, streets, a funeral home and other challenging locations to bring the ambitious script to life. The amazing effort put in by the cast and crew is directly reflected in the movie trailer and soon we will be able to see it in the movie too.

The crew coming back after shooting at sea with Gal and Paula, who plays Sofia. Photograph by Olga Ush

Alanis said that the best part about working with an NYU crew was, “the passion and dedication they put into the film. Everyone in the crew is very talented without a doubt, but I think it was their determination to go the extra mile and pursue excellence in every aspect of the film that got us through the shoot and made Olvidadizo the film it is.”

There were several challenges that the cast and crew had to face. Alanis said, “the toughest challenge was putting our crew together, getting everyone including our actors to S’Agaro where the film was shot and then coordinating everyone day by day to make the day. Casting 12 actors in under a month was also a huge undertaking. Our casting director Nadia Zuñiga made a fantastic job finding the best actor for each role and getting them to set.”

Casting director and actress, Nada Zuñiga, plays Sol. Photo by Olga Ush

Currently, the film is being edited in New York and the students are collecting money for post-production. There is a high level of professionalism present in the trailer making it hard to believe that this was done by NYU students on a small budget of $50,000, over the course of ten days which is something we as NYU community and they, as the cast and crew should be very proud of.

The final cut is scheduled to be ready before summer, and all the rest of the post production will be done before December 2016.

Right now the students are collecting money in order to finish the post-production and if you’d like, would really appreciate you donating here.

Photograph by Olga Ush

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