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'Sometimes, night falls on the Costa del Sol' could be the line to summarise Lino Escalera's new thriller Hamburgo (Hamburg), which premieres this Friday. The film explores one of Malaga's darkest and most bitter faces - sex-trafficking and prostitution. The one that increasingly appears in the news, showing enslaved and deceived foreign girls, shootings and revenge.
In this thriller, there are beaches without sun loungers and a Costa without the Sol - an unconventional image of Malaga. Lino Escalera captured the attention at Malaga's cinema festival with his 2017 film No Sé Decir Adiós (I Don't Know How to Say Goodbye).
"The truth is that we shied away from those postcards of the Costa del Sol and focused on a nocturnal and much darker story that envelops this universe as the dirty corner of trafficking," Escalera says. The director added that they decided to not fall back on clichés and stereotypes, which would have meant choosing Malaga's La Palmilla neighbourhood as the location for the narrative. Instead, they picked the suburbs, creating an impersonal and cold city.
The film follows Germán - a loose cannon in rehabilitation from his addictions, who starts working as a driver in a brothel, where Alina - a young Romanian - works. She is trying to escape from a life she can't stand and expresses her desperation to get away by wearing a sweatshirt that reads 'Hamburg', as if a reminder that her destiny is elsewhere. And yet, she is not hoping to go that far. Instead, Alina wants to start working at a bingo establishment in the El Palo neighbourhood - a promise, which a client of hers has made.
The film stars a very familiar face - Jaime Lorente, who played in La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) and Élite, in the role of Germán. Alina is played by rising star Ioana Bugarin, who, like her character, is Romanian. As the director explains, she does an "impressive job in immersion by giving life to a prostitute in such a cruel reality". The villain is played by Roger Casamajor, whose raspy voice gives an impression of a local 'godfather'. Last but not least, Malaga-born Mona Martínez plays Germán's mother and stars in some of the best scenes.
"There's a lot of cinema all over the country, but the main focus is always on the metropolitan areas of Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga. Although it could have been set anywhere, the Costa del Sol was much more visually interesting," says Lino Escalera. To achieve the twilight and dirty atmosphere of the film, the director has opted for the 16mm negative camera and grain instead of a digital tool.
Hamburgo is a very, very, very personal look at a genre that has always fascinated me," says the filmmaker, who describes the story more as a "black" film with touches of drama and social cinema than a classic
The film "talks about our capacity to make other people's pain invisible and the need to empathise with the suffering of the person in front of us in this extremely cruel universe of women-trafficking". The completion of the project took eight years and it was first presented at the last Festival de Málaga. Escalera has worked tirelessly alongside his commitments to Élite and Alta mar (High Seas). For his next personal project, the title of which is still unknown, he is collaborating with Pablo Remón and Roberto Martín, regular partners in his work.
Jaime Lorente being in the main role already speaks of the success of the film, seeing as an actor of his rank plays mostly in big productions, while Hamburgo is an independent project. However, Escalera says that the actor didn't need convincing after he read the script. "I didn't expect us to work together, because I honestly hadn't thought of him, but he came along and did an impressive audition. He was aware that the character was someone to explore," says Escalera.
The result is a Germán with more intentions than will, more feelings than head, more nobility than evil. Lorente is supported by an excellent cast. Judging by Escalera's words and reactions, one can say that Mona Martínez is a soft spot for him. "Those scenes with Mona are the ones I like the most. Look, I'm talking about them and I get goosebumps, because that day of filming in Malaga was emotionally intense for me. I watched them both - Lorente and Martínez - perform those sequences and I ended up crying," the director says. "I have known Mona for many years and I had been trying to work with her for a long time. I was very clear that the role of the mother had to be hers and I gave it to her straight away," says Escalera.
Hamburg will premiere on Friday in Rincón de la Victoria, Torremolinos, Guadalmar and El Palo, although part of it was also shot in Toledo.
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