Argentine director Luis Ortega will be presenting his final feature, “Kill the Jockey,” which premiered in the competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, to return to Lido with his next film, “Magnetic,” and will be presented on August 29th-31st during Venice Gap Funcing Market.
Nodding to films like John Cassavutes’ Minnie and Moskovitz and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk’s Love, Magnetic is Ortega’s vision of the protagonist, the “crazy love story,” finds the young liberal priest Ramun.
Eventually, Ramon is drawn into a dark world, where he is driven by a hard drug and finds himself shoved onto the brink of insanity. When Eva suddenly disappears without traces, the priest despairs and commits a series of shocking and violent crimes. However, as Ramon’s body develops magnetic power, the murderous rampage has the strange consequence of leaving him with a mysterious gift.
The priest is soon exiled himself to a remote mining town, where his power attracts a Christlike follower among the poor, superstitious and hopeless masses. There he commits an explosive act that could lead to his self-destruction, or his red.
“Magnetized” is based on the book “Magnetizado” by Carlos Busqued and is produced by Ortega and Esteban Perroud of El Despacho, a production company based in Buenos Aires.
Talking to Variety ahead of the Venice gap-washing market, Ortega explained his initial dislike for adapting Busqued’s book of true crime, based on a series of murders in Buenos Aires in the 1980s. He just made the Cannes drama “El Angel” where he was arrested. As he explained in the film “About the True Events and Serial Killers” – he passed when “magnetization” was offered to him after the 2018 release of that film.
But Ortega came right behind Kill the Jockey, an absurd comedy that saw him working in very different veins, and said he suddenly felt the magnetic pull of the story.
“It sounds surreal, but there are some poetry too,” he said. “This idea of being magnetized explains a lot. It can explain fate. It can explain synchronization. It can explain why you fall in love with certain people, why you have certain friends, why you do certain things.”
Ortega, a precocious talent in Buenos Aires, directed his first feature, the indie drama “Black Box,” at the age of 19. In recent years he has developed distinctive styles through films such as “El Angel,” which he respects at the Cannes Film Festival. The Golden Lion in Venice last year.
Described by the variety Guy Lodge as “alternately dark and duffy” and “the colorful Argentine oddity,” the film solidified Ortega’s status and was chosen to represent the Latin American country with its best international feature Oscar races.
With “magnetization,” the director said he is turning to a more “naturalistic” style. “It’s a little rough. It’s not that pretty. It’s more physical,” he said. “I’m always in the mood for Cassabate rather than ‘joking’ with the actors. This is a bit creepy with framing and style (elements). Here, I have a stronger feeling with passion. ”
Valentín Oliva, a singer and hip hop artist specialised in as WOS, stars as Ramón. “I’m just looking for the right face. The right person with the right energy,” he said. “I’m obsessed with the characters and the face. I’m being pulled apart by impulses.”
Despite the success of his previous films, the director said that “magnetization” clearly pushed him “in a different direction.”
“I like when I can’t touch the ground and there’s nothing really safe,” Ortega said. “I don’t like to go to places I’ve already visited, artistically, creatively – to places I’ve already visited. I like to feel career-wise with this kind of suicide (impulse). You’re not so safe, just repeating what you know, and repeating what you’ve done makes it even more exciting.
“I’ve never done this kind of crazy love story,” he added. “I don’t know what’s coming out of it. But I’m really fascinated by this idea.”
