J&A (EN)

J&A

Selection: 

Director: 

Mena Duarte

Country: 

  • Argentina

Format: 

Feature film

Type: 

Fiction

Film exhibited in Toulouse: 

El Ramal, 2013. Premiered in Toulouse 2014.

Foreseen cast: 

  • Agustina Muñoz,
  • Giselle Motta.

Synopsis: 

Jazmin and Agustina come back from their holyday in Brazil. They return to the flat where they live together but things are not easy, since something went wrong during the trip. They try to get back to the old life they used to share, the old habits. But it gets clear that whatever happened has changed something. Jazmin seems fragile and vulnerable. Agustina acts rather protective and consoling. Eventually, Jazmin needs more and more from Agustina, who is somehow troubled too because she feels responsable for her best friend but also increasingly reluctant to their shared intimacy. As she finds herself more interested in her life outside the flat (boyfriend, career), Jazmin goes deeper in her instability. She ends up sharing the truth about the episode in Brazil with her mother, an attractive woman with whom she has a conflictive relationship. She relates that they had met two suspicious guys and, after a rather odd sexual experience, she had killed one of them to protect themselves. After that, Jazmin efforts to keep Agustina close to her get more radical; she interferes with all other Agustina’s relationships and interests, as she is in a jealous behavior that gets out of hand. Finally, Agustina accepts to face her friend and tell her she is going away to live alone. They talk sitting on the bed. The cry and embrace each other until they fall asleep. Jazmin gets up and goes to the kitchen and take a knife to murder her friend.

Visual concept: 

I think this film as a window through wich we see private life events happen. The camera needs to be close, in the scene, not outside from it. As the story moves foward, shared and sacred spaces are transformed by the way each of the characters looks and feelings change. The outside, the city might become a relief for Agustina, but the most critical issues shall be adressed inside the flat, where every inch of it means something and has its own story, because that’s where this bond was born, and there is where it will probably end for ever.