Special Screenings 2019

Love Me Not

Lluis Miñarro I 2019 I 83'

SYNOPSIS

This titillating, stylised film version of the Biblical story of John the Baptist and Salomé largely takes place in an army camp in the desert. But we are not in the era of the Roman Empire, but in the Iraq war. The desert is still the scene of desire and passion. Mix of political cinema and pop aesthetics, swinging between Oscar Wilde’s original play and the Muslim question.

BIOGRAPHY

Lluis Miñarro

LLUÍS MIÑARRO (Barcelona, 1949), head of Eddie Saeta, an audiovisual production company that has produced several titles that have received recognition at international festivals, has directed films such as Stella Cadente (2014) and the documentary Familystrip (2009). Miñarro was the first Spanish filmmaker to inaugurate FILMADRID, taking over from big names such as Pedro Costa (Cavalo Dinheiro, 2014), Aleksandr Sokurov (Francofonia, 2015), Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women, 2016) and Hong Sang-soo (The Day After, 2017).

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Critical text

Film of unlimited courage, a pilgrimage through a timeless territory not found in any map, Love Me Not is the second film by Lluís Miñarro after Stella Cadente (2014). It is another triumphant somersault, a study of human passions as hilarious as it is heart- breaking. It is also a fusion between the Biblical myth of Salomé and the review of Oscar Wilde located in an imaginary war, the film follows the odyssey of a young soldier destined in a maximum security prison in the middle of the desert. There she will have to face the task of monitoring a presumed terrorist of a prophetic nature, developing an intense obsession for him. Love Me Not proposes a pertinent political allegory and at the same time it expands its eccentric and vitalistic spirit, displaying a unique eroticism and comedy. If, as a producer, Miñarro changed the future of Spanish cinema, in his work as a filmmaker he continues to open up unheard paths. JAVIER H. ESTRADA

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