The Soul of Flies

Colour, HD CAM
Spain, 2011, 80 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

Brothers Nero and Miguel are unaware of each other’s existence; they didn’t even know their father, until he wrote them a letter inviting them to his own funeral. Thus the siblings meet for the very first time at a train station, only to discover that no trains have run through here for years. So they begin their wanderings through the Castillian Meseta, a scorched landscape instilled forever with their father’s stories. As they head for the funeral, their true journey is one that takes them towards each other, drawn from nothing into a strange imaginary world of magical dimensions, a surge of memories, stories and dreams, united by solitude. Through his innovative visual poetry full of absurdity, humour and melancholy, Cenzual Burley proves that poetry is not created in poetic images, but in the way we look at the world. He managed to film his low budget debut with only one camera and a crew of seven. The director’s creed: "If you haven’t got any money, make a film that doesn’t require any. Stories don’t cost anything, so long as you surround yourself with like-minded people who share your enthusiasm.”

About the director

Jonathan Cenzual Burley (b. 1980, Salamanca, Spain) studied drawing from the age of eleven and, age 12, he was taking photographs on a Zenith 12XL. He moved to England in 1997, where he did film projections for various bands during their live concerts. In Argentina he collaborated on films with the production company Black Boot Beach, and in Colombia and Panama he worked as a cameraman and documentarist. He was artistic director for the British bands Last Days of Lorca and Monsters Build Mean Robots. The Soul of Flies is his first feature film.