A feature film produced in El Salvador at the Oscars®

Thrilled to announce that the feature film VÉRTICES, the debut by the young Salvadoran director Arturo López Rodas and distributed by the Spanish production company Mailuki Films, has been officially selected to represent El Salvador at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Best International Feature Film category.

This historic decision opens up a new chapter of opportunities for Central America’s finest generation of artists and places ‘VÉRTICES’ in the selection process for the 99th Academy Awards®.

The decision was announced on Friday 18 September by CINESAL, following a formal process of inviting entries and assessing national film productions for submission to the Oscars® Awards

VÉRTICES has just enjoyed success in the US, winning the Best Film Award at the Cobb International Film Festival.

This September, Arturo López Rodas is travelling to the US once again to take part in the prestigious AFI LATINO/AFI Latin American Film Festival. This event showcases the best of Latin American cinema every year.

SYNOPSIS:

Good old Andrés passed away. Ricardo, José and Francisco meet at his funeral, after not seeing each other in almost thirty years. They used to be close, but life pulled them apart. The three of them agree to get a cup of coffee right afterwards and catch up, for old time’s sake. Soon enough, they start to behave like they were never estranged, visiting old meeting places while discussing life’s trivialities and the inevitability of death.

Arturo López Rodas about VERTICES:

Close friends usually grow apart over time. Life happens and treats people differently. The first draft of my script was about a group of old friends reuniting for someone’s birthday. I had just seen Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice” and I was inspired to make a story with a similar setting.
I sent my script to my good friend and filmmaker Francisco Menendez. I wanted his always wise feedback and, also, I wanted to shoot at the place where he grew up. His mom had passed a few months back and he was looking to turn the big old house into a true film school, which we don’t have in El Salvador.
“Of course”, he said. “I’ll read it on the weekend”. I don’t know if he ever read it. He had a heart attack a couple of days later.
I changed my script. Now it took place after a funeral.
Vertices is a story about death and the need to understand and assimilate everything that it entails. It’s about my friends, but it’s also about my father and my friends’ parents, who are no longer with us. It’s a little bit about the people who leave and a little more about the people who stay. It is a reflective exercise in which the actors integrated their life experiences and developed their characters, enriching the plot. I am eternally grateful to be able to share something so personal.

We at Mailuki Films would like to congratulate the entire team behind this masterpiece of Spanish-American cinema and wish them all the best in the run-up to the Oscars®