Brody's Journal... CONTRACORRIENTE (Undertow): A Film By Javier Fuentes-León

By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) July 10 | The International Centrepiece film for the 28th  annual Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian film festival, which opened on Thursday, July 8th and runs till Sunday, July 18th, is the 2010 Sundance Film Festival's award winning CONTRACORRIENTE, or 'Undertow.'

The film enchants its audiences with unforgettable seascapes, and director Javier Fuentes-León eschews melodrama to present a transcendent romance in his remarkably assured feature debut.

FILM SYNOPSIS:

Miguel is a handsome, young and beloved fisherman in Cabo Blanco, a small fishing village in the Northern coast of Per, where the community has deep-rooted religious traditions.  Miguel is married to the beautiful Mariela, who is 7-months pregnant with their firstborn, but Miguel harbors a scandalous secret: He is having a love affair with another man, Santiago, a painter who is ostracized by the townsfolk for being agnostic and open about his sexuality.
When Santiago drowns accidentally in the ocean's strong undertow, he cannot pass peacefully to the other side.  He returns after his death to ask Miguel to look for his body and bury it according to the rituals of the town. Miguel must choose between sentencing Santiago to eternal torment or doing right by him and, in turn, revealing their relationship to Mariela and the entire village. Miguel is forced to deal with the consequences of his acts and to come to terms with who he really is, even if by doing so he stands the chance of losing the people he loves the most.

With sweeping images of the beautiful Peruvian coastline, CONTRACORRIENTE (Undertow) is the emotional intersection of contemporary sexuality, confronted by tradition and belief.  This sexy and redolent love story is the feature film debut of Javier Fuentes-León and stars Manolo Cardona (Beverly Hills Chihuahua), Cristian Mercado (Che) and Tatiana Astengo.  The film is produced by Javier Fuentes-León and Rodrigo Guerrero (Maria Full of Grace, Dog Eat Dog).

In an interview just prior to the Sundance premier of the film, director Fuentes-León  said:

"Contracorriente is my first feature film, a very personal project in which I explore themes that I believe are very relevant today. Having lived a long time away from Peru has allowed me to see with a new perspective certain aspects of the society in which I grew up, and to realize that the concept of “manhood” can sometimes be very distorted there (as it is in almost all of Latin America), and be replaced by poorer and more limited definitions that have less to do with honor and authenticity and more with masculinity and power. In a way, Contracorriente was born out of a personal quest to define what it is to be a true man and how manhood relates to sexual identity.

Many films have dealt with discrimination and homophobia, but usually represented as an external force, i.e. the discrimination of others against a person different to them. And although there is a good dose of that in Contracorriente, I firmly believe that most of the times our worst enemy is not necessarily the intolerance of others, but our own internal prejudices, and so I wanted to make that theme an important aspect of the film.

If we can overcome our own prejudices and accept ourselves despite the social conventions and the false expectations that we create for ourselves, then it will be much easier to deal with the discrimination of others. Because being at peace with ourselves is what gives us the strength to face any external obstacle and lets us act with honesty. Therefore, it was important to explore in Contracorriente the consequences of our dishonest behavior when trying to hide our true nature due to a vital urge to want to fit into the accepted parameters of the society in which we live in, and how our misguided actions sometimes end up affecting the people we love the most.

There is an alarming void of role models for the Latin American men and women who are struggling to define their sexual identity. My goal with Contracorriente is to tell a passionate and engrossing story that can connect with a wide audience, regardless of their sexual orientation, and that can help fill that void.

After all, Contracorriente is a love story, and as such is a story for everybody. True love is the best tool we have to free people from their fears and traps, and to make them confident and strong to accept with conviction who they really are, first to themselves, and then to the people around them… which is vital to foster a healthy and thriving society, because only a free person in the whole sense of the word can fully prosper, and then contribute their unique sensibility to the world around them."

Trailer Here: [ Wolfe Releasing ]