El Portal, the posthumous film by Selva Alemán and Héctor Bidonde, is released

He Argentine cinema Psychological thrillers rarely find a privileged place in their commercial circuit, but this year the exception is titled: The Portal. The film, directed and starring Mariano Argentobursts onto the local billboard wrapped in praise, a solid international projection and an epic filming marked by sacrifice and passion. A film that has already won awards and recognizes in its core the final farewell of two great actors: Selva Alemán and Héctor Bidonde.

In the heart of the Argentinathe plot of The Portal -from November 6 only in theaters- takes place almost entirely indoors, where the corridors become labyrinths and glances exchange between temptations and guilt. Set in three different eras of a country plagued by crisis and social decay, the story explores how the owner of a building and its administrators can manipulate and condition the lives of the families under their roof, pushing them to desperation. “When the bar is too high, sometimes evil is the only option”: the premise expands to cause chills.

“We live in fear. And why do we live in fear?” This is how Argento formulates it, and responds with the crudeness of someone who meditated on the pulse of his work: “Because in globalization there are five perverts who threaten you with a new COVID, who threaten you with some other pandemic, who threaten you with the Third War that is going to be nuclear. So, you don’t want to have children. And with the ones I have? It’s terrible. So what does that do? Let fear rule you. And in the face of fear, it conditions you. So, the movie has a little bit of that. Conditioning according to where I am, what I want, what I’m looking for, what I can’t get. “My life is going away, I’m old, I’m big.”

There is no respite in his gaze on his own work: “Egoism and narcissism run through the entire film. The film is terrible. I think we did something good with Juan. It is well built. With great humility. I think it’s something different from the ordinary. He leaves, but violently he leaves. In other words, he goes to the shoulder, crosses it, passes the wire and goes to the next field. It’s a movie that I don’t see anything like this.”

“This is something else, that is why it is defined as psychological horror, perverse dystopian. A dystopian society, a society that is heading towards self-destruction. Perverse, the perversity that is here… It seems to me that people have to go see it.” The different terrifies, but also fascinates; sometimes, in the face of fear, the only thing left to do is face it.

This singularity is perceived in the tone, the framing, the dialogue and even in the casting, where the actors go through – in the director’s own words – a metamorphosis that transcends the plane of reality to give life to disturbing characters, children of a society. dystopian and headed towards self-destruction.

Behind this disturbing proposal also hides the moving goodbye of Selva Alemán and Héctor Bidondewho offer their latest works on the big screen. For Argento, emotion transcends words: “Selva was a genius, she was loving, sweet, affectionate, a good woman. And besides, how committed she was to the film”he recalled. The relationship between the two was born in Malparida (2010), a soap opera in which Alemán was “the star” and Argento took his first steps on television. “We loved each other, we wrote to each other from time to time. And something that I value a lot is that she had great respect for my career. Already in Malparida He told me: ‘Hey… You’re good, cool, huh.’ Because it was my first strong appearance on TV. She had done things, but… And she was the star. And when I called her, she didn’t even hesitate. Told me: ‘I want to do it, Mariano’. I read him the script and he told me: ‘How perverse is this! I want to do it!’. And then, when we were filming it, he told me: ‘Let’s add things.’ I mean, she was crazy. Then it was very sad when what happened happened.”

The film took with it not only Alemán’s presence, but also the affection and respect between teacher and student that defined Argento’s relationship with Hector Bidonde: “The same thing happens to me with Cacho, he was my teacher, he was my acting teacher. So, it was nice to see the student directing the teacher and that he allowed himself to be directed and trusted me. The movie was very nice in that sense”. Impossible not to shudder: how many times do the paths of art return to the masters in the last act, to receive, humble, the voice of the student turned director?

But not everything focuses on them, of course, they are also part of the game interpreters of the stature of Manuel Vicente, Mario Alarcón, Marina Glezer, Ingrid Grudke and Christian Sancho, who give life to this dark microcosm of desires, fears and traps.

Regarding his teammates, Argento did not spare praise: “The challenge of Ingrid, of Christian. Ale Gibeli or Daiana Vitale, a new figure that is starting, who is very good. Mumu, my son, who plays the baby, who is very good. With Ingrid and with Christian, the good thing is when you abstract from the person and see that there is a composition. And that’s the nice thing, because you start seeing the real-life character, and suddenly you stop seeing him and you start seeing the fictional character, which is the nice part.”

Regarding Sancho, he remarked: “I had chosen Sancho beforehand because it seems to me that he has black eyes with a very powerful look. He suited me for the role. He is a cute kid, with a very good physique, with a great bearing. I asked him not to blink an inch. I told him: ‘The eyes are glass’. But like that, eh? And I think he did the scene seven times without blinking. He got used to it, he trained him. And then, how he speaks slowly, very seductive… because evil presents itself to you. “seducing you”. Thus, each gesture, each silence, ended up adding to the visual translation of the danger and temptation that lurk in the story.

Ingrid’s choice was also thorough and decisive: “German, six feet tall, blue eyes, who speaks German. I had directed it. You see it in the film and it is impeccable. I think it was a very good choice”. For Argento, acting art lies both in appearance and in the ability to transcend it. This transformation process, where “you stop seeing the real-life character and start seeing fiction,” is the team’s greatest achievement.

But getting here was not easy. Argento and his partner Juan Pablo Millano embarked on a three-year journeyfaced with the absence of official financing: “A very arduous job, with a lot of sacrifice, and I say this emphatically, because it was very sacrificed. Obtaining foreign currency to be able to do it, because it was outside the INCAA. The fact of pre-production, which was long and difficult, the location search, the selection of the actors. And then the filming itself, which was traumatic, difficult: six weeks, some at night, in a building where there comes a time when you bother people.”

The pressure of filming in real locations – without time to go back -, added to hellish days against the clock and the impossibility of repeating scenes, made the fatigue weigh beyond the script: “You finished a location and you couldn’t return to that location. It’s not a studio that you rent for three more months. No, it has a beginning and an end. So, it was all against the clock. And I was on both sides. Collaborating with Juan, Juan collaborating with me, trying to help me in the work, but at the same time, I was forced, because I was directing actors, I was in production. It was difficult. It was very difficult. I would tell you that I think it is going to be the most difficult film of my life. Literally, it is already decreed with Juan. “This is the most difficult film we are going to make in our lives.”.

The battle didn’t end when the cameras went off. The script took a year of work and nine months of corrections.with days of obsession and doubts. The partner was key, as was the contribution of Argento’s son, the youngest script doctor on the set: “There he told us: ‘Throw this scene away’. And we: ‘No, please, let’s not throw it away, this scene beats us…’. ‘No, throw it away, throw it away, throw it away, it’s no use’. So well, I think it gave a halo to the film because it closes the film. It’s small, it doesn’t tire you.”.

To be director, screenwriter and leading actor (in addition to being a producer) it was a limit experience. “It is inexplicable the number of variants that there are in the head of a guy who is producing, directing, writing, doing many things, because apart from that it was a strong, solid cast of figures, some very first, others second. In other words, a cast of people who work in cinema, known, who trusted you”. The budget was private, the pressure absolute. Every take had to be perfect or there would be no coming back.

Was it worth it? For The Portal The answer seems clear: The international tour is already a fact and a consecration. In the New York International Film Awards (NYIFA)the work won three crucial awards: Best Actor, Best Direction and Best Screenplay. The recognition of Best Direction for Mariano Argento and Best Film at the Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre He consecrated Argentine talent in front of his audience. The film was also selected in highly prestigious events, such as the Malvinas International Film Festivalhe Montreal Independent Film Festival (Canada) and the 39th Ibero-American Film Festival of Trieste (Italy).

The projection does not end there: The Portal was crowned Best Horror Film at the RED Movie Awards (France)consolidating the position of Argentine horror and suspense among the genres with the greatest international impact. “With great expectations, because the truth is that this is a three-year-old baby”expressed Argento, while the festivals confirm the global success of the film.

What began as a modest project, amassed in adversity, thus becomes the symbol of a new wave: Argentine narrative creativity and acting pulse conquer festivals, cross borders and restore hope to a cinema that knows how to play its entire game for its stories. In each shot, not only the work of a team is recorded, but also the deep imprint of those who said goodbye dedicated to art.