Project Title: AS DEFENSAS
Title in English: THE DEFENSES
Director: LUCÍA ESTÉVEZ
Producer NATI JUNCAL
Screenwriter: LUCÍA ESTÉVEZ
Production Company: CÓSMICA PRODUCIÓNS
Run-time (estimate): 90 MINUTES
Genre: DRAMA – COMING OF AGE
Budget: 2.000.000€
Synopsis:
Vigo, 1980. Maria (17) spends her hours in the student struggles and in the demonstrations of the “Pases pro bus”. Under the shadow of an absent father, she lives with her mother and siblings. Maria’s routine changes when she starts working in the office of the car shop where her father worked until now. A hostile space that changes when he discovers a hole in one of the walls of the workshop. Maria begins to sneak into the hole, where she observes a group of dancers. Their focus is on Cristina. What Maria doesn’t know is that she is also being watched from the other side.
Current Status of the Project:
Script Version 5
Needs/Objectives:
- Finding balance in the script between the 2nd and the 3th act
- Make clear the emotional journey of the protagonist
- The work on stage of the body and dance. It’s not just dance scenes. The movement I want to portray it throughout the film. How the characters breathe and how they move. How they occupy spaces (how women do it and how men do it)
Director
Lucia Estévez is a Vigo director interested in acting work and portraiture of dance on stage. She is currently writing her film “As Defensas”, produced by Cosmic Produce (Rueda Program of the Film Academy 2023, Torino Film Lab 2022, Development Program I P Incuba of the Galician Audiovisual Cluster 2022). Further, she is also working on the post-production of her new short film “Unha Redacamiento sobre o ver” and on the production of a documentary short film with the Vigo dancer Amparo Martinez. In 2022 she directed 10 chapters of the series for TVE “The Argonauts and the Gold Coin” (PortoCabo). In 2021 she won the Mestre Mateo Award for Best Web Series from Xan, created together with Miguel Canalejo.
Note of Intent:
The Defenses is a coming of age located in 1980 in Vigo. It portrays the story of a winter in the life of Mary, a teenager who has made lying her strongest defense. Cristina’s appearance in her life completely breaks her schemes. The little, if not non-existent, representation of LGTBIQ characters in Galician cinema is a very important engine in the process of this film. The Vigo move is known for what they want us to know it.This film focuses on the female characters who occupied, as they were allowed to, the spaces considered to be men’s.