Distances

Olivia, Eloy, Guille and Anna travel to Berlin to pay a surprise visit to their friend friend Comas, who is turning 35. His welcome is not as they expected and during the weekend their friendship is put to the test as their contradictions emerge. Together they discover that time and distance can change everything.

Elena Trapé, director and writer, shows being one the strongest big names of the new Catalan cinema; with this film won the award to best directing and film at Málaga Spanish Film Festival in 2018. Highly melancholic and with a suitable indie look, the Spanish director, Elena Trapé, directs her second feature film Las Distancias; a film that can seem a priori a modest generational film about five friends that don’t understand each other anymore, but ends up being much more. Trapé makes a film that with minimal elements is able to talk about raw human conditions such as the disenchantment of adulthood (reminiscent of Jan Ole Gerster’s Oh Boy)  and the fragility of friendship (reminiscent of Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha). Trapé has two captivating elements in this film: first, an outstanding script that rambles between drama and thriller with unexpected moments of intensity and second, five actors who portray multifaceted characters that are instantly relatable. All in all, Las Distancias is full of honesty and sincere situations that the viewer will identify with and be moved by.

Daniel Sanchez Lopez

About the Director

After getting a degree in Art History by the UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), and having coursed a master in Cultural Management in 2000, Elena Trapé entered the ESCAC (Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya) determined to be a film director. In 2004 she graduated in Cinema Direction with the project I don’t want the night, her first short film, for which she received several awards. Pyjamas (2008), was her second short film (Gijon Film Festival, Valencia Cinema Jove festival, etc.) The downfall was her first TV film, shooted in summer 2008 and nominated on the best TV film category at the 2009 Gaudi’s awards. In 2010 her first feature film, Blog, was released at the San Sebastian International Film Festival (Zabaltegi Section) winning the Otra Mirada Award and nominated as Best Breakout Director at the CEC Prizes (Circle of Cinematographic Critics). She has recently directed the documentary Palabras, Mapas, Secretos y Otras cosas, about the cinema director Isabel Coixet, premiered in Malaga Film Festival 2015. Professionally she combines the development of her own fiction projects and the advertisment direction in different production companies. Distances is her second feature film project.