La Fortaleza

Direction & Screenplay

Jorge Thielen Armand

Screenplay

Rodrigo Michelangeli

fiction

Netherlands, France, Venezuela, Colombia

2020

Language: Spanish

Subtitles: French/english

108 MIN

Festivals

Guadalajara International Film Festival - 2020

International Film Festival Rotterdam - 2020

Middle-aged Roque gets kicked out of his parents’ house into the burning streets of Caracas, where Venezuela’s economic crisis has flared up. Desperate to sober up, he returns to the abandoned lodge he built during happier, healthier days in the Amazon jungle. Dense vines, fever dreams and poisoned water close in on him, while good friends with bad habits whisper promises of gold. In his fragile state, Roque joins the indigenous locals in illegal goldmining, controlled by Colombian guerrillas. Faced with the darkness of the merciless land, he reaches deep inside himself to find a way out.

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Jorge Thielen Armand

Direction & Screenplay

Jorge Thielen Armand is a director and producer. In 2015, Jorge founded La Faena with Rodrigo Michelangeli, a production company dedicated to art-house films. His debut feature La Soledad (2016) premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and garnered over a dozen awards across a 50+ festival run, including the Miami Film Festival’s Audience Award and the French Critics’ Union Prize in Biarritz. The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and MUBI released the film theatrically in the UK. Jorge’s documentary Flor de la Mar (2015) won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, and was exhibited at many festivals around the world including Margaret Mead, Sarasota, and RIDM. He holds a Communication Studies BA from Concordia University, and is an alumnus of the Venice Biennale College, TIFF’s Writers Studio, and the Berlinale Talent Campus.

Rodrigo Michelangeli

Screenplay

Rodrigo Michelangeli is a Canadian-Venezuelan filmmaker based in Toronto. He is the co-writer, cinematographer and producer of the feature film La Soledad (Jorge Thielen Armand, 2016), which premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and helmed the same roles in his sophomore feature La Fortaleza (2020) which premiered in the Tiger Competition at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam. Rodrigo obtained a BFA in Film Production from Toronto’s York University. As a Cinematographer he has worked in several projects including the hybrid documentary Leftover, which won the 2014 Toronto Film Critics Association Award; Rodrigo also produced Mo Scarpelli's third feature film El Father Plays Himself (El Father Como Sí Mismo), which premiered in Visions du Réel 2020 and won its Jury Special Mention. He’s an alumni of RIDM's Talent Lab, Hot Docs Accelerators Program, Venice Biennale College, BAL and the Berlinale Talents Camera Studio. He founded La Faena Films with Jorge Thielen Armand.