Movies Features
The official competition at Cannes! It's like... incredible!
By DPA
May 14, 2008, 14:51 GMT

Buenos Aires - Martina Gusman is very excited about the Cannes debut of Argentinian director Pablo Trapero's film Leonera, in which she plays a woman who goes to jail while she is pregnant and tries to bring up her young child behind bars.

'It is the best possible premiere for any film, the best you can hope for. I mean, the official competition at Cannes! It's like the best festival, it's the best chance for the film,' Gusman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

When she talks of Leonera, she has many different angles in mind, as the star of the feature, its executive producer and the wife of its director. And each angle is slightly different.

Born to a family with close ties to the arts - her father is a theatre arts teacher, her mother is a costume designer also involved in Leonera - Gusman studied acting for years, but only made her acting debut in Trapero's fourth feature, Nacido y Criado.

Now, she stars in his fifth film and her second as an actress, Leonera, and is about to find herself under the limelight at Cannes, no less.

'According to Pablo, I am not at all aware of what this means (as an actress), given that I am so involved from the production side ... I am taking in the other stuff little by little,' she admitted. 'Perhaps for an actress who never went to a festival it's different, because everything is new.'

Gusman, 29, was working in advertising as a producer when she met Trapero, 36. He had made his directing debut a year earlier with the acclaimed Mundo Grua (1999), and she took charge of production in upcoming features El Bonaerense (2002), Familia Rodante (2004) and Nacido y Criado (2006), through their joint production company Matanza Cine.

Because of this collaboration, Gusman already has considerable experience in international film festivals. She has been to Cannes twice and twice to Venice, and that helps - 'you know where to go to eat, that basic stuff.'

But presenting a new film and being in the official competition at a major festival for the first time are keeping her on her toes.

'Festivals have a code. Knowing how to move within that code gives you a sense of security. But the rest, as regards the evaluation of the public, of the critics, or the buyers, or everything else about an international festival, it is always the same nervousness with a film, even if this is Pablo's fifth feature,' she explained.

And Leonera was particularly meaningful for Gusman, after what she called a process that 'transformed' her and the rest of the crew.

'It is a very intense film, a film that has a very intense theme, maternity and children locked up in jail,' she stressed. 'And to have that all end, come together in a premiere that is the official competition at Cannes, it's like ... incredible!'

Do they expect more, perhaps a prize, in the face of competition by the likes of giants like Steven Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood and Walter Salles (who also produced Leonera)? Predictably, Gusman says she is quite happy with the nomination.

'Then, of course, if there is a prize it would be incredible. I mean, even more incredible!' she laughed.

Gusman is amused by the thought of herself at a major festival as an actress, the star of a film in the official competition. And she admits that not thinking too much about it is perhaps 'also a defence mechanism.'

'It is so much that I would rather not think about it and just live day by day and see what happens to me,' she noted. 'I really enjoyed making the film, and I am really enjoying each stage I get through.'

Trapero and Gusman have indeed come a long way in their joint adventure. Their son, Mateo, was 40 days old when he got his Cannes accreditation in 2002. Now, at six, he is setting his own agenda and will not be joining mum and dad at the festival.

'He does not really want us to interrupt his activities because of our own,' Gusman said in an understanding tone.

The couple will probably miss him, but they have plenty to keep them happy in France.

'I am happy for the film, happy for Pablo as a director, happy for our production company, happy for myself as an actress. It is good from every possible angle,' Gusman said.