IFC Films released a new trailer for Official Competition, an upcoming dramedy about legacy, art, and the pains of filmmaking. Starring Latinx legends Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, and Oscar Martínez, the film will open in theaters this June after making a splash in international film festivals.
The trailer follows Lola (Cruz), a revolutionary filmmaker, getting hired by a billionaire entrepreneur to make a new movie. Intending to leave some sort of legacy behind, the billionaire asks Lola to create a unique picture involving only the best actors. To fulfill the task, Lola recruits Hollywood darling Félix Rivero (Banderas) and theatrical thespian Iván Torres (Martínez), two actors who hate each other’s guts. As the trailer underlines, that’s one of the reasons why Lola hires two stars from very different universes, as she believes the natural tension between the two stars will improve her movie.
In order to incite both stars to attack each other constantly, Lola creates all sorts of absurd situations. In the trailer, Félix and Iván are forced to repeat the same line dozens of times, are wrapped in plastic, and are even put under a deadly boulder hanging by a thread. There are no limits to Lola’s imagination when the goal is to unsettle both stars, and the Official Competition promises the film offers a fun discussion about how far we are all willing to go to leave our mark in the world. The question is fundamental in filmmaking, where thousands of artists try to compete for the public’s attention and ensure their names will be written in history books.
Official Competition is directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, a duo of Argentinian filmmakers who previously worked with Martínez in The Distinguished Citizen, which gave Martínez the Best Actor prize at Venice in 2016. The movie is written by the directors and Andrés Duprat.
Official Competition hits theaters on June 17, becoming available on VOD on August 2. Check out the new trailer below.
Here’s the official synopsis for the Official Competition:
When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz) is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. Completing the all-star team are two actors with enormous talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and radical theatre actor Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez). Both are legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric trials set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other, but also their own legacies. Who will be left when the cameras finally start rolling?