The international premiere of the Colombian film Forgotten We’ll Be (El olvido que seremos), directed by Fernando Trueba and starring Javier Cámara, will close, out of competition, the Official Selection at the San Sebastian Festival’s 68th edition. The film, an adaptation of Héctor Abad Faciolince’s homonymous novel, is part of the Official Selection of Cannes 2020, cancelled due to the pandemic.
Héctor Abad Faciolince, one of the most outstanding writers in contemporary Colombia, narrates in his novel El olvido que seremos / Oblivion: A Memoir the story of his father, Héctor Abad Gómez, a doctor and human rights activist in the polarised and violent Medellin of the ‘70s. David Trueba signs the screenplay adapting a bestseller which has racked up more than 300,000 sales worldwide, and has been translated into more than twelve languages, as well as having been sold to 20 countries.
El olvido que seremos / Forgotten We’ll Be stars Javier Cámara, Nicolás Reyes Cano, Patricia Tamayo and Juan Pablo Urrego, and is the film chosen by the Colombian Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences to represent the country as candidate for Best Iberoamerican film at the next edition of the Goya Awards, to take place on February 27 in Malaga.
Director Fernando Trueba (Madrid, 1955), winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Belle Époque (1993), has participated in San Sebastian Festival since the beginning of his career. He presented the documentary Mientras el cuerpo aguante (1982) in the Official Selection, to which he has since returned with El baile de la victoria (The Dancer and the Thief), screened out of competition, and with El artista y el modelo (The Artist and the Model, 2012), for which he landed the Silver Shell for best director.
Among other sections, his films have also screened in the former Made in Spanish –Two Much (1996), La niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1999) and Calle 54 (2000)– and in the Velodrome, where he presented El milagro de Candeal (The Miracle of Candeal, 2004). Furthermore, Chico & Rita (2013), an animated film co-directed with Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando, was part of the retrospective Animatopia. The new paths of animated cinema.
EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMOS / FORGOTTEN WE’LL BE
FERNANDO TRUEBA (COLOMBIA)
Cast: Javier Cámara, Juan Pablo Urrego, Nicolás Reyes, Patricia Tamayo
Based on the book of the same name, El olvido que seremos (Forgotten We’ll Be)portrays the life of a good man, Héctor Abad Gómez, a prominent doctor and human rights activist in the violent Medellin of the 70s. The story follows the life of the doctor, a family man worried not only for his own children but for those of the underprivileged classes as well. His home was imbued with vitality and creativity, the result of an education based on tolerance and love. Nothing could foretell that a terrible cancer would take the life of one of his beloved daughters. Driven by sadness and rage, Héctor devoted himself to the social and political causes of the time. But Medellin’s intolerant society would harass him until he was finally silenced. An intimate story seen through the eyes of his only male son, Héctor Abad Faciolince, one of the most outstanding writers in contemporary Colombia.