BIUTIFUL - Press Kit
BIUTIFUL - Press Kit
BIUTIFUL - Press Kit
“BIUTIFUL”
Casting by EVA LEIRA YOLANDA SERRANO
Executive Producer DAVID LINDE
Associate Producers ALFONSO CUARÓN GUILLERMO DEL TORO
Co-Producers SANDRA HERMIDA ANN RUARK
Music by GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA
Edited by STEPHEN MIRRIONE, A.C.E.
Production Designer BRIGITTE BROCH
Director of Photography RODRIGO PRIETO, ASC, AMC
Produced by ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU JON KILIK and FERNANDO BOVAIRA
Based on a Story by ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU
Written by ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU
ARMANDO BO NICOLÁS GIACOBONE
Directed by ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU
DOLBY ® Stereo In Selected Theatres
Copyright © 2009 MENAGE ATROZ S. de R.L. de C.V., MOD PRODUCCIONES, S.L. and
IKIRU FILMS S.L.
After having globe-trotted with Babel, I thought I had explored enough multiple
lines, fractured structures and crossing narratives. Each of the films I have made has been
shot in a different language, in a different country, with different structures and scales. At
the end of Babel, I was so exhausted that I joked my next film would be about just one
character, in one single city, with a straight narrative line and in my own original language .
. . and here I am. Biutiful is all that I haven’t done: a character-driven, linear story.
I wanted to capture the simple expression of a complex existence. In a way, Biutiful
is, again, about a theme that I have been obsessed with throughout my whole life and
work: it is about fatherhood -- about the fear of losing a father, of being a father and that
moment when you start becoming your own father and your kids start becoming you. It is
about loss -- because in the end, we are what we have lost, too. It is the same subject, but
it is different. Here, I wanted to destroy the illusions and reveal the truth with the
unequivocal impact of intimacy. Yes, Intimacy as the new Punk.
A film for me always begins with something very vague -- a bit of a conversation, a
glimpse of a scene through a car window, a shaft of light or some music notes. Biutiful
started on a cold Autumn morning in 2006 while my kids and I were preparing breakfast
and I randomly played a CD of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major. Some months before, I
had played the same Ravel piano concerto during a family car trip from Los Angeles to the
Telluride Film Festival. The scenery of the Four Corners area was breathtaking but after the
Ravel piece finished, both of my kids started to cry at the same time. The melancholic
quality, the sense of sadness and beauty that this piece of music contains was
overwhelming for them. My kids couldn’t take it or explain it. They just felt it. When they
heard that Ravel piano again that morning, they both asked me to stop the CD. They
remembered very clearly the emotional impact and how that music moved them. That
same morning, a character knocked on my head’s door and said: “Hola, my name is Uxbal.”
During the next three years, I would spend my life with him. I didn’t know what he wanted,
who he was or where he was going. He was dismissive and full of contradictions. But to be
honest, I knew how I wanted to present him and how I wanted to finish with him. Yes, I just
had the beginning and the end.
It wasn’t until one year later, while I was walking in the El Raval section of
Barcelona, that everything made sense. Barcelona is the queen of Europe. She is indeed
beautiful, but like every queen, she also has a much more interesting side than the obvious
and sometimes boring, bourgeois beauty that every tourist and postcard photographer has
admired. Since I was 17 years old and traveled around the world working in a cargo ship as
a floor cleaner, I have been attracted to, curious about and fascinated by the
neighborhoods that are hidden and that nobody sees. That’s what I respond to. And I am
talking about the diverse, complex, marginal and multiethnic new world that has been
recently created in Barcelona and most of the big cities of Europe. It would have been
impossible to imagine this when I first came to Barcelona at 17. But now, immediately, I
knew that Uxbal belonged to this place, I knew he belonged to this eclectic and vibrant
community that is reshaping the world.
During the 1960’s, Franco promoted and brought to Catalonia hundreds of
thousands of people from different parts of Spain, trying to disrupt the Catalan culture, and
prohibited them from speaking the Catalan language. In the midst of a huge economic
recession, the Castilian-speaking people -- mostly from Extremadura, Andalucia and Murcia
-- became immigrants in their own country. They were assigned to a suburb of Barcelona
called Santa Coloma and they became known as “Charnegos,” a derogatory word that
refers to poor immigrants and their children. With the returning strength of the economy
during the 80’s and the 90’s, the “Charnegos” started leaving Santa Coloma and immigrants
from all over the world started filling it. Even though El Raval, known as the Barrio Chino, is
famous for being Barcelona’s most diverse neighborhood, it was Santa Coloma and nearby
Badalona, that I fell in love with. Here, Senegalese, Chinese, Pakistanis, Gypsies, Romanians
and Indonesians all live together in peace without a problem and each one speaks their
own language without a need or worry of integrating into Spain.
And to be frank, it seems the society is not very interested in integrating them
either.
This is a neighborhood that has not been pasteurized. It is human, it smells and has
texture and contradictions. It is a real example of “convivencia” – of community -- and has
the DNA of a perfect UN. The migrations and racial mixes that in the past took 300 years
have been experienced here in just 25 years. Of course it’s not devoid of pain and tragedy.
Every year, hundreds of African people die from drowning trying to get to the coast of
Spain. The images are hard to watch. Also, almost every day you see in the newspapers
articles about Chinese immigrants being abused or exploited all around Europe.
Just in the UK, there are one million Chinese people, as Hsiao-Hung Pai writes in
Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labor. Unlike in the US,
the people don’t come to European cities to blend into a culture. The research I did tells
me that most people come here in order to survive and to help the ones they left behind.
But more than this interesting sociological phenomenon happening in Barcelona
and most European cities, it was the emotional impact it had on me that I found as a great
context for the story of Biutiful. Because, in the end, when a film is not a document, it is a
dream. And as a dreamer, you are always alone, as a painter is alone with a white canvas.
And to be alone is to ask questions (as Goddard once said ) . . . and to make films is to
answer them.
I wrote a meticulous biography of each one of the characters. I did it for the Chinese
and the African characters, too. Each one should have a past and a reason and not only be
utilitarian characters. I did this in order to know them well and also to help the actors
understand where they had come from. Uxbal was born as a “Charnego” and he is one of
the 10% Castilian-speaking people who stayed in Santa Coloma. The immigrants are not
alien to him. He grew up with them. He works with them. Walking in that neighborhood on
a Sunday is a physical, spiritual and emotional experience. You can see Gypsies singing in
groups in the streets, while Muslims pray at the park or chant through the speaker of a
little mosque, and a Catholic church is full of Chinese people. I wanted this story to be that
same kind of physical, spiritual and emotional journey.
Since my visit to Barcelona, my subconscious started compulsively dictating the
story. My daughter Maria Eladia told me that when an owl dies, it spits a hairball from her
beak. I dreamt that night about that image. And then, everything started differently. I saw
Uxbal full of contradictions: a guy whose life is so busy and complicated that he can’t even
die in peace, a guy who protects immigrants from the law while he himself exploits their
labor. A street man who has a spiritual gift and can speak with the dead and guide them to
the light… but he charges money for it; a family man with a broken heart and two kids who
he loves yet can’t help but lose his temper with them; a man who everybody depends on
but who also depends on everyone; a primitive, simple, humble man with a deep
supernatural insight.
A Sun surrounded by satellite planets. I saw him as a physical system in which the
body is the street, the heart is the family and the soul is the search for an absent father.
Before I started the script, I drew a map. I draw two spiral circles and a line that defined
graphically Uxbal’s journey and his state of mind. One spiral moved from the inside to the
outside. This was his everyday life out of control. The other spiral moved from the outside
to the inside. This was Uxbal’s heart, going deep, into profound territory. And then I drew
one line crossing the two spirals: the spirit.
My father used to say that low-income workers or taxi drivers can’t get depressed.
“This is a luxury for the rich,” he said. Life will not allow them to die. And that’s Uxbal: a
desperate, lonely man, looking for a father he never knew.
After I had finished a first draft of the script, I decided to invite the writers Armando
Bo and Nicolás Giacobone to the process. Writing is not an unknown process for me, but
my experience has taught me that in writing a script, which is a very early and technical
stage of filmmaking, collaboration can bring great results. Armando Bo is a powerful and
well-known commercial director who I’ve known for many years. Giacobone is his cousin, a
sensitive and talented writer who has written several short stories and is about to publish
his first novel. They are both young, talented and Argentine football freaks. They brought
to the script a special innocence and freshness. This is their first time doing this but it will
definitely not be the last.
Since I first started writing Biutiful, I always thought of Javier Bardem for Uxbal.
Nobody else could have brought to the character what he has brought. I could not have
made this film without him because for me, he alone was Uxbal. For many years, Javier and
I had been trying to work together. I thought, this character will be the bridge that will get
us together on set. My style and process of working with actors is not light or easy. I give of
myself fully on each project and I demand the same from the actors. I am obsessed with
perfection, or what I consider perfection. Physically and emotionally it is a tough ride. Well,
bringing Javier into the equation, it was as if the Hungry and the Starving got together…
and we were both yearning to be satisfied. Javier is not just an outstanding actor; he is one
of a kind. Everybody knows that. He prepares exhaustively and writes extensive notes
about his character. He is committed, intense and obsessed with excellence as well. But
what Javier has that makes him so special and unique is a weight, a gravity, an ominous
presence on the screen that is based on his deep, strong reflectiveness and his profound
interior life. That’s something that can’t be learned. It’s something (angel or devil) that you
either have or you don’t.
Unlike my other films where I shot different stories with different actors over
several weeks, this one was a looong and intense shoot with Javier in almost every scene,
always carrying the film, literally, on his back. The precision and emotional intensity
required in every scene was not easy to sustain, especially while trying to balance this act
with non-actors and kids. During the Autumn and Winter of 2008/09, Javier Bardem, the
man I knew, just disappeared in order to give life to Uxbal.
We knew it would be like climbing Mt. Everest, every day tougher than the one
before. We planned and discussed the route. I designed the visual grammatical language
and every single aspect of the film -- the chronological shooting order, wardrobe,
production design, camera movements and even the use of different formats in different
phases of the film – in order to help him navigate and arrive where we both wanted to go:
from a tough, tight, controlling guy to a man who is liberated, who understands surrender
and has gained the wisdom to see and feel the light through his pain. We both gave a lot of
ourselves and the story demanded of us to go into dangerous territory from which it is
sometimes hard to come back. A film like this drains you, but that extraordinary effort and
sacrifice was proportionate to the immense artistic satisfaction that we both shared.
One of the most difficult roles to write and to cast was that of Marambra.
Bipolarity, a complex emotional disorder sometimes called manic depression, can be too
easily caricatured. I was looking for a very specific vibe and spirit. I held casting sessions all
around Spain, and though I saw a lot of very talented actresses there, I couldn’t find what I
was looking for. Three weeks before principal photography began, I still hadn’t found her
and was close to postponing the shoot. I did an open casting session in Argentina, where
we saw Maricel Alvarez. Even in a video test, I knew it was her. Maricel flew to Spain and
after 24 hours without sleeping and a text she had just received 24 hours prior to that, she
did the most extraordinary rehearsal test I have seen. I did a camera test with her, too,
before she returned to Argentina 12 hours after she had arrived in Spain. I put her in front
of a film camera for the first time in her life and I asked her, without doing anything, to
imagine certain images or circumstances I was suggesting to her. All the set and crew was
quiet. One minute later I had goose bumps on my skin and my eyes were watering. It was
just pure alchemy and magic. Maricel brought the danger and the tenderness Marambra
needed. She has been an extraordinary theater actress for years with a range and
craftsmanship very hard to find on this planet.
For the role of Igé, we looked at more than 1200 women in Spain and Mexico.
Diaryatou Daff was found in a downtown Barcelona salon where she worked cutting hair.
She is Senegalese and, like hundreds of thousands of other African women, she risked her
life and left her country to look for a job to help maintain her family members. Her life
hasn’t been easy. She was married when she was 15 to a 50 year-old man, according to a
Senegalese tradition where a maternal uncle can choose who a girl will marry. She escaped
from this violent man and later married a nice young man and had a child with him. Living
in a small town in a desperate economic situation, she decided to look for a job in Spain,
and when I cast her, she hadn’t seen her son for more than 3 years. Working day and night,
she supports not only her husband and child but 30 other people who depend on the little
money she is able to send back to Senegal. Diaryatou was always afraid she might lose her
job in the hair salon.
While we were rehearsing I could sense the clear understanding she had for the
character I wanted her to play. She did it with such honesty and profundity -- just carrying a
pillow as if it were her child, I would hear her voice breaking up. The story of Igé was her
story. I have never experienced a person in a film whose life was this close to her character.
Reality was dancing with fiction in front of my eyes. She struggled while making the film
but her commitment to speaking in the name of millions of women like her was bigger. I
always liked the idea that Igé starts out looking like a secondary role, but without seeing
her coming, she ends up a cornerstone of the story. She is Mama Africa -- a rational,
intelligent, loving mother. That it is Diaryatou in real life. Subtle, talented, sensitive,
beautiful and more than anything, real.
Kids are always difficult to find. The scenes with the kids were very challenging due
to the subject matter of the events and, in this case, the physical characteristics of Bardem
and Maricel didn’t make it easier. We found Guillermo to play Mateo early in the process
but trying to find Uxbal’s daughter put all of us on edge. It was only two weeks before the
start of production, when we had resigned ourselves to continue without her, hoping we
would find her, that I was doing a technical scout in a local school where we would be
shooting. Suddenly, Ana, who happens to study in that school, tapped my back and ask me
what I was doing. I turned and saw her. I said, “I am making a movie.” And she said, “I
would love to be in it.” And that was that. She was an angel knocking on the door of a
desperate man looking all over Spain without knowing that the answer was at the end of
his nose.
I could spend hours telling you about Eduard Fernández, Ruben Ochandiano, Cheng
Tai Shen, Luo Jin, Martina Garcia and all the great cast of actors who were with us, but I
prefer you see their work, which will be better than anything I can say about it.
As always, I had the privilege of working on this film with my old-time partners in
crime, the same rock ‘n roll band whose bass-line, drums and instruments make the music
richer and more joyful, as we moved away from the cold and technical paper score which
every film must depart from to the land of memories, desires, logic, dreams, suggestion and
subjective reality of light and images.
As always, I dedicated this film to a family member -- not because they are part of my
family but because they are the reason, the source, or who I want to speak to directly
through the film.
This one is for my Father, and he knows well why.
Javier Bardem and Maricel Alvarez
On Uxbal and Marambra
Javier Bardem always wanted to work with Alejandro González Iñárritu and vice versa
– and the two finally come together with Biutiful. González Iñárritu had Bardem in mind for
Uxbal even as the character first emerged in his imagination. When he showed Bardem the
script, the actor’s reaction was instantaneous.
“It had a deep impact on me, for sure,” says Bardem. “I had a very instinctive,
emotional response to it. When you have this kind of material, you know you are going to
jump into an ocean of doubts and fears, and also expectations and joys. In the end, with this
story, it is the journey that counts, but you want to do it right, to do justice to it. You don’t
want to rush to get to a particular place but give yourself completely over to it. It is a journey
towards love, towards the light, towards the positive things inside something that has
become black, dark and difficult.”
Uxbal embodies a man of roiling contradictions – a devoted father, broken lover,
hardened street criminal, spiritual sensitive – in a moment of sudden, intensifying personal
danger and vulnerability, as well as transformation. “These contradictions were already
there on the page,” he notes. “All of these aspects of Uxbal were beautifully rendered and
described in the screenplay. What I had to do was find the meeting point of all of these
things without betraying any of them. In the end, Uxbal is a normal person who has to face a
very tough experience, who has to face reality, and who has to overcome all this to leave a
legacy for his family, a legacy which he could not have left in the beginning. He wants to
leave something positive for his kids, something that gives them hope and something they
can carry in their future lives.”
He talked at length with González Iñárritu about the character. “We both thought of
him as going through three different journeys,” Bardem recalls. “One is an internal journey
entirely within himself; one is an external journey in the streets as he tries to find a way for
his family to survive; and the third is a journey to that thing above us – spirituality, mortality,
the things you cannot see or explain but that Uxbal has a consciousness and knowledge of.
What is interesting is that each of these journeys interferes in a way with the other. His
body, spirit and mind need something from him, but his life on the streets and the urgent
needs of his family and children require exactly the opposite. This is his constant conflict.”
The inner, outer and transcendent aspects of Uxbal’s journey all wrap themselves
around his relationship with his ex-wife, the volatile and troubled Marambra, played by
Argentine actress Maricel Alvarez, a newcomer to the screen. Bardem read with a number of
actresses before he read with Alvarez. “Any one of them could have done the job, but when
Maricel came at the last moment, she had something in her that truly belongs to the
character,” he comments. “She had that mixture of gravity with the lightness of someone
whose feet don’t really touch the ground, the perfect combination of those two ways of
being. When she came into the room, there was no doubt that she had to be the one.”
He continues: “Working with her was a wonderful experience as together we
explored these two unstructured minds of Uxbal and Marambra. We did it with compassion,
love and hard work.”
Uxbal also has a conflicted relationship with his brother Tito, portrayed by Eduard
Fernández, who has worked with Bardem before. “It is impossible for Eduard to say
anything that is not true,” comments Bardem. “He is brutally honest. He does a lot of
preparation and I think his work in the film speaks for itself.”
Bardem also was moved by his experience with non-professional actress Diaryatou
Daff, who plays Igé, the Senegalese immigrant who becomes Uxbal’s last-ditch savior. “It
was a very brave role for her because she shares so many common circumstances in her life,”
he says. “It was quite emotional to watch her. She was nervous in the beginning but then, at
a certain point, she really let go, which was beautiful to witness.”
Having previously starred in Woody Allen’s Barcelona-set comedic romance, Vicky
Cristina Barcelona, Bardem had a chance in Biutiful to enter a completely different side of
the city, far from the stylish architecture and cafes that seduced two Americans in that film.
“Like all cities, Barcelona has its light and its shadow, and one is sustained by the other and
vice versa,” he says. “I had heard about it, but I was not really familiar with all of these illegal
factories in the immigrant areas until we began the film. Then, it seemed they were always in
the news, with police raids every week. In the places we shot, real life is more complex than
fiction.”
As Biutiful progresses, every aspect of Uxbal goes through a metamorphosis – his
body, the things on his mind, the things in his heart, the hopes he holds onto – and that was
the crux for Bardem. The physical dissolution was the easy part, he says. “We shot
chronologically, so, physically, you start with a plan – you know when to stop eating, when to
start exercising twice as much. We were working really long days and you are tired so that
comes easily into your body. That is not the difficult thing. The difficult thing is all the
emotions you are left with at the end of day. Any character is a leap of faith, but there are
many different kinds. In the case of this film, the emotional demands of that leap were very
high, but it was very rewarding artistically.”
In the end, collaborating with González Iñárritu was all that Bardem had anticipated.
“It was an honor and a privilege to work with Alejandro because I am someone who has
devoured his films,” he says. “We worked really closely and it was an adventure – Alejandro
said it was like climbing a mountain, where you keep moving towards the peak. It was very
difficult, but also enriching, because it was very personal for him and for me.”
Maricel Alverez came to the project in a whirlwind when González Iñárritu sought
her out for an audition. Though she is one of Argentina’s most celebrated performing
artists, she had never before taken on a film role. “For, me it was a wonderful surprise to be
invited to audition for Alejandro González Iñárritu and then suddenly, within a week I was
flying to Spain, where, wow, I found myself auditioning with Javier Bardem,” she recalls. “It
was the greatest honor to be chosen to work with such a remarkable director and actor – to
me it was like a gift from life to get to know them. And that began a journey that was very
special to me in both artistic and personal terms. It was an opportunity to grow not only as
an actress but as a person.”
Only after the auditions did she finally get to read the script. “I found it powerful,
painful and also absolutely delicious because Marambra is a huge challenge for an actress,”
Alvarez says. “It’s a dream role because it requires going into the most extreme emotional
states – from the highs of total euphoria to the depths of darkness. I was not afraid of it; I
was looking forward to being able to explode and explore. We are used to living our lives
inside this frame of normality and everything outside it frightens us. But leaving that frame
behind can also feel very freeing, as well as dangerous.”
Still, there was little time to prepare. “When you don’t have much time to prepare,
you have to trust your director, you have to be like clay in his hands,” she says, “and so I
decided to trust Alejandro completely. I made the decision to be as open as possible, as
present as possible, to keep my eyes and my ears open, and to trust my most basic instincts.
The atmosphere of solidarity that I found with Alejandro and Javier made me feel
comfortable to go deeper.”
She became fascinated by the heartbreak of the love affair between Uxbal and
Marambra. “Uxbal and Marambra’s link is one of broken love,” she says. “They don’t want
to hurt each other yet they can’t seem to help it. It’s beyond their control. Their
relationship is tragic in its nature. It’s like a glass, that once broken, can’t be put back
together. Now, it is just water and sand and it slips away.”
Through it all, she developed a close rapport with Bardem. “He’s very open, very
easy and relaxed and that allowed us to explore our intimacy in subtle ways. Uxbal is like a
tragic hero in the Greek tradition. He has to go through a lot of pain and suffering to
understand who he is and his true destiny – and I think Javier went through a similar journey
while making the film,” she observes. “I admired his strength because this was not easy and
I greatly appreciated his generosity.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Alvarez was working with her two young co-stars,
Hanaa Bouchaib and Guillermo Estrella, who play Marambra’s children, caught as they are in
their parents’ drama. “Children are changing their moods all the time – sometimes they’re
playful, sometimes they’re bored and they are always very sensitive and very fragile, so the
concern was how to take care of them in this difficult story while at the same time to do our
jobs without distraction,” she explains.
Finally, for Alvarez, Biutiful was a chance to get to know another side of Barcelona, a
city she has visited before but never quite in this way. “I’m in love with Barcelona but the
interesting thing is that Alejandro decided to portray a completely different city than the
one most tourists have seen,” she says. “The characters in this story belong to a Barcelona
that is not in the public eye and where people lead harsh lives. It is a place of many
contrasts – where reality is sometimes like a punch in the face, brutal and raw, and also
sometimes very beautiful.”
About the Cast
Bardem was also nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Actor, an honor
he received for his portrayal of the Cuban poet and dissident Reinaldo Arenas in
Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls. He was also named Best Actor at the Venice Film
Festival for this role, and received Best Actor honors from the National Society of Film
Critics, the Independent Spirit Awards and the National Board of Review, as well as a
Golden Globe nomination. Javier has received a total of seven nominations and four
wins for the Goya Award, which is the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar®.
Bardem also went on to win another Best Actor Award from the Venice Film
Festival (only one other actor has won the Best Actor Award twice in Venice) for his
performance in Alejandro Amenabar’s film The Sea Inside. For this role, he also won a
Goya Award and received a Golden Globe nomination.
Bardem’s most recent film credits include Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina
Barcelona (Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominated), John
Malkovich’s directorial debut The Dancer Upstairs, Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s
Mondays In The Sun, which was named best film at the San Sebastian film festival,
Michael Mann’s Collateral and Goya’s Ghosts opposite Natalie Portman, and Love In
The Time of Cholera.
Bardem’s other film credits include Luna’s Golden Balls, The Tit and the Moon,
Between Your Legs, Dias Contados (Best Actor, San Sebastian Film Festival), Mouth to
Mouth, Ecstasy, Almodovar’s Live Flesh, Dance With the Devil, Washington Wolves,
and Second Skin. Javier Bardem was born March 1, 1969 in Las Palmas Gran Canarias
(Canary Islands, Spain). His mother is Pilar Bardem, a respected actress who has
worked continuously from the mid-60s to the present day, and his uncle was Juan
Antonio Bardem, one of Spain’s most celebrated directors, jailed by the Franco
regime when his Death of a Cyclist won the critics prize in Cannes. Many other
members of the Bardem family are also well-known actors, including his grandfather
Rafael Bardem and grandmother Matilde Muñoz Sampedro. Javier was four when his
mother secured him a minor role in the Spanish mini-series El Picasso. As a youth,
Bardem studied painting in the Escuela de Arte Y Officios Art School while playing
small roles on TV. It was in the early 1990s when the Spanish director Bigas Luna
offered him a role in The Ages of Lulu that his acting career got seriously underway.
After a small role in Pedro Almodovar’s High Heels, Bardem made his name in
1992 with a lead role opposite Penelope Cruz in the film Jamon Jamon. Bardem was
nominated for the Best Actor Award at the San Sebastian film festival and won
several other awards for his performance.
DIARYATOU DAFF (Igé) was born on August 20, 1978 in the small village of
Barkjedi in Louga (Senegal), a countryside region 200km northeast of Dakar. Her
father Elhadji Seydou, a farmer, and mother Fatou Coundoul have given her six
brothers and six sisters. Diaryatou finished her studies at the Richard Toll School and
moved from the countryside to Dakar to live with her grandmother. In the city, she
met her first husband and from this union was born her oldest son Ousseynou, who
lives and studies in Senegal. In 2007 she married a young man, Omar, with whom she
has a son called Cheikh Ibrahima. She made her first acting appearance in Biutiful by
Alejandro González Iñárritu, after winning the role of IGE on top of 3.000 African
candidates. She now lives in Madrid with her youngest son.
CHENG TAI SHEN (Hai) was born in Shanxi province, where his father was a
worker and his mother a housewife. As a child, he had a vigorous interest in
literature. When he was 18 years old, he went to Taiyuan to take on the life of a
factory worker, toiling in tough, searing conditions that required him to heave a
shovel 500 times a day.
Later, he got the chance to take a key role at the local Repertory Theater in a
drama based on Qiong Yao's novel Dream of the Clothes. Tai Shen was surprised to be
selected for the starring role in the show since he had no performing experience, but
the first role of his life would eventually lead him to the big screen.
Despite being technically too old to study at University, in 1990, Cheng Tai
Shen entered into the culture and arts college of the Shanxi province, and began his
formal arts education. In July 1993, he began mixing performances at the Central
Academy of Drama with his undergraduate classes. After graduation in 1997, he was
assigned to the Xi'an Film Studio, where he worked on leading Chinese director Huang
Jianxin’s Can’t Sleep, serving simultaneously as assistant director, log keeper and
supporting actor.
In 2001, he starred in the film Seafood, directed by Zhu Wen, which won the
58th Venice Film Festival Special Jury Prize and numerous other festival awards. In
2004 he worked with director Jia Zhangke on the acclaimed World, a film set among
workers at the World theme park in contemporary Beijing. World has played at
various international film festivals and garnered a total of 11 international awards.
The Village Voice’s 2005 annual world ranking list of the 100 greatest actors
included Cheng Tai Shen, the only actor on the list from Mainland China, ranking him
No. 67.
LUO JIN (Liwei) was born to a doctor’s family in Jiangxi China. In the midst of a
mischievous childhood, he started practicing Kungfu at the age of 12. By the age of
16, he had been pre-selected to enter a traditional Chinese opera school to begin
rigorous study in the arts of drama. Just as he was about to become a professional
Chinese opera actor, he suddenly decided to change his direction again. After
intensive training in the art of Chinese traditional opera acting, Luo Jin instead
became a student at the Beijing Film Academy in 2002 and the first chapter of his new
life began.
In 2006, Luo Jin was featured in the Chinese movie Fujian Blues, which won
the Dragon & Tiger Award at the Vancouver Film Festival. The success of Fujian Blues
catapulted Luo Jin to new heights, and he suddenly became a highly sought-after
actor in China. Recently, he participated in the blockbuster TV epic series The
Romance of 3 Kingdoms.
About The Filmmakers
JON KILIK (Producer) has become one of New York’s most notable film
producers, collaborating with a wide range of auteur directors to create a body of
work with an emphasis on human values and social issues.
In 1988, Kilik began his partnership with Spike Lee and has gone on to produce
twelve of Lee’s films. They include Inside Man, Clockers, Malcolm X, and the
groundbreaking Do The Right Thing, which was recently selected by The Smithsonian
Institute for The National Film Archives. Kilik also produced Robert De Niro’s highly
acclaimed directorial debut, A Bronx Tale, based on the play by Chazz Palminteri.
In 1995, Kilik produced Tim Robbins’ Academy Award® winner, Dead Man
Walking, based on Sister Helen Prejean’s account of her work with Louisiana death
row inmates, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The same year he produced
Julian Schnabel’s directorial debut, Basquiat, starring Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel
Basquiat and David Bowie as Andy Warhol. Next, Kilik teamed with Gary Ross and
Steven Soderbergh to produce Ross’ directorial debut, Pleasantville, a comic look at
the alternate worlds of the American family in the 1950’s and 1990’s featuring Tobey
Maguire and Reese Witherspoon.
In 2000, Kilik produced Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls, based on the
autobiography of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, starring Javier Bardem. Before Night
Falls premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Best
Actor awards. The same year, Kilik also produced Ed Harris’ directorial debut, Pollock,
starring Harris as American painter Jackson Pollock. Ed Harris and Javier Bardem were
each nominated for the Best Actor Oscar at the 2001 Academy Awards®.
Next, Kilik traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where he produced
Skins, directed by Chris Eyre. The film features Graham Greene as a Native American
who returns home from service in Viet Nam but cannot survive in his Pine Ridge,
South Dakota home. In 2004, Jon produced Oliver Stone’s Alexander. The epic
journey followed the Macedonian King, Alexander The Great, from Greece to Persia
to India and back as he conquered the known world in the 4th century B.C. Kilik
returned to New York in 2005 to produce the very personal Broken Flowers, by
writer/director Jim Jarmusch, starring Bill Murray and winner of the Cannes Film
Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2005.
Kilik began another international production when he partnered with
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu to produce Babel. The shoot took place in Morocco,
Mexico and Japan. The four uniquely interwoven stories are in Arabic, Spanish,
English and Japanese. Babel premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival where it won
the prize for Best Director, and went on to win the Golden Globe award for Best
Feature Film Drama and was nominated for seven Academy Awards®, including Best
Picture.
In 2007 Kilik produced Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell And The Butterfly,
based on the inspiring autobiography by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Kilik won his second
Golden Globe for The Diving Bell and the film was nominated for four Academy
Awards®.
In 2008 Kilik produced the rock and roll documentary, Lou Reed’s BERLIN,
directed by Julian Schnabel as well as executive producing Jim Jarmusch’s Limits Of
Control, Spike Lee’s Miracle At St. Anna and Oliver Stone’s W. In addition to Biutiful,
most recently Kilik has produced Julian Schnabel’s Miral in Israel and Palestine.
Jon was born in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Millburn. He graduated
from the University of Vermont and moved to New York in 1979 to pursue a career in
filmmaking. He returned to his Vermont alma mater to receive an honorary doctorate
and deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2003.
STEPHEN MIRRIONE (Editor) won an Academy Award® for his work on the
ensemble drama Traffic, which marked his first collaboration with Steven
Soderbergh. Mirrione also received nominations for a BAFTA Award and an Eddie
Award, from the American Cinema Editors, for his work on the film. He has since
teamed with Soderbergh on The Informant! as well as the ensemble action comedies
Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen.
In 2007, Mirrione earned his second Academy Award® nomination for his work
on Alejandro González Iñárritu’s drama Babel, for which he won an Eddie Award and
earned another BAFTA Award nomination. The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes
Film Festival, where Mirrione won the Vulcain Artist-Technical Grand Prize. He had
earlier received a BAFTA Award nomination for his editing work on González Iñárritu’s
21 Grams.
Another notable collaboration in 2005 with Actor/Writer/Director George
Clooney on the Academy Award® nominated drama Good Night, and Good Luck
garnered Mirrione both BAFTA and Eddie Award nominations. Mirrione also edited
Clooney's other two directorial efforts, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and
Leatherheads.
Mirrione's other editing credits include the films of director Jill Sprecher,
Clockwatchers, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing and The Convincer; and Doug
Liman's Swingers and Go.
END CREDITS
Dirigida por
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Escrito por
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Armando Bo
Nicolás Giacobone
Producida por
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Jon Kilik
Fernando Bovaira
Director de fotografia
Rodrigo Prieto ASC, AMC
Directora de arte
Brigitte Broch
Montaje Stephen
Mirrione ACE
Musica de
Gustavo Santaolalla
Directoras de Casting
Eva Leira
Yolanda Serrano
Javier Bardem
Maricel Alvarez
Eduard Fernández
Diaryatou Daff
Cheick Ndiaye
Taisheng Cheng
Luo Jin
Hanaa Bouchaib
Guillermo Estrella
Co-Productoras
Sandra Hermida
Ann Ruark
Productores Asociados
Alfonso Cuarón
Con la Colaboracion de
ICAA
Ministerio de Cultura
La participaction de
Televisió de Catalunya
En coproduccion con
Ikiru Films
Edmon Roch
AGRADECIMIENTOS
Ajuntament de Barcelona Ajuntament de Badalona
Excm. Sr. Jordi Hereu Excm. Sr. Jordi Serra Isern
Carme Gibert Jaume Vives
Ignasi Cardelús Daniel Gelabert
Tina Sánchez Josep Pascasi
Barcelona-Catalunya Film Comission (BCFC) Joan de Escalada
Júlia Goytisolo Guàrdia Urbana de Badalona
Laia Aubia Maribel González
Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB)
David García
Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona Ajuntament de Santa Coloma de Gramenet
Ignasi Milà Excm. Sr. Bartomeu Muñoz Calvet
Patrimoni Ajuntament de Barcelona Amèlia Gavilán
Medi Ambient Ajuntament de Barcelona Antonio Carmona
Parcs i Jardins Montse Oliver
J.C. Sebastià Purificación Corredor
José Hernández Policia Local de Santa Coloma de Gramenet
Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) Francesc Barral
Jorge Carlos-Tolrá
Carles Díaz
Jacqueline Álvarez Ajuntament de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Serveis Funeraris de Barcelona Departament de Cultura de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Capitania Marítima de Barcelona Policia Local de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Ajuntament de Sant Adrià del Besòs
Gobierno de Navarra Policia Municipal de Sant Adrià del Besòs
Departamento de Transportes
Navarra Film Comission Ajuntament de Terrassa
Koldo Lasa Parc Audiovisual de Catalunya Film Office
Junta Del Valle Salazar Policia Municipal de Terrassa
Estación de Esquí de Abodi Salazar
Ayuntamiento Ochagabía Ajuntament de Sabadell
Ayuntamiento de Arbizu
Ayuntamiento de Huarte Arakil Dirección General de Policía y Guardia Civil
Parque Natural de Urbasa y Andina Prensa Cuerpo Nacional de Policía
Rafael Jiménez
Generalitat de Catalunya U.C.R.I.F.
Direcció General de Ports, Aeroports i Costes Comunicación Guardia Civil
Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya Ministerio de Fomento
Direcció General de la Policia-Mossos D’Esquadra Lluís Bonet, Pilar Roman, Carles
Bartolomé
BIUTIFUL AGRADECE
Isabel Osca Mario del Real
Xia Jin Pere Buhigas
Ningning Lin Caco Senante
Xianbin Zhang Eneko Lizarraga
Chengxing Yu Naro Sánchez
Xia Xaiofen Manel Urban
Martina García Christian Marín
Yongguanng Chen Eugenio Cabo
Sergio Iracheta David Miquel
David Serra Pablo Cano
Alandalu Vilasanjuan Isabel Caralt
Nacho Saladrigas Dani Riera
Diego Manzano Alejandro Paino
Flavia Concha Par
Gaizka Mendieta Isabel Andrade
Greg Davies Carmela Vindel
Fabiola Ordoyo Marina Alcántara
Jesús Luquin Inmaculada Sedano
Lluís Ayala Esteban Fergus Stothart - Fotografía
Kiko Veneno Jaume Riba - Fotografía
Pierre Gonnard Médium Chelo Lapeña
Hanna Collins Teresa Tejedor
Jurgen Muller (La Fura Dels Baus) Gassan Saliva
Cristina García Rodero Pablo Bolancer
Javier Braier Pere Y Emiliana
Dj Osuna Sidi Keita
Carlos López Campmany Óscar Fabriqueta
Carlos Jean Jordi Núñez
Kiko Helguera David Espinós
Lobo López - La Mar Sonora Ramon Mayoral
Obra Social La Caixa ADFS (Asociación Deportiva de Formación en Seguridad)
Institut Català d’Oncologia Cruz Roja
CEIP Pere Vila Cáritas Diocesiana
Jc Decaux Parroquia San Juan Bautista (Santa Coloma de Gramenet)
Poliesportiu Municipal Estació del Nord Parroquia Sant Miquel
Poliesportiu Municipal Fortpienc Asociación Nakeramos
Centre Cívic Barceloneta United Parcel Service
Escola Alexandre Galí Universitat Pompeu Fabra
AGBAR The Gangsters Of Love
Gas Natural Maumau
Renfe Redken
Adif Humana
Gisa Taxidermia El Ciervo
H10 Hoteles Bordados Kokopelli
Lothus Theater El Moll Del Rebaix
Sogecable Revista Don Balón
El Deseo Revista Gigantes
El Bulli Qué me dices
Hotel España Hachette Filipacchi
Herramientas Júcar Editorial Planeta
Dragados Grupo Edebé
Grandoptical España Editorial Tikal
Fnac Editorial Robinbook
Bodegas Pinord Editorial Oceano
El País Revista Integral
La Vanguardia Pinord
Dani Pedrosa Jaume Riba Sabaté
R.C.D. Espanyol Revista Peso Perfecto
F.C. Barcelona Editorial Belleza Infinita
El Jueves Catálogo Venca
Nike Editorial Aurum
Grupo Zeta Revista Dietética y Salud
La Shica Revista Salud Alternativa
Tequila Revista Prevenir
Nubla Mtm Editores
EMI Music Editorial Edaf
Nacha pop Editorial Macmillan
Martirio Jin Lung Chan
Radio Futura Junyl Sun Wang
La Mala Rodríguez Didden
Laboratorios Cinfa Delfina Palma
Laboratorios OTC Ibérica Aurora Garcia
Alejandro Jarandilla Riesen Lassen
“SHUDDER/KING OF SNAKE”
Interpretada por Underworld
Autor Donna Summer, Darren Emerson,
Giorgio Moroder, Peter Bellotte,
Richard Smith and Karl Hyde
Chrysalis Songs on behalf of Smith Hyde Productions
Contiene un sample de “I Feel Love “
Autor Donna Summer
Publishing D/B/A Sweet Summer Night Music
“RITMO DE LA NOCHE”
Interpretada por Lorca
Autor Harry Castioni, Alex Joerg Christensen,
B. Lagonda, Wycombe, Peter Allen,
Adrian Anderson
Cortesía de BLOOPER Production
Publishing
HANSEATIC MUSIKVERLAG GMBH & CO KG/
WARNER CHAPPELL MUSIC GERMANY/
Rondor Musikverlag GMBH
Universal Music Publishing, S.A. De C.V.
“POPPY SMOKE”
Interpretada por Meng Hongmao
Tobias John Record & Ashley Witt
Autor por Xue Yinxuan (MCSC)
Arreglos de Tobias John Record & Ashley Witt
Bajo licencia de Crc Jianian Inc.
“MEDITACION #9”
Interpretada por Sebastian Escofet
Autor Sebastian Escofet
Bajo licencia de Asterisco. org Records
Imágenes de Archivo
“IQ OPEN”
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“FÍSICA O QUÍMICA
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“MBAYE BERCY”
Imágenes cedidas por Mame Cheikhou Gueye “Sanekh”.
“LOS LUNNIS”
Imágenes cedidas por S.M.E. Televisión España S.A.U.
“LOLA Y VIRGINIA”
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