Country: Spain
Year: 2003
Duration: 100'
In 1918 the poet and boxer Arthur Cravan disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico without leaving a trace behind. In contemporary times, another artistic boxer, the director Frank Nicotra, begins a search that follows the footsteps of Cravan from Switzerland to Mexico, passing through Paris and Barcelona. He studies Cravan’s countless activities and identities: a sailor in the Pacific, an orange picker in California, a snake charmer, a small-time thief, a nephew of Oscar Wilde, a lumberjack, a nephew of the Queen’s chancellor… “Above all I think this film exists because Cravan’s personality and nature continue to be up-to-date, today more than ever. What Cravan defended in his every work and punch was a personal and orthodox art.” (I. Lacuesta) “Knowing Jordá was of utmost importance to me. I never worked with him again but we are great friends and I have always showed him the editing of my films. Our relationship is based on long chats in front of big mugs of beer.” (I. Lacuesta)
Biography
film director
Isaki Lacuesta
Isaki Lacuesta (Girona, Spain, 1975) followed the course in audiovisual communications at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and received his master’s in creative documentary from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His movies– from Cravan vs Cravan (2002), awarded at Sitges, to La leyenda del tiempo (2006), from the experimental Los pasos dobles (2011) to the thriller The Next Skin (2016) – have been presented at festivals throughout the world, as well as at the MoMA, the Lincoln Center, and the Anthology Film Archives in New York, the National Gallery at Washington, D.C., and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which is preparing a retrospective of his films, as have the Canarias Mediafest, the Alcances in Cadiz, the Festival dei popoli in Florence, and the festivals of Toulouse, Tubingen, and Cali. In 2010, he won the Eloy de la Iglesia Award at the Festival of Malaga; in 2011, he won the Ciutat de Barcelona award; and in 2012, the national film prize Generalitat de Catalunya.
FILMOGRAFIA
Caras vs. caras (cm, 2000), Cravan vs. Cravan (cm, doc., 2002), Teoría de los cuerpos (cm, 2004), La leyenda del tiempo (2006), Soldats anònims (cm, doc., 2008), Las variaciones Marker (cm, doc., 2008), Sinergias: Diálogos entre Naomi Kawase y Isaki Lacuesta (cm, doc., 2009), Los condenados (2009), La noche que no acaba (doc., 2010), Los pasos dobles (2011), El cuaderno de barro (doc., 2011), El moviment perpetu (doc., 2013), Murieron por encima de sus posibilidades (2014), Download Vilches (cm, 2014), La propera pel (La prossima pelle, 2016), Besar-te com un home (cm, 2016), Entre dos aguas (2018).