PODCAST | Sarah Bradbury interviews Alejandro Landes, director of the film Monos.
We hit the red carpet and the 63rd London Film Festival to hear from the judges and recipients of the film awards for 2019. Director Alejandro Landes and producer Santiago A. Zapata told us about their winning film, Monos. Yance Ford told us about heading up the jury for documentary film, Rubika Shah explained how it felt to win for White Riot. Wash Westmoreland stopped to tell us about leading the feature film jury.
Monos: High in the mountains of South America, above the billowing clouds but with gunshots heard in the distance, a motley group of child and teenage soldiers train and wait for instruction. They stave off boredom by fucking, playing and fighting. This might be some teen rave gone feral, but for the deadly seriousness underlined by the presence of an American hostage, the Doctora. Monos has inspired feverish buzz wherever it has screened this year and comparisons to Apocalypse Now and Lord of the Flies are not off the mark in mapping out the film’s terrain. But this is also a wildly original vision from Landes and screenwriter Alexis dos Santos, referencing horrors on their own continent. The camera prowls over mud and organic decay, cutting swathes through the jungle, all to the strains of Mica Levi’s visceral score. Monos sparks with dark adrenal electricity and it’s completely, utterly thrilling.
Monos is released in UK cinemas across UK and Ireland on 25th October 2019. For more information visit the official website here, or visit the Facebook page, and find on Twitter #MONOSFILM.
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