About "FAQ" 2005

"FAQ" (2004) is a dystopian movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes. In "About FAQ" Atanes, the actor Manuel Solàs, the producer and actress Marta Timón and the actor and composer Xavier Tort talk about the making of the movie.

http://faqthemovie.blogspot.com.es/

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Me (But Were Afraid to Ask)...

...Greg Smalley Has Asked Me Yet For 366 Weird Movies:

Photo by Susana Ortega

366: You’ve announced a new project, Gallino, which you describe as a”pornophilosophical film.”  What can you tell our readers about the movie?

Atanes: It is a step forward in my rise to weirdness.Gallino is related to my last movie Maximum Shame in many of its subjects. There are different actors and characters, other aesthetics and other conflicts, but in fact it is like a next part, a complement to Maximum Shame. Both are like a “double feature.” Gallino goes deep into parallel realities, meta-narrative and blurred borders between the pornographic and and the non-pornographic.  Why do we consider one thing pornographic and not another, exactly?  Why some things are visible/presentable and other things are not?  So, Gallino is an strange trip along the cracks, halfway between dream and wakelfulness, porn and no porn, skin and flesh, story and essay.  The plot is hard to explain, but in short I can say it is about a group of people who use pornography —in a very particular sense— for seeing beyond everyday life.  For tearing away the Veil of Isis.

366: One of the weird things about your previous film Maximum Shame is that it uses the iconography of the fetish world, with the Queen dressed in leather bondage gear and the slave harnessed in some bizarre restraints, but there is no actual sex in it.  The closest we come is a foot massage.  Can we expect the same approach to the erotic in Gallino, or will it be more explicitly sexual?
(...)

Read the interview on 366 Weird Movies

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

Atanes te quiere.

¿Estás en Madrid y todo te parece un rollo? ¿Eres un ser humano inquieto e intelectualmente exigente y no sabes qué hacer con tu vida? ¿Sientes la pegadiza impresión de que hay otros mundos, pero que están en éste, agazapados? No sufras más, te propongo un plan que te librará de tus apuros existenciales: un Fin de Semana Atánico. Es como irse a un balneario pero un poco más esotérico y bastante más barato. El tiempo te lo administras tú pero conviene acotar la experiencia entre el jueves y el domingo. Para vivirlo con la plenitud que se merece hay que experimentar diferentes etapas, no necesariamente por este orden:

1- Te apuntas a FilmIn y ves, por un precio ridículo, dos largometrajes atánicos: FAQ y PRÓXIMA. Eso te pondrá en situación. Lamento que Maximum Shame aún no esté a disposición del público... pero tampoco quieras darte un atracón de buenas a primeras.

2- Te pasas por la Sala AZarte, en el céntrico barrio de Chueca, a las 21:00h. y asistes a una representación de La Cobra en la Cesta de Mimbre. Cuando termine aplaudes si lo consideras justo. Si no quieres hacerlo por mí hazlo por los actores, que se lo merecen.

3- A la salida te pides una copa en el Veintidós, el bar de la esquina que tiene las paredes pintadas de rojo, y esperas a que llegue (pero me avisas antes, que si no a lo mejor me largo a rodar cualquier cosa por ahí). Podrás tener una conversación breve pero interesantísima conmigo sobre cualquier tema de tu interés, ya sea el uso del gran angular en la cinematografía de Rocco Siffredi, dudas que te asalten sobre los evangelios sinópticos o las virtudes del libre comercio, entre muchos otros. Como colofón inolvidable, al acabar te puedo firmar un autógrafo en una servilleta.

Las dos primeras personas que se apunten a esta excitante inmersión en la atanidad serán premiadas con sendas invitaciones para ver La Cobra en la Cesta de Mimbre (repito, de jueves a domingo de esta semana).

¡A correr!

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

366 Weird Movies reviews my dystopia "FAQ"

"Superficially, the movie unspools as a serious science fiction drama, complete with pretentious poetic narration, but the absurdist touches throughout betray the director’s weird predilections. The idea of the female supremacist tyranny—the Sisterhood of Metacontrol—is bizarre in itself, and Atanes pushes the premise into farce by making the dynamiting of that great phallic symbol, the Eiffel Tower, a major plot event.  The politically incorrect core of the film—its presumption that radical feminists would abolish sex if they ever came to power—is its boldest gambit, but it’s impossible to know exactly how to take this thesis.  It’s hard to know how seriously to take any film where a character makes a serious speech about a higher reality that is watching us, and then, without explanation, put on a red clown nose and gaze reverently skyward.  FAQ’s apparent antifeminist agenda could be seen as a legitimate attack on the Andrea Dworkin strain of radical feminism, or a lampoon of male paranoia about “feminazis,”  or it could be nothing more than a sly reversal of expectations (any society in which absolute power is vested in one of the two sexes would become a dystopia for the other)..." - Read the whole review at 366 Weird Movies

More info about Carlos Atanes at

www.carlosatanes.com

"FAQ" en español

"FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions", aquella película que, desde la ciencia-ficción distópica advertía de los problemas que podría acarrear la corrección política y que -recordarán- el Festival de Sitges se negó a estrenar en 2004, para luego ser nominada al premio Méliès a la Mejor Película Europea de género fantástico en Fantasporto y premiada al Mejor Largometraje en el Panorama de Cineastas Independiente de Atenas, esa película, decía, acaba de aparecer subtitulada al español en una edición especial.

¿Por qué ha tardado tanto en aparecer en español una película española? Por infinidad de motivos vinculados a una muy mala distribución. La rodamos en francés -salvo algunas secuencias en español- y la mantuvo en exclusiva durante cinco años un distribuidor que sólo la movió, y escasamente, en su versión subtitulada en inglés.

¿Qué tiene de "especial" esta edición? Pues que incorpora algunos contenidos extra inéditos hasta la fecha. La película en sí está exactamente igual que hace siete años, ni un fotograma más ni un fotograma menos. Ahora todos los hispanohablantes pueden disfrutarla clicando en Amazon o directamente en CreateSpace (con éste la compra es igual de segura y al parecer el envío es más rápido).

Advertencia: el DVD es PAL, así que los habitantes de Estados Unidos, Mexico, Chile, Colombia y algún otro país quizá tengan algún problema para verla. Infórmense antes. En cualquier caso el DVD NTSC está disponible también en Amazon y CreateSpace aunque, eso sí, en versión original francesa/española con subtítulos en inglés.


Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

FAQ – the dystopian cult movie – now released as a special collector’s edition DVD

"The film won the Best Feature Film Award at the International Panorama of Independent Filmmakers (Athens, 2005) and was nominated of the Méliès d’Argent genre award for Best European Motion Picture in the Fantasy Genre (Porto, 2005). And now it has been released as a Special Collector’s Edition DVD. (I’ve just recieved confirmation that it’s a Region 0 DVD, so you can watch it anywhere)."

(From Pulpmovies)

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

Hall of Fame: Paloma Povedano / Almasäla

Singer Paloma Povedano, Almasäla, from Spain, has taken this double picture for my Hall of Fame. Some years ago Paloma played a character in my movie "FAQ: frequently Asked Questions" and we become good friends. But her main contribution to art is for music since she's a great singer and composer. So, she firstly was the Ojos de Brujo singer and later she form her own techno-flamenco band, Almasäla. You can join her songs here.

More info about Carlos Atanes movies at www.carlosatanes.com

FAQ extract 001

“FAQ” (2004) is a cult dytopian feature movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes. This is an extract.

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

FAQ extract 002

A wicked Secretary of Number Three (Neus Bernaus) is trying to seduce Nono (Xavier Tort) in a scene which is one of my favourite scenes I have filmed. From “FAQ” (2004), a cult dytopian feature movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes.

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

FAQ extract 006

“FAQ” (2004) is a cult dytopian feature movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes. This is an extract.

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

FAQ extract 005

“FAQ” (2004) is a cult dytopian feature movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes. This is an extract with Nono (Xavier Tort) and Angeline W.R.S. (Anne-Céline Auché).

FAQ extract 004

“FAQ” (2004) is a cult dytopian feature movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes. This is an extract.

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

FAQ extract 003

“FAQ” (2004) is a cult dytopian feature movie written and directed by Carlos Atanes. In this extract you can see how The Number 3 (Anna Diogène) drinks a cup of milk and talks to the Actor (Antonio Vladimir).

Carlos Atanes website: www.carlosatanes.com

“Novela y cine de ciencia ficción española contemporánea: Una reflexión sobre la humanidad”

The Edwin Mellen Press acaba de publicar este libro de la Dra. Cristina Sánchez-Conejero, de la University of North Texas, un repaso en profundidad a la ciencia-ficción española. Para llevarlo a cabo, la autora se desplazó a España para entrevistarse con algunos de los autores más destacados del país: seis novelistas y un director de cine, Carlos Atanes, con quien mantuvo una larga conversación centrada sobre todo en su película “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions”.

Éste es el sumario:

Prólogo de Ignacio López-Calvo
Reconocimientos

Parte I
Introducción
La ciencia ficción española contemporánea
1. La ciencia ficción y Ia lógica humana
2. Conceptos futuros de guerra y humanidad
3. Nacionalismo, racismo, y feminismo: una anti-utopia de ciencia ficción
4. La historia: un cuento de ciencia ficción?
5. El debate ciencia/religión
6. Cyberpunk, robots, tecnologIa y… ¿el final de la humanidad?

Parte: II: Entrevistas
1. Entrevista a Juan Miguel Aguilera, novelista
2. Entrevista a Carlos Atanes, director
3. Entrevista a Elia Barceló, novelista
4. Entrevista a Gabriel Bermúdez-Castillo, novelista
5. Entrevista a Rafael Mann, novelista
6. Entrevista a Javier Negrete, novelista
7. Entrevista a Domingo Santos, novelista
Obras citadas
Indice alfabético

Description

This book is a comprehensive study on a marginal genre that reveals key elements of Spanish culture and invites a better understanding of humanity as a whole. The body of work on the topic of Spanish science fiction is severely limited and, of the very few sources that exist, most focus on literature by means of a historical perspective. This work analyzes both literature and cinema in an interdisciplinary context and includes a critical and philosophical perspective in order to explore a diversity of cultural topics of contemporary relevance.
Reviews

“Demonstrating stylistic elegance, meticulous research, and a comprehensive approach, [this work] is the best scholarly study to date that offers a highly innovative and impressively wide- ranging exploration of important questions given our present time, place and space and how Spanish science fiction writers and filmmakers engage their readers in them: universal questions pertaining to our very humanity, our role as rational beings, as agents and victims of war, as proponents of nationalism, racism, or feminism, as interpreters of History, our debate with religion, and as technological partners in our very own uncertain future.” – Prof. Doreen O’Connor-Gómez, Whittier College

ISBN10: 0-7734-5104-8
ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5104-9
Páginas: 316
Año: 2009

http://www.mellenpress.com/

Página de "FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions"

“FAQ” @ Cambridge, Massachusetts

Are you living in Boston, Cambridge or near them? So, you can now find the atanic classic dystopia“FAQ:Frequently Asked Questions” at True Independent Video Store Hollywood Express(765 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA, 2 blocks from Central Square station on the Red Line), the first American inter-dimensional gate to atanic world.

First image: Sofia Loren (The Fall of the Roman Empire) and Atanes flank “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions“.

Second image: Darren Buchanan (from videostore Hollywood Express) and Carlos Atanes at “new DVD” section.

More info about Carlos Atanes movies at www.carlosatanes.com

Film Arcade reviews “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions”

Anthony Thurber reviews “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions” for Film Arcade:

“As you have notice with my reviews of Codex Atanicus and Proxima (which was recently released on DVD; click on the title to purchase either one of these films) that I loved both of Atanes’s films. He is one of the most talented and visionary directors that no one has heard of. So after watching Proxima, I wanted to go back and take a look at his first feature film, FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). The film was released back in 2004. It’s about a sisterhood that has total control of France. Angeline, an exemplary and flawless citizen, has just joined the sisterhood and is conflicted with her duties. She is conflicted because she is in love with a special man. Soon this relationship will question her beliefs with the sisterhood’s doctrine and her relationship with this man.

One of the things that I learned by watching each of Carlos Atanes’s films is that he is great in creating some of the most beautiful and most disturbing imagery that you will ever see. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is the darkest film of the three films that I’ve seen from Atanes…

(…)

READ MORE at Film Arcade.

More info about Carlos Atanes movies at

www.carlosatanes.com

Bad Lit reviews “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions”

Mike Everleth reviews “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions” for Bad Lit.

“I was first introduced to the work of Carlos Atanes via his short film compilation DVD Codex Atanicus, which featured a trio of surreal shorts filled with wild characters, garishly colored sets and non sequitor plots, all produced with an intense manic energy. However, Atanes’ first feature film, FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) — released in 2004 — is a complete stylistic turnabout. The surrealism that governed his shorts is here reduced to brief little flourishes, all color seems to be sucked out of 3/4 of the film, the plot is fairly straightforward and the main character stumbles through the movie like a cross between a somnambulist in early avant garde trance films and Being There’s Chauncey Gardener.Yet, the change in approach is totally complimentary to FAQ’s themes and plot, which adds up to a highly successful film. As much as I thoroughly enjoyed the shorts of Codex Atanicus, I found Atanes’ first feature a much more thought-provoking and satisfying experience.

The film takes place in a vaguely futuristic dystopian milieu like in 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale, except here the oppressors are a female group called the Sisterhood of Metacontrol. They bombard Paris with a steady stream of megaphoned announcements advocating a strict separation of the sexes. Men and women can and do live together, but touching is strictly forbidden and each sex is encouraged to not let the other influence their lives.

Now, here’s where it gets a little tricky. Is Atanes offering a misogynist diatribe against the feminization of Europe? (The director is Spanish, but the film is in French.) Or is he just providing a different basis for a repressive government than the usual patriarchies one typically finds in dystopian fiction? Personally, I’m going with the latter since the film does feature a strong, independent woman in the second lead and nothing in the Codex Atanicus would suggest a misogynistic nature in Atanes’s background. But it’s still a risky move for a male writer/director to take.”

(…)

READ MORE at Bad Lit.

More info about Carlos Atanes films at

www.carlosatanes.com

The Angry Princess reviews “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions”

The Angry Princess reviews “FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions” for This Is Some Scene.

“Here is another Carlos Atanes film for you to experience. Now all of the stories I have watched from him thus far have been very different than anything I have seen before. Some didn’t make sense but that was the beauty of it-they just didn’t need to. They were like a wild trip thru this man’s dreams and fascinations, and FAQ is no different. I really didn’t get the jist of it but it seemed like the women were the leaders in this one.

What I want to know is what was the white stuff they all were drinking, it was to thin to be milk…how odd that I want to know that right? FAQ told the tale of mutation. You see all sorts of weird specimens in jars. The shelves against the walls were covered in jars of them! The two women working talk about how one of the giant specimens mother took out one of their boats today and it sunk!”

(…)

READ MORE at HERE.

More info about Carlos Atanes movies at

www.carlosatanes.com

Alien’s Café interviews Carlos Atanes about “PROXIMA”

Monika Swuine interviews Carlos Atanes.

“Après FAQ, le cinéaste catalan signe le scénario et la réalisation d’un nouveau long métrage de science fiction. Deux mois de tournage, des comédiens et des techniciens professionnels, des effects spéciaux…, ce pur produit du cinéma indépendant montre qu’on peut faire un “vrai” film sans disposer d’un budget pharaonique. Un film qui sera d’autant plus “vrai” qu’il n’aura rien de formaté. Ce qui est indéniablement le cas de PROXIMA“.

(…)

READ MORE at Alien`s Café.

More info about Carlos Atanes movies at

www.carlosatanes.com

“Se publica el polémico film FAQ”

La revista MondoSonoro informa de la aparición del DVD del largometraje distópico "FAQ" en el mercado internacional tras los bloqueos a su distribución y los problemas con el Festival de Cine Fantástico de Sitges.

Más información sobre el cine de Carlos Atanes en

www.carlosatanes.com