SPAIN: JOINT AMERICAN-SPANISH FILM PRODUCTION "GAUDI AFTERNOON " IS BEING SHOT IN BARCELONA AROUND ANTONI GAUDI'S ARCHITECTURE

Record ID: 389581

  • Title: SPAIN: JOINT AMERICAN-SPANISH FILM PRODUCTION "GAUDI AFTERNOON " IS BEING SHOT IN BARCELONA AROUND ANTONI GAUDI'S ARCHITECTURE
  • Date: 7th March 2000
  • Summary: BARCELONA, SPAIN (MARCH ) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) VARIOUS SHOWS OF ARCHITECT ANTONI GAUDI'S SAGRADA FAMILIA CHURCH (UNDERLAYED WITH GENERIC SPANISH MUSIC) WIDE OF ROOFTOPS OF BARCELONA FROM GAUDI'S PARC GUELL VARIOUS OF PARC GUELL SIGN OF GAUDI MUSEUM CLAPPERBOARD FOR DIRECTOR SUSAN SEIDELMAN'S FILM "GAUDI AFTERNOON"
  • Embargoed: 22nd March 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BARCELONA, SPAIN
  • Country: Spain
  • Reuters ID: LVA3KKYE9IRNSOHY05GOQVPGHYVK
  • Story Text: The Catalan capital, Barcelona provides the backdrop to American director Susan Seidelman's latest venture, "Gaudi Afternoon", a gender-bending farce based on Barbara Wilson's relatively unknown novel.
    As filming entered week five, the stellar cast Juliette Lewis, Marcia Gay Harden, Lili Taylor and Judy Davis talked to Reuters on set.
    Spanish modernist architect, Antoni Gaudi's 'Parc Guell' was just one of the Barcelona locations used by Seidelman for her new film, "Gaudi Afternoon".Unusually, the entire film is being shot on location in the Catalan capital over an eight week period and many of Gaudi's famous works are providing the backdrop to sets.
    Seidelman who is best known for directing Madonna in, "Desperately Seeking Susan" and the current popular television series, "Sex in the City", says for once, she was given the opportunity to hand pick her cast.
    "I feel very privileged, I got to pick my dream cast.
    Each character in the movie is a very distinctive type.It's four women who are the leads and have very unique and distinctive personalities and you sort of fantasize 'what would it be like if I could get so and so to play the role' and I think I was able to get the cast that I had hoped for", she said.
    "Gaudi Afternoon" stars Judy Davis as American translator Cassandra Reilly who lives in Barcelona.One day Cassandra is approached by American femme-fatale, Frankie Stevens (Marcia Gay Harden) to help find her husband.At first Cassandra turns down the offer but the chance to earn some money is too tempting.
    As Cassandra's amateur sleuthing skills to find him are put to the test and she slowly attempts to help unravel Frankie's secretive past, she quickly finds herself embroiled in a web of mistaken identities, double-crossing families and a kidnapping plot.
    The appearance of sensual April (Juliette Lewis) and the elusive Ben (Lili Taylor) adds to the confusion and Cassandra finds herself immersed in a riddle even more complex than Gaudi's haunting architecture.
    Lewis better known for her roles in "Natural Born Killers"
    and "Cape Fear" says she always tries to find something different about the characters she picks to play and loves her part of April, in "Gaudi Afternoon".
    "My character in the movie is one thing on the surface very pseudo-spiritual, kind of new age, but it's all a pretense I think, but she doesn't think that and because inside she's a little bit manipulative and a bit lost but I'm sure all her intentions are nice.It's a really colourful character to play because I hope for it to be comedic, and I think when you commit and when a character takes themselves seriously then itup being very funny," Lewis said.
    Unwilling to give the entire plot away, Seidelman describes the film as a gender-bending detective story about 'alternative kinds of families' but she says the intention is not to offend.
    "Well I'm hoping it will challenge audiences, the goal isn't to offend as much as it is to challenge and say 'hey look the world has changed and there's all different kinds of ways that people live these days within relationships, within families.When you think about it because in this movie, there are bisexual men, lesbian women, asexual women, cross-dressing I mean it really presents a variety of types of people and it also raises the question 'what is female, what is male?'.I think in some ways the traditional definitions, it's not that they don't apply, it's that they've been stretched over the last decade," Seidelman said.
    Marcia Gay Harden who played alongside heartthrob Brad Pitt in, "Meet Joe Black", said she had no doubts about taking the role of Frankie.
    "The first thing that appealed to me about doing the film with Susan Seidelman directing it, I love working with female directors and I've been wanting to work with her for a long time.So that was almost all that needed to be done, said, offered, and the second thing was Frankie, my character's name is Frankie.And she's unlike any woman I've ever known and now / know because in doing my research I've tried to hook up with a lot of ladies like Frankie and find out what makes them tick.In that process a whole new world has been opened up to me," Gay Harden said.
    "Gaudi Afternoon" is one of a number of recent US/Spanish collaborations.It is produced by Andres Vincente Gomez, whose credits include "Belle Epoque"; The Girl of Your Dreams" with Penelope Cruz.
    Filming is due to be completed at the beginning of April.
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