Berta - Fantasia World Premiere (Short FIlm)
Director: Lucía Forner Segarra
Starring: Nerea Barros, Elías González, Thais Blume
Written by: Lucía Forner Segarra
Produced by: Lucía Forner Segarra
Cinematography by: Claudia Rodríguez
Original Score by: Joan Vilà
Synopsis:
Berta tries to seek understanding from a man who once hurt her in her past.
Thoughts:
The rape revenge sub genre can often be a very difficult realm of horror to watch as it relates so closely to what happens so often in real life. These films are always essential viewing however, especially when they attempt to try to be unique from their counterparts.
Nerea Barros plays the titular character Berta and when we first meet her she is busy towing an illegally parked car. It's owner is a man named Alex, who is understandably annoyed and questions Berta's actions. She invites him to join her as she tows the car back to the yard, were he can dispute the fine that's about to come his way. And the remainder of their day will change their lives forever.
Lucía Forner Segarra has managed to squeeze alot of emotion in such a short runtime and that is obviously down to the performance of Nerea Barros. What caught me off guard was the dark humour that was present in the script. When we watch these films we always root for the woman of course and we want to see her get her moment and we love to see the perpetrator get what's coming to them. Much of the humour is realised from Elías González' initial confusement and then his utter panic as the inevidability of what's about to happen begins to set in. He turns from a stoic grown man trying to gaslight Berta into a child screaming for his life. But it's not simply just the acts of "torture" that elicits the humour, it's the subtle nuances that he delivers in his performance.
'Berta' is part three of a symbolic trilogy which addresses accountability and explores themes of empowerment and self worth. I haven't seen the first two short films, 'Marta' and 'Dana' but now having watched this I want to seek them out as soon as I can. Lucía graduated with a Master's Degree in cinematogrpahy before venturing into directing and you can tell because some of her shots choices are gorgeous.
Barros is an exciting filmmaker that shows with this short film that she has the ability to create compelling, tense scenes but also have a bit of fun while doing it. I believe she is curently working on her first feature film so we will all be keeping a close eye on that one.
Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
-Gavin Logan
'Berta' recevied it's World Premiere at Fantasia '24 on July 28th
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