Banderas to the future: First Poster for AUTÓMATA

Antonio Banderas is on an interesting and somewhat fantastical path in his mid-career. 2011 saw him voice a swashbuckling cat in Puss-in-Boots, play a mad-yet-broken scientist in the wonderfully weird new Pedro Almodóvar film The Skin I Live In, and now he is set to encounter robots in the new Gabe Ibáñez film, Autómata.

Set in a future with the world on the edge of ecological collapse, science is about to realize its dream of creating artificial intelligence. Banderas plays a security agent with a robotics company, on a seemingly routine investigation of robot manipulation. No doubt it turns out to be anything but routine.

Ibáñez's first feature film, Hierro (2009) is a wonderfully atmospheric film about a woman's search for her missing son, and shows Ibáñez's incredibly eye for moody detail and the subtleties of human relationships in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Having also worked on visual effects on two of Álex de la Iglesia's films, Ibáñez also has a keen eye for the effects needed in a science fiction film. This is a director and a film to look out for.