Going to share this trailer with you today for a horror short called La neuva (The Newcomer) from director Ivan Villamel and his co-writer Raúl Cerezo.
Maria is the new teacher who arrives at an old religious school. On her first day, she will have to teach a group of rebellious teens who are part of a punishment class. An unexpected event will turn the classroom into a real hell.
La nueva originally caught my eye because of Cerezo's involvement as one of the writers. He's a director whose two feature films, The Passenger (La pasajera) and The Elderly (Viejos), have made an impression on me over the past year. So I asked him about and he re-introduced me to Villamel. Wait. Re-introduced?
We have to go back, way back, to 2017 when Villamel's short film Mr. Dentonn had become the most programmed and awarded short film of all time. When we shared the news it had been programmed at over 510 festivals and received over 100 awards. It's been far too long inbetween projects that I'd plum forgot we'd written about Villamel before. There are only many times you can say 'lo siento' before it loses all meaning and effect.
As Ivan and I caught up about La nueva I was struck by something he wrote in an email to me, which I consider as good a director's statement as anything esle. "Raul and I really enjoyed writing this story, it was a lot of fun to make constant twists and turns and reflect on the nature of evil in human beings when they suffer emotional pain. Bullying creates monsters".
La nueva will have its world premiere at Sitges. There are a number of regional premieres already scheduled afterwards, but we'll allow each festival to make their own lineup announcements in due time.