The Sevillian director Santi Amodeo -winner of the Award Eloy de la Iglesia-La Opinión de Málaga of our festival in 2016- presented this Saturday in the 5 minutos de cine section of the 27th Festival de Málaga the first images of his new film, 'El cielo de los animales', adaptation of the namesake book of short stories by the American writer David James Poissant.

'El cielo de los animales' is the first time Santi Amodeo adapts to the screen an original story, in this case, a group of stories about loss, a “dark subject treated in a healing way, leaving an aftertaste of joy”, as the director himself pointed out in the presentation. Filmed in Seville, the story is articulated around four independent stories, starring the pairs of actors Raúl Atrévalo and Paula Díaz, África de la Cruz and Claudio Portalo, and Manolo Solo and Jesús Carroza.

The presentation of the first fragments of the film was attended by Santi Amodeo himself, who was accompanied by actors Raúl Arévalo, África de la Cruz, Paula Díaz and Claudio Portalo.

“What attracted me most about the script is the luminous part of the loss,” said Arévalo, the protagonist of one of the stories that make up the project. For her part, Paula Díaz, winner of the Carmen Award for best supporting actress for Amodeo's previous film, 'Las gentiles', also wanted to flatter the director by reflecting the 'surrealist and magical touch' that characterizes this feature film from which several isolated scenes have been shown to the public.

'El cielo de los animales' is the seventh feature film by the director from Seville, responsible for 'El factor Pilgrim' (2000) together with Alberto Rodríguez, Special Jury Mention at the San Sebastian Festival; 'Astronautas' (2003), candidate for the Goya for Best New Director and selected among the 10 best European films of 2004 by the critics of Variety magazine; 'Cabeza de perro' (2006), Best Actor Award at the Shanghai Festival; '¿Quién mató a Bambi? ' (2013), one of the ten highest-grossing films of that year in Spain; 'Yo, mi mujer y mi mujer muerta', which won the Best Actor Award at the Malaga Film Festival; and 'Las Gentiles' (2022), winner of two Carmen Awards from the Andalusian Film Academy.