paradise lost - Pathé Films AG
Transcription
paradise lost - Pathé Films AG
DIMITRI RASSAM pReSenTS NOBODY ESCAPES PABLO ESCOBAR BENICIO DEL TORO JOSH HUTCHERSON ©MIKA COTELLON ©2014 CHAPTER 2 – PATHÉ PRODUCTION – ORANGE STUDIO – ROXBURY – PARADISE LOST FILM A.I.E – NEXUS FACTORY – JOUROR DÉVELOPPEMENT ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST A FILM WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ANDREA DI STEFANO CLAUDIA TRAISAC BRADY CORBET CARLOS BARDEM ANA GIRARDOT ADApTATIon ANDREA DI STEFANO FRANCESCA MARCIANO DIAlogueS ANDREA DI STEFANO DIRecToR of phoTogRAphy LUIS SANSANS A.M.c. eDITeD by DAVID BRENNER MARYLINE MONTHIEUX pRoDucTIon DeSIgneR CARLOS CONTI oRIgInAl MuSIc MAX RICHTER A copRoDucTIon CHAPTER 2 ORANGE STUDIO PATHÉ ROXBURY PARADISE LOST FILM A.I.e. NEXUS FACTORY JOUROR DÉVELOPPEMENT In copRoDucTIon wITh UMEDIA In ASSocIATIon wITh UFUND wITh The pARTIcIpATIon of IcAA CANAL+ CINÉ+ execuTIve pRoDuceRS BENICIO DEL TORO JOSH HUTCHERSON MORITZ BORMAN ASSocIATe pRoDuceR floRIAn geneTeT-MoRel co-pRoDuceD by ROMAIN LE GRAND FRÉDÉRIQUE DUMAS MIGUEL ANGEL FAURA ISAAC TORRAS MOLIST SYLVAIN GOLDBERG SERGE DE POUCQUES ADRIAN POLITOWSKI GILLES WATERKEYN pRoDuceD by DIMITRI RASSAM WWW.PATHEINTERNATIONAL.COM DIMITRI RASSAM presents BENICIO DEL TORO JOSH HUTCHERSON ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST A FILM BY ANDREA DI STEFANO WITH CLAUDIA TRAISAC BRADY CORBET CARLOS BARDEM ANA GIRARDOT Runtime : 120 minutes Distribution PATHÉ FILMS AG Neugasse 6, Postfach 8031 Zürich T 044 277 70 81 F 044 277 70 89 [email protected] Press Jean-Yves Gloor Route de Chailly 205 1814 La Tour-de-Peilz T 021 923 60 00 F 021 923 60 01 [email protected] D O W N L O A D A L L P R E S S M AT E R I A L AT W W W. PAT H E I F I L M S . C H SYNOPSIS Nick thinks he has found paradise when he goes to join his brother in Colombia. A turquoise lagoon, an ivory beach, perfect waves – it’s a dream for this young Canadian surfer. Then he meets Maria, a stunning Colombian girl. They fall madly in love, and everything is going great. That is, until Maria introduces Nick to her uncle: Pablo Escobar. GENESIS OF THE PROJECT Having started his career as an actor, Andrea Di Stefano had wanted to direct for a long time. The idea suddenly came to life when one of his police officer friends told him a story. The story of a man who Pablo Escobar had entrusted with the mission of hiding his treasure, before ordering his execution, wanting to keep the location secret. Andrea Di Stefano has long had an interest in the universe of organized crime. “The codes are always the same: you don’t hit women or children, the family is sacred, and you cannot betray it, on pain of losing the trust of those around you.” Fascinated by the episode of the treasure, and by this criminal figure above the law, Andrea Di Stefano started to research Pablo Escobar and his life. “I think he is the world’s most hated and admired criminal, in almost equal measure. Even today in Colombia, people pray for him and think he was a good guy, while a great many others consider him a monster. The fact that he was close to his family seemed an extra area to explore. When you watch THE GODFATHER, the key element resides not in the fact that Marlon Brando and Al Pacino eliminate people, but in what they say to each other when they are at home, sitting around the family table. So I saw the possibility of structuring a story around a character with a dual personality, and the fact this was Pablo Escobar made the subject even more exciting. My instinct led me to observe him, and in little touches, I wanted to bring additional facets to feed the plot.” Andrea Di Stefano set to work researching, digging up every scrap of material, reading and watching documentaries. “But in studying him, as I approached the truth, it seemed problematic to only show his dark side, the criminal part of his life. I had to concentrate on his private life. I had so much information about him that I ended up almost convinced that I thought like him. Then I got the idea of a second character making a rather unusual journey, a sort of journey inside Escobar’s mind. The narrative would then become even more complex from the point when this character supposedly hid the treasure and was named the target of Escobar’s men.” This was how the character of Nick – played by Josh Hutcherson – came into being. By introducing this character, the film goes down a different path to a traditional biopic and becomes something else. “Each time Escobar’s Machiavellism came into play, I had a mental image of a tsunami getting bigger, capable of causing hundreds of deaths. He could operate in a devastating way, while at the same time touching a lot of people around him. I have some surfer friends, and I thought about their attitude towards the elements, towards life and the future, their fairly relaxed way of looking at things. So ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST recounts two parallel destinies; two characters, each with their own areas of dark and light. I don’t like protagonists stamped with purity. I find all internal conflict interesting. Nick gradually becomes aware of the monstrousness of his girlfriend’s uncle. He understands that he shares some responsibility for what has gone on. I didn’t want to show full-frontal violence and dead bodies. I prefer the psychological conflict; it’s more cinematographic. By introducing this element at the heart of a dark story, I wanted to evoke Greek tragedy, mythology, the story of Icarus, someone who thinks they are living the dream, who approaches the sun, and suddenly it all goes wrong as a result of a grave error. On the pretext of having fallen in love, and wanting to follow his heart, the dreamer – whose sole concern was his future and the happiness that comes with it – finds himself in the midst of an unexpected situation. Gradually, he loses control, then loses everything, until his life becomes a nightmare. Pablo is a demigod in his country, Nick just a human being, and he cannot do anything once the divinity has decided to intervene. His fate is turned upside-down.” As his right-hand man says in the film: “No one can escape Pablo Escobar.” Andrea Di Stefano says he got the idea for the character of Maria, Escobar’s niece, from reading a book by Pablo Escobar’s brother, Roberto. “He describes the life of Perolindo. Just before her uncle went to prison, her boyfriend was killed in a bomb explosion. She went to see Pablo and slapped him in front of everyone. I was drawn to such a character – a person who is not afraid of a man like that. I started to visualize that young woman, convinced this was a way into a love story.” “Just before I started writing, I replayed the film of Pablo Escobar’s life in order to find the period best suited to the film. The film begins at a time when the Colombians viewed Pablo Escobar When producer Dimitri Rassam was handed the script of ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST, he was immediately on board. “I knew he was an actor, that it was his first film, and that the project was ambitious. I loved the story and the script, but at the same time, I knew it was going to be complicated. But I wanted to contribute to this adventure and bring it to the screen.” Dimitri Rassam was drawn by the various aspects of the narrative. “ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST has all the elements that people love in a movie. We know that Escobar is one of the most powerful drug traffickers, but you never see any cocaine. It is above all about family, the bonds that are forged, as someone very rich, and very few suspected him of dealing in cocaine, especially since at the time that drug was not considered as anything bad. You could get a much longer jail term being caught dealing marijuana. In Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, cocaine was considered as medication. You just had to chew the leaves to fight malaria or a cold. It was quite usual. I was fascinated reading an interview of one of Pablo’s elder sisters. She said that everyone had always chewed the leaves. In her view, her brother was just content exporting a national product. For her, for almost everyone, it was natural.” Concerning the events and the dialog, Andrea Di Stefano says that nothing in the first draft of the script was invented. “Everything that Pablo Escobar comes out with was said at one point or another in his life. That’s perhaps less and the trajectory that can result from that. At the end of our first meeting with Andrea, I felt even more sure about it. He had his film in his head; he knew exactly the path he had to take his characters along. Many projects about Escobar have done the rounds, but this one is quite unlike any of them. And it was precisely this very different approach that interested me. You’ve got this incredible character, his insane presence, but above all, it’s a terrific story. Based on true events mixed with fictional elements, it has that quality which makes great tragedies.” “As for the casting, I had no hesitation. Benicio Del Toro had to play Pablo the case concerning the veracity of his words in the final version, since we changed a few lines, but everything is still based on true facts. For example, I find the scene in which he finds himself sitting in Bonnie and Clyde’s car quite fascinating. He really did buy the vehicle in which the outlaws were gunned down. He always considered himself a bandit. One of his men recounted how he would sit for hours in that car. Bonnie Parker was riddled with bullets inside it, and I think when sat in her place, he was thinking about how they had been betrayed by a third person. All of this served as a starting point to bring him to life, to provide his motivation, to render him active. It’s funny because I started to add elements to the story over the three years, and then I wrote the script in three weeks, 20 full days, from morning to night. I’ve never written so fast before.” Escobar. There was no doubt about it, it had to be him. If he had said no, the film would not have been made. It was important to have an imposing Pablo, an actor who could command a presence like that of Marlon Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW. Even when he’s not on-screen, you can feel him. The mere mention of his name is enough; he has that power. Josh Hutcherson’s involvement was decisive in the construction of the narrative. There was no option, the alchemy between the two of them was fundamental.” Pablo Escobar and Benicio Del Toro ended up blending into one in the director’s mind. “As soon as I started working with him, I no longer saw Escobar, but Benicio. He is so generous in everything he brings to the role, he became my reality. In my eyes, he’s more real than the real one. We talked over an over, and we agreed on certain precise points. It was important for me that he should break away from the real Escobar. Once the character had taken shape on paper, Benicio had to appropriate him. I’m grateful to him; he allowed me to become better by listening to him. I liked his ideas because they surprised me.” Josh Hutcherson became involved in the project early on. To begin with, the director had written the character as someone older and more experienced, until he met the actor. “As soon as I met him, I knew he was the guy. Like Benicio, he ended up totally melding with the character of Nick. The fact that in the past he had acted under the direction of Benicio Del Toro (in 7 DAYS IN HAVANA), was an advantage. Josh sees Benicio like a father, similar to the way Nick sees Pablo.” The choice was more difficult for the role of Maria. “To embody Maria, we saw hundreds of actresses. Some of them were unbelievably moving, but they lacked a purity, a simplicity. For her first audition, Claudia showed up with a strange haircut, but she was original, there was something different about her, something radiant. I immediately felt it was gold.” Andrea Di Stefano has endless praise for Claudia Traisac. Hailing from Madrid, and only 20 years old, Claudia Traisac is making her big-screen debut in ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST. For the role of Dylan, Nick’s brother, he says, “Nick had to find himself caught up in a dilemma, forced to choose between two families. I like that in Shakespeare’s theater, that clash between two relatives, one saying to the other, ‘You are perhaps making a big mistake here.’ As often in real life, you think you’re going in the right direction, and despite warnings from those around you, you rarely change tack.” That was the logic behind creating the character of Anne, Dylan’s partner, played by Ana Girardot. INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA DI STEFANO DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER Born in Rome in 1972, Andrea Di Stefano grew up with Italian comedies and a popular kind of cinema. As a shy teenager, he found his salvation on stage. “I started out in theater,” he says. “That helped me. I got on stage, I acted, and when I came off, my shyness took over again.” Aged 20, he left for New York where he attended drama school. In 1997, Marco Bellocchio offered him his first role in THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG. Twelve months later, Dario Argento gave him a role in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Having returned to the US, Julian Schnabel cast him opposite Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp in BEFORE NIGHT FALLS. In 2007, under the direction of Marina De Van, he starred alongside Sophie Marceau and Monica Bellucci in DON’T LOOK BACK, which was screened in Cannes. NINE was released in 2009, and although Rob Marshall did not give him a leading role, Andrea Di Stefano did not mind. He was already thinking about the story of ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST. “I’ve made some good films and had some good roles, but in the end, I realized I wanted something else”, he says. WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO GET BEHIND THE CAMERA ? I’ve always been interested in storytelling. It’s in me. Whereas the same cannot be said for directing. I’d never even thought about doing my first film. I just had a story to offer. I can only transcribe what I see in my head. In my view, the director reproduces a sort of dream world of his own creation. I see the most beautiful shots and the best staging in my dreams. I try to bring together the images, the scenes and the emotions in the service of the story, using my experiences as an actor and my cinematographic tastes. I’ve always loved cinema, I’m a fan of SUNRISE by Murnau, of 8½ by Fellini, and all Kurosawa’s work. It’s no doubt my sole passion since childhood. The shooting was not easy, but everyone gave the best of themselves. My obsession was finding the right balance between the emotions and what was going on in front of the camera, so the audience could feel the honesty in the scene, as conveyed by the actors. HOW DID YOU HANDLE THE ACTORS ? As an actor myself, though not exactly Marlon Brando, I was always a bit frustrated because I had the impression that directors do not always feel our concerns. The actor arrives with his emotional baggage, tensions and expectations, and the director must try to do his best to put him at his ease so he can give everything he’s got when the time comes. Once the scene is done, you must make him think that he has done the maximum when he goes back to the dressing room. That’s what I try to do. I listened to everyone’s ideas, even if I didn’t use them. Movies are a matter of teamwork. I have the skill of reading a script and transposing the story visually, and of imaging how I can improve it. I’ve always discussed things with directors, so why not do the same with the actors I am directing? DID THE EDITING SEEM LIKE WRITING A NEW VERSION OF YOUR STORY ? It was another take on it. I had heard other directors say that cutting things out can be hard. I found myself facing different problems, but I always kept the story in mind. That was paramount. It had to immerse the spectator in an atmosphere, and not allow him or her to awaken from it. WHAT ARE YOUR INFLUENCES ? It’s funny, but I only started to see the beauty of an image quite late on. I became a passionate opera fan at 19. When I started in theater, I discovered that the stage and the power of the narrative, combined with music, can inspire deep emotions. That gave me a sort of direction. I’ve always been drawn to cinema built around great stories. My influence is Italian, of course, the cinema of the 1950-60s, but I also really like Japanese cinema. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE AUDIENCES TO FEEL WHEN THEY COME OUT AFTER WATCHING ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST ? I think people go to the cinema because it’s the closest they get to their dreams. The surprising closeups, the landscapes, the people who express things that you understand later, the music, the images, the sound, the shadows, that’s what people are looking for in a movie theater. And that’s what TV cannot provide. I’d like the audience to feel empathy for Nick and Maria, but also for Pablo. During the final scene, I’d like them to have pity for this man. DESPITE THE HORRORS HE COMMITS ? There’s always the question of how you can recount the positive side of such a horrible, evil character. I’m not a documentarian. My job is just to tell a story, to make a movie with, at the end, a pure philosophical reading of this man. His violent acts speak for him. THE DIRECTOR SEEN BY HIS ACTORS For Benicio Del Toro, Andrea Di Stefano’s enthusiasm is contagious. “Since he is an actor himself, he’s aware of the pressure we put on ourselves in front of the camera. There’s a lot of tension when you’re about to be in a scene. The most important thing is precisely to relieve this stress and help the actors to relax. He himself is relaxed, but he knows what he wants. It’s a pleasure working with him. He knows the elements that make up his film; a love story, a story of family, and in the middle of that, the baddie against the good guy. This film has lots of audience-pleasing elements. It could attract fans of mainstream films and those of more independent pictures. I was impressed by Andrea, and let’s not forget the fact that he also wrote the story. Some screenwriters are rigid, whereas he is open to the idea of changing pieces of dialog, or adding things. Andrea wasn’t against that, which is very pleasant.” Josh Hutcherson: “Andrea adores putting everything into the image. He’s doing his cinema and leaves his camera to tell his story. Many actor-directors get obsessed by the acting, the performance, and internalize everything. He left us a certain freedom. He and his director of photography succeeded in obtaining the image they wanted so that it was always moving the story along. He likes playing around with dialog. He understands actors, and when you are in the moment, and you feel something, he’s not afraid of improvisation. To him, the script is the literature of cinema. At times, we had a lot of lines to say, but we cut it down to three words, because that made the scene stronger and gave it authenticity. He’s not hung up on words, but focuses on the story“. INTERVIEW WITH BENICIO DEL TORO PA B L O E S C O B A R DID YOU HAVE ANY RESERVATIONS BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED THE ROLE ? There are always hesitations, but this story has numerous dimensions and I was very excited by the idea of portraying this particular version of Escobar. WHICH SIDE OF PABLO ESCOBAR DO WE SEE IN THIS FILM ? I had to read up on his life, because before, I only knew the superficial side. It’s important to know that this film doesn’t tell the story of his life; these are scraps of his existence told through the eyes of a young man who’s going out with his niece. You discover several facets: his family life, his time as a politician, you get a glimpse of his cruelty. I think the script tries to remain fairly faithful to many elements about Escobar. DID YOU ALSO TRY TO REMAIN AS FAITHFUL AS POSSIBLE TOWARDS HIM, OR WAS THERE ROOM FOR INVENTION ? There was room for invention. Although the key parts are based on true facts, the story remains fictional. You try to gather as much information as possible concerning Escobar, to see how he behaved, study the archive images, but whether you want to or not, all this material ends up becoming a movie character. With Andrea, we knew we could take a few liberties. the best of yourself, every time it’s demanding and stressful, sometimes it’s depressing, and from time to time, it’s exciting. You just hope to work with good people and to have a little fun. HOW DOES THE ABUNDANCE OF MATERIAL, OF BOOKS AND DOCUMENTARIES HELP TO CONSTRUCT THE CHARACTER ? IN YOUR VIEW, WHERE DOES PABLO ESCOBAR’S STRONG SENSE OF FAMILY COME FROM ? If you have a precise idea of the character and the director or screenwriter have another, or if you have any doubts, you can always refer back to the source material. All the documents then become arbitrators: they help you decide. DID IT HELP HAVING PLAYED CHE GUEVARA ? In a way, yes. But the film CHE was more based on his life. Everything was true, which was a bit constraining. With CHE, it was as if you had to follow a path. Here, with Pablo, there was a bit more flexibility in the interpretation. Acting doesn’t only consist of learning your lines and throwing yourself in; it’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s above all about hard work. Before the shoot, someone asked me if this film was going to be easier than the other one. In my view, they are both unique, and if you want to try and give His mother was a major influence on him, as were his brother and sisters. There’s a Latin side in the importance of family. His father and mother were present when he was a child. He doesn’t come from a broken family, and wasn’t an abandoned child. He wasn’t raised in comfortable surroundings, his family was poor. He had a sense of family during his childhood which he kept throughout his life. In a way, that was his weak spot. What’s more, that was his downfall. He was always talking to his family, which allowed him to be tracked and located. WHY WAS HE SO PROTECTIVE TOWARDS HIS NIECE ? It’s a matter of family. He feels a bit like a father to her. He just wants to make sure she doesn’t suffer. He is protective, not possessive. It’s only at the end of the film that he becomes jealous of Nick, fearing that he’s trying to distance Maria. He creates the world that he wants for each member of his family. They can live according to his rules, but if they want to break them and go their own way, he won’t tolerate that. WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING WITH JOSH HUTCHERSON ? Josh belongs to that category of sincere, genuine actors. He strives to justify things by building on the reality, the period, the location, the character. Not being greatly expansive, he knows what I mean when I only say half a sentence. We had established this communication, this communion on the segment of film I made (7 DAYS IN HAVANA). That was one of the reasons why I was excited at the idea of making this film. He’s one of the young actors whose work I appreciate. JOSH HUTCHERSON NICK THE CHARACTER Nick is Canadian. He left his country to join his brother in Colombia. Josh Hutcherson says, “Nick never had any great dreams of his own. He’s intelligent but imbued with a certain pessimism. I like this character that falls in love and finds himself dealing with a feeling he’s never known before. To begin with, Maria and he don’t speak the same language. Yet the mutual understanding is immediate. Having found a woman who’s ready to fight for him, he allows himself to be guided by his love for her, to the point where he is blinded by it. When he comes to live in the hacienda, he discovers the way Pablo behaves towards his family, his generosity, the parties he throws for everyone. He can only see this man as someone good. That’s what makes the character interesting. This duality was common knowledge. He was so good, and did so many things for his community, and at the same time, he was such a psychologically twisted individual.” “The cocktail based on the suspense of a thriller, added to the romantic side with its invisible forces which guide the story, and the presence of Escobar’s character, add up to an attractive package.” He was drawn to this approach of making a love film wrapped in an action movie. In his view, ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST, doesn’t belong to any genre. Josh Hutcherson says he feels close to Nick. “In the sense that everyone, at a given moment in their life, has perhaps been blinded by love and allowed themselves be drawn in until they lose control.” ON HIS CO-STARS “Benicio Del Toro is the kind of actor who immerses himself deep in his characters. On set, he is all about improvisation, focusing on the moment. He feels the scene, and is always looking to play with it. Not always knowing where you’re going increases your energy. Benicio is one of the greats.” Josh Hutcherson said he was impressed with Claudia Traisac, given that it was her first film. “I don’t know how she always managed to find just the right note. What’s more, she’s very funny.” He says he learnt a lot playing the role of Nick. “It’s a very new type of character for me, in any case a more mature role. That’s what most attracted me to it.” CLAUDIA TRAISAC MARIA A modern, dynamic woman, Maria works in a health clinic alongside men and is afraid of nothing. Claudia Traisac sees her as a person “who thinks she can change the world and the situation in Colombia. She’s blocked inside, a prisoner of her situation, but meeting Nick has allowed her to open up. She’s a good person, one of the few in the film. I like Maria, I liked waking up every morning in her skin. Regarding her uncle, she starts off thinking he’s a good man, the benefactor of Colombia. As someone who is always honest, she finds herself gradually immersed in a world where everything becomes a lie. I think the Colombian people are like her; they have experienced the same thing. He was their hero. To begin with, they saw him as a fantastic guy, he was so generous. But they ended up realizing to what extent he had ravaged the country.” DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON WITH MARIA? “Actually, I think I am quite like her. That’s maybe one of the reasons why my name appears on the credits! (laughs). Of course we’re the same: I discovered her through her struggles.” WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU FIRST READ THE SCRIPT? “When I first read it, with my father, we both thought it was amazing, that it would make a real movie. I was won over from the first page. You can tell that Andrea wrote it with passion, with love.” She did two auditions then left her country for the first time to meet Andrea Di Stefano. They instantly connected. But it took two more auditions to convince the producers. “After the last session, I left and I switched off my cellphone. I didn’t want to know. I was with my friends, and my father and mother, who were all begging me to turn it back on. I did so during the night and found I had more than a dozen calls from Panama. I called Andrea back and asked him to repeat the phrase, ‘OK , you’re Maria!’ I was over the moon.” PABLO ESCOBAR Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on 1 December 1949. His father was a peasant, his mother a schoolteacher. Poverty was his daily bread. He and his six brothers and sisters grew up in a house without electricity or running water. As a teenager, he started to steal cars and gravestones. Aged 20, to earn more money he began working for a smuggler, who pushed him into ever more serious crimes such as kidnapping. Then came drug trafficking. “I was young,” he said. “I wanted to live and I was ambitious. I didn’t know anything about drug smuggling. That’s when I met a young gringo in a disco in Medellin. He had a plane and wanted to buy some cocaine. I made my decision. We started selling him merchandise. There was little risk, it was profitable. What’s more, you didn’t have to kill anyone, which was important for me.” Pablo Escobar really got going in the business in 1975. The following year, he was arrested in possession of 18 kilos of cocaine. Once he got out of jail, he moved his operation up a gear. He started hiding the drugs in tires and pioneered the use of “mules”. The money rolled in. He gradually took control of the drug trade and neutralized the representatives of the authorities, either by bribing them, or by eliminating them if necessary. At the start of the 1980s, he took over the Medellin cartel. In 1982, he was elected as a liberal parliamentarian, but he was rejected by the political caste and embarked on a campaign of terror. He feared no one, especially not judges or journalists, and the myths surrounding him began to take shape. In 1989, he had three presidential candidates assassinated. That same year, he was ranked in seventh place among the world’s richest people. His business was bringing in more than 30 billion dollars a year. Pablo Escobar became a god in the eyes of those he helped with his money; he had more than 500 houses built, along with hospitals and schools. To others, he was a threat and a criminal. The killings were counted in thousands. His network, the biggest at the time, stretched from Peru and Bolivia, and was flooding the markets in the US, Europe and Asia. At its peak, his organization was exporting 15 tons of cocaine a day. In 1991, he agreed to go into custody in exchange for Colombia refusing his extradition to the US. But he wasn’t behind bars for long, escaping the following year. A new wave of violence followed. His foot soldiers, known as los sicaros, were said to number 3,000. That year, 6,662 people were killed in the streets of Medellin, and hundreds more disappeared. The Colombian authorities, with the help of the CIA, the FBI and all the US federal security services, embarked on a manhunt. More than 20,000 searches were made, more than 2,000 police officers and soldiers were involved. On 2 December 1993, the boss of the cartel was located and shot by marksmen. Millions followed his funeral. His organization disappeared in 1995. Twenty years after his death, his elder sister asked for forgiveness for not acting earlier. Today, his tomb is still a place of worship, visited by tourists. WHO IS THE REAL PABLO ESCOBAR, IN THE DIRECTOR’S VIEW? Andrea Di Stefano says, “Everyone’s heard of Pablo Escobar, but no one really knows who he is. In telling the story of my film, I discovered that everyone I spoke to knew nothing of how he was a politician before becoming a criminal. Everyone thought he was a dead ringer for Scarface, which he wasn’t. He was like a big teddy bear. Everyone thought he was hugely rich and did bizarre, funny things. He went to Las Vegas, met Frank Sinatra, was nuts about Elvis and was always performing his songs. He supported a soccer team, and sang opera. At the same time, he was one of the most dangerous criminals in history. He paid $5,000 for anyone who killed a cop, he blew up a plane with 140 people on board, and planted a bomb in a building right opposite a toy store. He did monstrous acts and his family talk about him as someone exceptional. His home, called Hacienda Napoles, in an echo of Michael Jackson’s Neverland, had its own zoo. Located at Puerto Triunfo, it was an amusement park where he personally conducted visits for local schools so that everyone could see what he’d built for his own children, and so the school kids could have fun. He adored Disney cartoons, especially Mowgli in THE JUNGLE BOOK. He’s a fascinating character, but a psychotic. It’s funny, because when the FBI drew up his profile at the end of the 1980s, his unusual behavior preventing them from classifying him in the organized crime boss category, so they catalogued him as a serial killer. From my point of view, the most fearsome people first arrive with a big smile, and to begin with I didn’t sense just how dangerous he could be. My aim wasn’t to make a documentary, but to stay true to who he was as a whole person. Yes, he was a funny guy, but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t also be a monster.” CAST PABLO ESCOBAR NICK MARIA DYLAN DRAGO ANNE BENICIO DEL TORO JOSH HUTCHERSON CLAUDIA TRAISAC BRADY CORBET CARLOS BARDEM ANA GIRARDOT CREW Director Andrea Di Stefano Writer Andrea Di Stefano Director of Photography Luis Sansans, A.M.C Editor Maryline Monthieux David Brenner Set Designer Carlos Conti Costume Designer Marylin Fitoussi Original Music Max Richter First Assistant Director James Canal Director of Production Bruno Vatin Produced by Dimitri Rassam Co-produced by Romain Le Grand Frédérique Dumas Miguel Angel Faura Isaac Torras Molist Sylvain Goldberg Serge de Poucques Adrian Politowski Gilles Waterkeyn Executive Producers Benicio del Toro Josh Hutcherson Moritz Borman © Photos Mika Cotellon ©2014 Chapter 2 – Pathé Production – Orange Studio – Roxbury– Paradise Lost Film A.I.E – Nexus Factory – Jouror Developpement DOWNLOAD ALL PRESS MATERIAL AT WWW.PATHEFILMS.CH