Alexandra has spent her life looking at the stars. Since she was a child, she has been convinced that there is life beyond Earth. She also believes that the arrival of beings from other planets will unite humans and lead to a better world. Alexandra is an astrophysicist and works at an observatory. She has been looking up for years and her obsession already arouses the hilarity of her surroundings. Her family, the few friends she has, co-workers and even a Nobel laureate laugh at her a little but without malice.
But one stormy night, things change. Alexandra is on duty at the observatory and detects strange signals in the constellation of Scorpio, in the star Antares. It seems that extraterrestrial life is going to manifest itself at last. And she couldn't have done it at a worse time. Alexandra's father is in the hospital and he has only a few hours to live. The young woman is torn between going to see him or keeping an eye out for those signs that may never be repeated.
What is more important, work or family? That is the question posed by La paradoja de Antares, the first feature film by Luis Tinoco, a psychological thriller starring Andrea Trepat that has been screened at the Sitges Festival. "You would have to be very rogue to answer that work is a priority, but for Alexandra her work coincides with her passion, with her hobby and that is why she runs the risk of leaving aside her family and personal relationships. Many people can fall into that mistake, although very few would confess that they put work before personal," explains Tinoco in an interview with La Vanguardia.
The director of The Antares Paradox knows what he is talking about because his work and his passion also coincide. Tinoco has been in love with cinema since he was a child and when he grew up he became a visual effects artist, through Onirikal Studio, for Spanish productions but also for great international titles such as Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014) or Hércules (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1997). "The producers of these films commission us with a monster, a ship or blood and from Onirikal Studio we do it for them," he explains.
That is the bulk of Tinoco's work, but his passion is cinema. After filming some shorts, he wrote two scripts, but failed to sell them, so he decided to throw the blanket over his head and direct his third script. "I invested all my savings in this film, I have not received any kind of aid or subsidy and I shot it in my own studio", which became the observatory where Alexandra is torn between her passion for outside life and her love for her father while a series of circumstances close in around her until they take her to the limit.
Tinoco knew that with his small budget he could not hire Penélope Cruz, so he looked for an actress from his environment who would not have to pay for transportation or accommodation. "It was a stroke of luck," he says, because he found Andrea Trepat, who is the perfect Alexandra, "a character that is a bit creepy at first, but with whom the audience ends up empathizing."
Film festivals have also empathized with the film. The one from Austin premiered The Antares Paradox a couple of weeks ago. Now, Sitges has designed it. After the good reviews, the film will continue its journey through other international competitions and while Tinoco is already wondering if it will serve as a lever to finally be able to shoot one of those scripts that he wrote in his day and that were provisionally stored in a drawer.
