29/05/2008 17:53

Seven Billiards Tables in Exit Point Selection

Spain, 2007, 116 min
Direction: Gracia Querejeta
Cast: Maribel Verdu, Blanca Portillio, Jesus Castejon, Victor Valdivia, Enrique Villen, Raul Arevalo, Ramon Barea, Lorena Vindel, Jose Luis Garcia Perez, Amparo Baro
Awards: CEC Award, best supporting actress, best film, Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain, 2008, Fotogramas de Plata, Fotogramas de Plata, best supporting actress (Blanca Portillio best supporting actress (Maribel Verdu), 2008, Goya, Goya Awards, best actress (Maribel Verdu), best supporting actress ( Amparo Baro), 2008, best screeplay, Silver Seashell (Blanca Portillio), San Sebastian International Film Festival, 2007, Sant Jordi - ‘best Spanish actress (Maribel Verdu), Sant Jordi Awards, 2008, Award of the Spanish Actors Union – best supporting actor (Raul Arevalo), Spanish Actors Union by MerchandisingPlaza, 2008; nominations: nineteen in total Selection: Exit Point

Many times awarded movie by Spanish director, Gracia Querejeta, called Seven Billiards Tables (Siete mesas de billar francés) is going to be shown in Exit Point Selection. According to the director, the synopsis was created while she was traveling by train. She wrote her idea in a few lines in her telephone. In cooperation with David Planell, the story gets its final shape. It took ten months to write the screenplay, and ten weeks to film it. Seven Billiards Tables has many elements of the director’s previous work, but it also makes an important step further in intimate depicting of the everyday problems of common people.

The movie shows Angela and her son Guill. They decide to go on a trip to the capital city, to visit Lea, Angela’s father, because they have heard he is ill. Not long after, Leo dies. Charo, deceased Leo’s lover, explains Angela that there is not much left of the family business. Her father was the owner of billiard halls with seven billiard tables, but time has done its share, so the clients are gone, the rooms have lost their previous look, and the business has become unprofitable. Charo proposes that the best thing is to sell it all. Soon, another misfortune happens; Angela finds out that her husband has disappeared under strange circumstances, but nevertheless, she keeps fighting. She decides to modernize the halls and start the father’s business all over again, remembering his advices. Struggling for the family business, she goes through different life situations, some of which lead to laughter, and some to tears. In that time, young Guill uses new acquaintances and new situations in his own way, experiencing the summer that is going to change his life forever…