When Ester Expósito read the script for “Lost at Night”, it was clear to her: roles like this don’t come every day. Juan Daniel García, in 2019, worked in a casting company, but he ended up being hired. These young stars from Spain and Mexico will take a leap in their career in 2023 with their first film in Cannes.
“I loved the story. The fact that it was Amat (Escalante, director) too, just for that reason I would have already done it. Monica is a very special character and when I read it I said ‘this is something else, these characters don’t appear all the time time”, recalls Expósito in an interview with Efe on a terrace overlooking the Croisette, where the team attends the press one day after the premiere of the film.
For García Treviño, the key was also the Mexican filmmaker -who is already a veteran of the French Festival-, but his arrival at the project selected for the Cannes Première section was almost to be done.
“I wasn’t casting for the movie”, This Mexican actor and singer explains about those days in which he worked giving the reply for the search for actors carried out by Escalante. He loved the project, but it did not cross his mind that he could be part of it.
“But for things in life, Amat always looked at me,” he explains.
“Lost at night” tells the story of Emiliano (the character played by García Treviño), a young man from humble origins whose mother is missing in a town in turmoil due to the arrival of a large international mining company to exploit the local resources.
All the clues point to an act of police violence related to the Aldamas, a wealthy family of artists whose daughter, Mónica, is an actress and singer with thousands of followers on social networks.
“She is a girl with a dark side because she has experienced hard things”said Expósito, and assured that it has nothing to do with other roles of a wealthy daughter that she has played in the past, such as her Carla in the Netflix series “Elite”.
“I think the characters have nothing to do with it,” he confirmed.
In any case, the “rich girl” is interested in Emiliano -who has a girlfriend and what he really wants to know is if his mother’s corpse is in a well in the Aldama house- when he starts working as ” waiter for everything” in the luxurious property.
The Police, who more than protect the population protect the rich and multinationals with impunity to apply force, know that they cannot go.
For García Treviño, that part of becoming a “seeker” of the truth -although he describes it as “extremely complicated”- was the one that most attracted him to the character, with whom he sees similarities because Emiliano is a “village” boy and he He is a “neighborhood” boy.
But although the issue of police violence is what frames the plot, Escalante touches on “Lost in the Night” a range of issues difficult to enumerate completely.
Without neglecting the complaint but with less hard work than others in his career, the Mexican filmmaker also talks about the hypocrisy of the art world, #MeToo, sects and religion, mental health and the exploitation of natural resources, among other issues.
The mother of the Aldama family, played by Bárbara Moriand stepfather, Fernando Bonilla, are artists with a complicated relationship in which passion, hypocrisy are mixed and even borderline abuse.
The effects of fame and exposure through the networks also play a role in this story, something that these two young stars, aged 23, already have to deal with.
“At first it can be overwhelming and if you don’t manage it well it never stops being. But hey, it’s a side effect of this profession. It can be. In my case, it was,” admitted Expósito.
“I’m fine,” answered García Treviño, making victory gestures and making his co-star smile.