Chile’s everyman actor Alfredo Castro (“The Count”) plays against type in “After Elena” (“Después de Elena”) by Shawn Garry, which world premieres at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) on Sept.11.
Bowing a trailer and poster exclusively in Variety, “After Elena” “shows Castro in a completely different register from what we’ve seen him in before and the cast also includes Nicolás Zárate (“Red Hangar”), who has won multiple awards this year,” said Gabriela Sandoval who produced the dark family comedy out of her label Cine Matriz.
Castro plays 70-year-old Roberto whose beloved wife Elena has died. He wants nothing more than to retreat into his lifelong home. But when an economic and emotional crisis drives his three adult children back under his roof, old wounds, buried secrets and simmering tensions resurface. As they navigate their grief, the family must find a way to reconnect or risk tearing itself apart.
“I accepted this role because I thought it would be a really interesting challenge for me as an actor, to change things up a little. It’s a very realistic film that suddenly turns almost dreamlike, moving into a fascinating psychological space. Most of the characters I’ve played are psychologically altered, unstable or very marginal, so this time, playing a father whose children come into his home and basically take it over was a very different challenge: how does an ordinary man react to that invasion? The challenge was to make the story feel truthful, believable, and emotionally engaging for the audience, and it was a very rewarding experience,” Castro told Variety.
