World Cinema Amsterdam | Internationaal filmfestival | 18 – 27 Augustus 2016

Isaki Lacuesta | Spain, Switzerland | 2011 | 87’ | In Spanish, Bambara | English subtitles

French writer and painter François Augiéras (1925 – 1971) led a grand and stirring life, marked by adventure and mystification. He once created a series of murals in an enormous bunker in Mali, West Africa, knowing that the bunker one day would be covered by the desert sand. It was what he intended; future generations could go looking for this lost master piece, the ‘Sistine Chapel of the desert’. The Spanish artist Miquel Barceló, who is greatly inspired by Mali as well as by Augiéras’ work, did just that.
Director Isaki Lacuesta’s second feature film focuses on the Mali adventures of the two artists. In his documentary EL CUADERNO DE BARRO (2011) he had also zoomed in on Barceló’s search, by contrast LOS PASOS DOBLES is a mix of fact and most of all fiction, with elliptic narratives and breathtakingly beautiful camera work. The story switches between two worlds: the world of Augiéras, played by the non-professional actor Bokar Dembele from Mali, and the world of Barceló, played by the artist himself.
This entirely original film received many prizes, including the Golden Shell for best film at the 2011 San Sebastian Film Festival. A film by Isaki Lacuesta.