Director

Michel Franco

Mexico, France, Sweden | 2021 | 83 min | Spanish, English

• Producer Michel Franco, Eréndira Núñez Larios, Cristina Velasco L.
• Production Company Teorema, CommonGround Pictures, Luxbox
• Screenplay Michel Franco
• Cinematography Yves Cape
• Editing Oscar Figueroa Jara, Michel Franco
• Sound Alejandro de Icaza, Niklas Skarp
• Cast Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iazua Larios, Henry Goodman, Albertine Kotting McMillan
• Contacts

  The Match Factory Gmbh

  info@matchfactory.de | www.the-match-factory.com

About the Film

Tim Roth is reunited with acclaimed Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco (the pair made Chronic together in 2015) for this bold and at times quite thrilling drama about a wellto- do Brit whose life is turned upside down while on holiday in Acapulco. More than a story of middle-class angst and emotional turmoil, it is given heart and soul thanks to a striking central performance by Tim Roth.

He plays Neil Bennett, a wealthy man on holiday with his family in a plush Acapulco resort. When he receives a phone call, the holiday is shattered – there has been a death in the family and he, his sister Allison (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and the children have to head back to the UK immediately.

But then Neil pretends to have left his passport back at the resort. He makes sure the others head off as planned, saying he will get another flight as soon as possible. But instead, he heads to a cheap hotel, then to the beach for beers and hooks up with local women. He makes up excuses why he can’t return home, leaving Allison to deal with family grief and legal issues, but also setting the stage for more darker dramas to come.

Michel Franco has a real ease and skill at delving into family issues and class divides and his films are always tightly made with a knowing sense of precision and control. He and Roth clearly work well together, and Roth shines as a man driven by a desire to shed his old life and head on a new journey. Alongside Roth, the ‘sun’ of the title also plays a key role, bringing heat and spotlight to the characters. As Franco said in his statement: “It is not a coincidence that Sundown takes place in Acapulco. It is shocking for me to witness the city where I spent childhood vacations turn to an epicenter of violence. Sundown springs from a necessity to explore a place that seems increasingly distant and foreign.”

Mark Adams