Marc Ferrer has wrapped up filming on his queer giallo–comedy film, ¡Corten!
- The Catalan director joins stars including La Prohibida and Samantha Hudson in front of the camera in this camp homage to the outlandish 1970s Italian horror genre, with a rollicking twist of homoeroticism
Marc Ferrer is knee-deep in the post-production phase of ¡Corten! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], a camp horror–comedy mash-up starring Ferrer himself alongside a bevy of singers — some familiar from the director’s previous work — including La Prohibida, Samantha Hudson Asul Marina, María Sola and Álvaro Lucas. The flash two-week shoot, as independent, alternative, LGBTIQ+ and free-spirited as we have come to expect from the director of La maldita primavera [+see also:
trailer
film profile], took place between late November and early December in Barcelona.
In this latest offering, luckless filmmaker Marcos (played by Ferrer) is on set for a new film — a queer giallo — when Barcelona is hit by a series of horrific murders... all seemingly connected to him.
In the words of its director, ¡Corten! is “an homage to the Italian horror school, now largely forgotten, but it inverts it with a good dose of homoeroticism and characters drawn from the queer imaginary. As well as being a horror film, it’s a portrait of the sheer stamina of a wide-eyed director who just grinds out one flop after another. Because we all know that films demand to be made, regardless of how they turn out. Finally, it’s also the story of an impossible romance between a director and an actor, who falls in love with him through his work.”
“We can’t take giallo too seriously,” he continues, “as an Italian horror subgenre that blends suspense, eroticism, lurid violence and pound-shop psychoanalysis. The only way to enjoy it is by suspending disbelief in the inconsistencies and random plot holes these films are known for, and choosing to focus on the capacity for self-parody the best ones display.”
La Prohibida has worked with Ferrer before, on her music video for La pubblicità and on Telenovela, her duet with Papa Topo that featured in the soundtrack for the director’s previous film, Whore and Beloved. Meanwhile, Majorca's Samantha Hudson takes on her first fictional character — a lesbian waitress — following Joan Porcel’s 2018 documentary on her ground-breaking career, Samantha Hudson, una historia de fe, sexo y electroqueer: “I said yes to ¡Corten! because when I was starting out, I knew I wanted to be in a B-movie at some point in my career, like all the stars I look up to,” Hudson remarked in a conversation with Cineuropa.
A regular fixture at the D’A Film Festival (read more here), Atlántida Film Fest, Abycine, Rizoma, LesGaiCineMad and France’s Cinespaña Toulouse, to name a few, Marc Ferrer (Barcelona, 1984) has a number of shorts and music videos to his name, in addition to three feature films: Nos parecía importante (2016), La maldita primavera (2017) and Whore and Beloved (2018). As for ¡Corten!, as well as directing and starring in the film he also wrote the script and the songs heard on the soundtrack (one of the best being Muere por mí, performed by La Prohibida), in partnership with Adrià Arbona.
¡Corten! is being produced by Películas Inmundas, in association with the production company Canada, which specialises in music, and the many fans who supported the project through a crowdfunding campaign on Verkami. It will be marketed and distributed by Filmin and is to be released both in cinemas and on the Filmin streaming platform.
(Translated from Spanish)
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
