In Miguel Angel Ferrer’s feature film, “The Shadow of the Sun” (“La Sombra del Sol”), the main character Leo is reluctant to step outside his familiar situation, despite its dreariness, into the future.
A similar hesitance plagued Ferrer, too, who describes the a-ha moment when he decided to make the movie that would go on to win numerous film festival awards and be selected as Venezuela’s official entry for Best International Film at the 2024 Academy Awards.
It was during the closing night of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival in 2021. After attending screenings and meeting people at the event, he says he asked himself: “Why don’t I have a film here?’”
And the answer, he says, was always the same. “It was because I hadn’t made up my mind to do it. The only obstacle was me.”
Now, with a distribution deal from Outsider Pictures, his film is making its U.S. debut in select Miami-Dade County movie theaters on Friday, Aug. 8, then heads to Broward County for screenings starting Thursday, Aug. 14, at Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale.
It tells the story of two brothers. Leo (played by Carlos Manuel González) gave up his dreams, including singing, after his parents died in a fire and he became caregiver to his deaf younger brother, Alex (Anyelo López in his film debut). Alex is a budding songwriter and wants to bring hope back to his brother by entering them in a musical contest, which offers a much-needed cash prize.
The theme of perseverance amid adversity was inspired by Ferrer’s 2020 trip to Venezuela and his dream of making a film about his homeland.
Ferrer moved to Miami in 1996 at age 12 with his Cuban mother. His father, also from Venezuela, came to Miami about two years later, he says. They settled in Kendall.
“Since then, I have only been in Venezuela once, in 2007, for about 10 days and then, in 2020, [producer] Wil Romero convinced me to go there and do a project,” he says.
Ferrer, who lives in Los Angeles, landed his first job as a cameraman for National Geographic. A 2003 graduate of Miami’s Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, Ferrer would go on to study film at the University of Miami, graduating in 2007. He credits mentors at UM: Jeffrey Stern, who recently won an Emmy Award for his work on the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire,” and Johnny Calderín, who now heads the film program at Belen Jesuit.
“There are so many people who have helped me,” Ferrer says. “And it just shows that when you lend someone a hand, it goes a very long way.”
In 2014, Ferrer founded Magic Films, an L.A.-based company that collaborates with major record labels on music videos and produces commercials for brands such as State Farm and Pepsi.
The trip to Venezuela in 2020 was life-changing, he says. “Along that path, I met so many people, I re-encountered my country through the people of the interior.”
The “interior” was Romero’s hometown of Acarigua, in the northwestern state of Portuguesa.
“I re-encountered what it was like to be Venezuelan, people that do miracles every single day because they have so many obstacles,” says Ferrer.
He was determined to make his movie entirely in Venezuela: “Yes, there’s the political situation that has been going on for 25 years, and the oppression and all that, yet you still see these people fighting every single day. And I said, ‘Where is this in the movies? Where is this in cinema? And how do I take this to an international audience and show them who the people truly are.’ ”
He also made another discovery, Anyelo López from Caracas, who had never acted before and is the co-star of the film.
Speaking from Spain via an interpreter, the 27-year-old López, born deaf, describes discovering an unexpected destiny. It was through WhatsApp as part of a small group of deaf people that would meet up in Caracas, where López learned about the casting call.
“I received this video about the casting, and I wanted to know about the money,” he says. “How much would it pay?”
It wasn’t because he had dreams of being in the movies that he auditioned, he admits. “It’s a really complicated situation in Venezuela, so many, many people have a similar story. They will just try to find work.”
He had never been to Acarigua, more than 150 miles from Caracas, where most of the film was shot. The entire production took just 18 days — 16 in Acarigua and two in Caracas.
“It’s really beautiful there,” he says. “And it would be long days of shooting, like eight hours of filming, and it was hard work but it was amazing.”
The decision to portray the younger brother as deaf in the film originated from the theme Ferrer wanted to have so strongly at the center of “The Shadow of the Sun.”
“There are people that have all these gifts and opportunities, and they waste them for whatever reason, and then there are people who would die to have those chances, and they never will,” Ferrer says. “It comes from my experience. We all do it, maybe because we’re human, so that’s a frustration I had even with myself.”
He relates this to the characters he’s created.
“There’s Leo, who has this amazing voice and talent, good looks, and everything going for him and wastes it,” he continues. “And on the other side, you have someone with no voice. Even being deaf, Alex has more of a voice than his brother. In the end, he is the one who shows his brother how to use his voice.”
Ferrer notes that although he completed the film nearly three years ago, its current release is more than relevant given current U.S. policies concerning Latin American migrants and asylum seekers.
“It shows you that there are people who just want the chance to have a better life. They just want a shot,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t have had all of the opportunities I’ve had throughout my life if my mother hadn’t brought us from Venezuela to here.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “The Shadow of the Sun” (“La Sombra del Sol”), in Spanish with English subtitles
WHEN/WHERE:
- Opens Friday, Aug. 8, at Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave.; CMX CinéBistro CityPlace Doral, 3450 NW 83rd Ave.; CMX Brickell City Centre, 701 S. Miami Ave., Miami; and AMC Aventura 24, 19501 Biscayne Blvd. (A special reception and a Q&A session after the film are planned at Coral Gables Art Cinema.)
- Opens Thursday, Aug. 14, at Savor Cinema, 503 SE Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale
COST: $8-$22, depending on showtimes and theater
INFORMATION: outsiderpictures.us
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