“Behind”, the latest terror short by Spanish filmmaker Ángel Gómez Hernández, screened in the Shadow Shorts Competition program at this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival, after having had a highly successful run on the festival circuit and having won almost forty prizes.
“Behind” follows Arianne, a divorced mother, obsessed with the idea that her baby might be taken away from her by her former husband, Samuel. During a children’s birthday party, she meets Eleanor, an old woman who tells her she sees a man with terrifying aspect stuck to her back. Upon returning home with her daughter, suggestion, fear, and the mind demons that she tirelessly fights, will make her, an already emotionally affected woman, live a ghoulish night because the recesses of the mind can easily transform into a maze populated by monsters… But, the maternal instinct is always more powerful than the deepest fears.
Ángel Gómez Hernández’s short is inspired by the successful surge of horror Eastern films that populated the screens in the late ‘90s and early ’00s – especially in its visual style. In that sense, the cinematography in “Behind”, curtesy of d.o.p. Pablo Rosso, hangs between brown and green hues, the atmosphere becoming gradually dismal and increasingly suffocating. The pace of the short is unhurried and unfluctuating, thanks to Miguel Serón’s dexterous editing and Gómez Hernández’s precise and accomplished directing that bring out the aforementioned dense atmosphere. This perfectly executed and orchestrated mix of cinematic skills makes the viewer live an unusual experience and definitely think twice before going back home in the dead and solitude of the night…
PS & friendly advice: mirrors are to be avoided!
Production: Producciones Diodati (Spain 2016)
Executive producer: Raúl Cerezo
Producers: Ángel Gómez Rivero, Ángel Gómez Rivero
Co-producers: Paloma Fernández, Miguel Ángel Benito, Juan Luis Helguera, Isabel Hernández, Mario Jesús Morata, Alejandro Quarone
Line producer: Jl Aceytuno
Director: Ángel Gómez Hernández
Screenplay: Ángel Gómez Hernández
Cinematography: Pablo Rosso
Music: Óscar Araujo
Editing: Miguel Serón
Cast: Javier Botet, Ruth Díaz, Lone Fleming, Macarena Gómez
Color – 15 min.
Premiere: May 2016
