Argentine director Luis Ortega, whose last feature “Kill the Jockey” premiered in competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, returns to the Lido with his next film, “Magnetized,” which he’ll be presenting during the Venice Gap-Financing Market running Aug. 29 – 31.
With a nod to films like John Cassavetes’ “Minnie and Moskowitz” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love,” “Magnetized” is Ortega’s vision of a “crazy love story” that finds its protagonist, the young libertine priest Ramón, falling into a passionate but destructive relationship with the actress Eva, a woman who’s in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
Before long, Ramón is drawn into a dark world where, driven by hard drugs, he finds himself pushed to the brink of madness. When Eva suddenly disappears without a trace, the priest despairs, leading him to commit a series of shocking and violent crimes. Yet the murderous rampage has the strange consequence of leaving him with a mysterious gift, as Ramón’s body develops magnetic powers.
The priest soon finds himself exiled to a remote mining town, where his powers attract a Christ-like following among the impoverished, superstitious and desperate populace. It is there that he’ll commit an explosive act that could lead to his self-destruction — or his redemption.
“Magnetized” is based on the book “Magnetizado,” by Carlos Busqued, and produced by Ortega and Esteban Perroud for Buenos Aires-based production company El Despacho.
Speaking to Variety ahead of the Venice Gap-Financing Market, Ortega described his initial reluctance to adapt Busqued’s true-crime book, which was based on a string of killings in Buenos Aires in the 1980s. Having just made the arresting Cannes drama “El Ángel” — a film “that’s based on true events and about a serial killer,” as he described it — he passed when “Magnetized” was offered to him after that film’s 2018 release.
But coming on the heels of “Kill the Jockey,” an absurdist comedy that saw him working in a very different vein, Ortega said he suddenly felt the story’s, well, magnetic pull.
“It sounds surreal, but it has some poetry also,” he said. “This idea of being magnetized explains a lot of things. It can explain destiny. It can explain synchronicity. It can explain why you fall in love with certain people, why you have certain friends, why you do certain things.”
A precocious talent from Buenos Aires, Ortega directed his first feature, the indie drama “Black Box,” at the age of 19. In recent years he’s developed a signature style through films including “El Ángel,” which premiered in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section and was Argentina’s submission for the Academy Awards in 2018, and his most recent film, the eccentric comedy “Kill the Jockey,” which competed for the Golden Lion in Venice last year.
Described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as “alternately dark and daffy” and a “colorful Argentine oddity,” the film solidified Ortega’s rising status and was also selected to represent the Latin American nation in the best international feature Oscar race.
With “Magnetized,” the director said he’s turning to a more “naturalistic” style. “It’s a little rougher. It’s not so neat. It’s more physical,” he said. “I’m going all the way with the actors in more of a Cassavetes mood than in ‘Kill the Jockey,’ which is a little pickier with framing and the stylistic [elements]. I’m just going with a stronger feeling here, with passion.”
Valentín Oliva, a singer and hip-hop artist known professionally as Wos, will star as Ramón, while Ortega is still searching for an actress to play the role of Eva. “I’m just looking for the right face. The right person with the right energy,” he said. “I’m into the characters and the faces — just being carried away by impulses.”
Despite the success of his previous films, the director said “Magnetized” is clearly pushing him “in a different direction.”
“I like when you can’t touch the ground and there’s nothing really secure,” Ortega said. “I don’t like going — artistically, creatively — to places I’ve already visited. I like to feel this kind of suicidal [impulse] career-wise. It just feels more inspiring when you’re not so secure, in terms of the language and just repeating something you know, you’ve done.
“I’ve never done this kind of crazy love story,” he added. “I don’t know what the hell is going to come out of it. But I’m really fascinated with the idea.”
