the story
When Víctor discovers that he only has a few months to live, he decides to save Ana from her downward spiral of self-destruction.
Víctor spies on Ana and follows her… until one night he kidnaps her and locks her up with the intention of freeing her from her addictions.
While Víctor sees it as the final gift that he can give to the woman he loves, he is not actually conscious of the greatest obstacles that he will have to face: his immense desire for Ana.
Locked together, anything can happen between this frightened woman with a withdrawal syndrome and a man who is slowly losing his mind. A man who loves life, but can't live, and a woman who could live, but who doesn't care about life at all...
I have always asked myself: "What happens when nobody's looking?". I know what happens to me, but not what happens to others.
In Síndrome the challenge was to be able to show those intimate moments, those moments when we never see the rest.
To do this I didn't want to deal with reality as something objective but rather as a series of experiences, sensations, emotions and decisions that every individual feels as his or her own subjective reality.
It has been an honest task of searching and learning. Without money. Without a crew. Made possible thanks only to the absolute commitment of the actors and to digital technology which has put cinema within everyone's reach and which also allows for infinite possibilities to record what happens, to seize the necessary creative moment.
We filmed with a hidden camera, risked our lives in the streets, gave ourselves over to the work to the point of recklessness and one thing I have learned is that every creative act must find its safety limit.
It is this safety limit which allowed me as a director to tell the story of Ana and Victor in an unconditional way, through a film in which the character's morality is confused and broken but where they are somehow made into survivors in spite of this, where the day to day becomes something extraordinary and the extraordinary, when it happens, doesn't stop being something rooted in the day to day.
Liberto Rabal (director of Síndrome)
Síndrome is a small budget film which, aesthetically speaking, aims high. Shot with digital cameras and a cast of professional actors who have dedicated a great deal of their time in the search for a truth.
Síndrome was born out of the willingness of Liberto Rabal, Adriana Davidora, Javier Albalá and William Miller to investigate the process of constructing a fictional story from the starting point of a resolute realism.
Síndrome was made on the streets, stealing scenes, and grabbing shots from impossible situations. Síndrome is the next step forward from cinema verité. What happens here is fiction, while how it happens is reality.
There are many ways in which a producer can become involved in a film. But this is the first time in my professional life that I have found myself facing the marvellous challenge of helping someone who had already come a long way creatively, to find his own voice in the material that had been filmed . For this reason, my experience of collaborating with Liberto Rabal has been one of the most creative of my career, because, to use a neo-platonic simile, it has been about finding the beautiful film hidden inside the wonderful footage that was shot at such a great sacrifice. I think that we managed it and that nobody will be left indifferent after seeing it, telling us as it does a story about the extremes to which a person will go when they feel, however wrongly, that they are in the right.
Antonio Saura (productor de Sindrome)
The director
Liberto Rabal is one of Spain's leading young actors and one of the most interesting new voices in directing. Owner of a personal and distinguished touch, his short films have received all sort of awards. His new film, Síndrome is an extremely personal and new approach to storytelling.
Born in 1975, scion of one of Spain's most distinguished literary and film families (grand mother was award winning writer Carmen Laforet, grandfather Spain's favorite star Paco Rabal, father is director Benito Rabal, etc), Liberto started very early his career as an actor as a child in Los Santos Inocentes by Mario Camus and El hermano bastardo de Dios by Benito Rabal.
In his teen years, he decided to quit acting to earn a University degree. After finishing University, he returned to acting by playing the lead in the successful El Tranvia a la Malvarrosa by Jose Luis Garcia Sánchez. He was immediately chosen by Pedro Almodovar to play a lead role in Carne Trémula. He has starred in more than 15 films and stage plays ever since.
He became interested in film direction very early in his life, experimenting with Super 8 mm and video. In 2001 he produced and directed the award winning short film Las noches vacias, who was selected for the Los Angeles Film Festival and awarded at the Malaga Film Festival. The following year he produced and directed for Canal + Para ti, a short film in support of the integration of immigrants. The short was one of the finalist in the Canal + European contest of 2002. In 2002 he started his two year long commitment with the making of Síndrome. During this time he stopped any other activity to put together this very personal and challenging interpretation of love and the
fear of death.
He is currently preparing his second feature film, La inercia de los cuerpos, also produced by Saura.
the actors
Directing actors means helping them to get into the here and now of their characters. I believe that one of the best decisions for Síndrome was to involve vivacious actors who were generous and courageous enough to expose themselves to such a risky project.
Liberto Rabal (director of Síndrome)
Javier Albalá
Javier Albalá Worked by bringing to light a part of himself that he didn't know existed. He very bravely dared to immerse himself in a world of illness, madness, desire, and finally death. For Javier, there is a before and an after this film.
Selected Works
Films
2004 Síndrome by Liberto Rabal.
Muertos comunes by Norberto Ramos.
2002 Entre abril y julio by Aitor Gaizka.
2001 Todo me pasa a mí by Mikel García Borda.
2000 Cascabel by Daniel Cebrián.
Segunda Piel by Gerardo Vera.
1999 Entre la piernas by Manuel Gómez Pereira.
1998 Quince by Paco Rodríguez.
1997 Suerte by Ernesto Tellería.
El ángel de la guarda by Fernando Vivanco.
Chevrolet by Javier Maqua.
Adriana Davidova
Ana is an incredibly challenging role, but Adriana makes it appear effortless. She belongs to the school of chameleon-like,obsessive, and contagious acting. For the length of the filming, Will was her brother, while she drove Javier's character, Victor, absolutely crazy. Ana would not be the same without her vision.
Selected Works
Films
2004 Síndrome by Liberto Rabal.
El ladrón by ojos by Javier de la Torre.
1997 Siempre hay un camino a la derecha by José Luis García Sánchez.
1996 Airbag by Juanma Bajo Ulloa.
1994 Mar de luna by Manolo Matji.
Entre rojas by Azucena Rodríguez.
Shortfilms
Respira by Yuri Girov (premio festival de Berlín).
La madre by Javier de la Torre.
Las noches vacías by Liberto Rabal.
Un mal día by Juan Acebo.
Television
El joven Picasso by Juan Antonio Bardém.
Theater
Romeo y Julieta, dirección by Iván Radoev.
La ronda, dirección by Armando Vidal.
Como escritora ha publicado Hacer el Amor a un Ángel (Cyan 1995, prólogo de Clara Janés), El deseo (Libros del alma 1998, prólogo de Mario Benedetti), y ha escrito varios guiones para cine, siendo coautora del guión de Síndrome. Ha dirigido los cortometrajes Ángeles y Piezas (2004), ambos seleccionados para varios certámenes internacionales. Es también cantante y letrista de Birdy, grupo que forma junto a Arturo Iturbe.
William Miller
The intimacy and reality that he and Adriana were able to give to their incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister is amazing. It was his first role, and he dared to give it all he had. Alex couldn't have been played by anyone else.
Selected Works
Largometrajes
2004 Síndrome by Liberto Rabal.
Rottweiller by Brian Yuzna.
2003 Tempus fugit by Enric Folch.
The mix by Pedro Lazaga.
Televisión
Cuéntame cómo pasó by Tito Fernández.
Es cantante y compositor del grupo Candymen.
Francisco Brives
Is magnetic. He doesn't need artful devices to create an aura of danger. In real life, he is so kind that he seems like an entirely different person.
Selected works
Films
2004 Síndrome by Liberto Rabal.
Shortfilms
Las noches vacías by Liberto Rabal.
La trama by Abraham Vicente.
Perversa amistad by Ainoa Siguero.
La deuda by Hector Caño.
Unna by Marcel Van Brakel.
Primitive by Fran Palacio.
Theater
The invisible cities, by Benno Boudgoust.
No te escaparás by Eddy Vereycken.
Time carrusel by Komei Sugano.
Blastoidea by Eddy Vereycken.
El niño instantáneo by Luis Castilla.
Función de Xan by Chema Paz.
A divina Tolemia by Carlos Martínez.
A canción do deserto by Manuel Lourenzo.
A campa by Fernando Martínez.
Carolina Bona
Selected Works
Films
2004 Síndrome by Liberto Rabal.
El ladrón de ojos by Javier de la Torre.
2002 Juana la loca by Vicente Aranda.
2001 El portero by Gonzalo Suárez.
Torrente 2 by Santiago Segura.
Television
El pantano by Pepa Sánchez- Biezma.
The music
The original soundtrack was composed by Arturo Iturbe. Arturo worked to achieve equilibrium between emotion and hypnosis that helps to create the feeling of an internal journey. The melodies have both a moving and disturbing quality. The music surrounding Ana consists of songs by Birdy, whose lyrics were written in order to reflect the mood of the characters.
SÍNDROME
Víctor, JAVIER ALBALÁ
Ana, ADRIANA DAVIDOVA
Alex, WILLIAM MILLER
Will, FRANCISCO BRIVES
Cristina, CAROLINA BONA
doctora, LUCHI LOPEZ
dirección artística EVA DAVIDOVA
fotografía LIBERTO RABAL
coordinadora producción MARIANA ERIJIMOVICH
montaje JAIME ELECHIGUERRA y LIBERTO RABAL
música ARTURO ITURBE
guión LIBERTO RABAL y ADRIANA DAVIDOVA
imagen gráfica ENRIQUE BORDES
productor ejecutivo ANTONIO SAURA
producida por ANTONIO SAURA, NATACHA KUCIC y JAIME ELECHIGUERRA
dirigida por LIBERTO RABAL