Press Conference for Breathless Time

　　Press Conference for Breathless Time, Spanish film shortlisted to this year's Tiantan Award, was held at 14:20 on April 21 at Beijing International Hotel. Directors Samuel Martín Mateos and Andrés Luque Pérez, Gloria Minguez, cultural counsellor of Spanish Embassy presented at the conference.

　　Breathless Time tells a story about a Colombian nurse named Maria. Maria, who lost her daughter at the hands of three militiamen, travels to the Spanish Canary Islands accompanied by her youngest son to find one of the killers and get her revenge. She keeps with her a picture that she found in the ruined home, showing a face, an inscription and a name: Ivan. Gonzalo, a school psychologist whose existence changes dramatically the moment he meets Maria, joins her incessant and obsessive search. Meanwhile, in their little corner of the island, Ivan and his girlfriend Vero are unaware that their lives are about to change forever.

　　"Violence begets violence. This is the engine of the story." The two directors who had taken journalism in TVE said, "We have witnessed human barbarity in various conflicts. As directors, we want to point out the senselessness of war and revenge, and incidentally, to underline the sad fact that a human being, apparently normal, loving friends and family, may be capable of the greatest atrocities when it is immersed in the drunkenness of horror at war, the time in which it seems that all learned moral values are meaningless and can be transgressed without anything or anyone to have legitimacy to defend them."

　　Samuel Martín Mateos was born in 1960 in Ordizia (Guipúzcoa, Spain). He began his career in Spanish Television as director and producer of programs. In TVE he is now the Deputy Director of the Canal Cultura. Andrés Luque Pérez was born in 1958 in Madrid (Spain). He has developed a highly prestigious career as director of documentaries. He received Awards such the Monte-Carlo Television Festival among others. In 2009, Martín Mateos was co-director of the thriller Guts produced by Continental Producciones and Zebra Producciones and starring Carmelo Gómez and Hugo Silva. He is co-writer and co-director of the film Breathless Time.