Sartaj Singh
Rodrigo Barriuso’s next feature will be a tale of gender identity and dignity! The Cinemaholic can confirm that the filmmaker will direct ‘Neverman,’ a movie he wrote with Kyah Green. The project’s shooting will start in Ontario in October. Out of sixty-six submissions, the film was selected as one of the 2024 New Dawn Fund grant recipients because of its humanistic and emotionally moving story.
The plot revolves around Lucia, a transgender woman who has spent much of her life fighting as an activist for her right to decide her own identity. She has intentionally crafted her self-image and is on the verge of living out her days in peace when everything changes. Diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, she moves to a retirement home, which immediately becomes a hostile space for her.
The narrative progresses with Lucia finding it difficult to settle in the home since most of her aged fellow residents have more conservative mindsets. However, disapproving looks become the least of her concerns as her lucidity begins to deteriorate, leading her into another battle in her life. The film promises a poetic exploration of Lucia’s identity, a part of herself for which she fights against society, which is contested once again by an even greater foe.
Barriuso is a Cuban-Canadian filmmaker who made his directorial debut with ‘A Translator,’ featuring Rodrigo Santoro, who stars in ABC’s drama series ‘Lost’ and HBO’s science fiction series ‘Westworld.’ Also known as ‘Un Traductor,’ the filmmaker directed the film with his brother, Sebastián Barriuso, based on the true story of their father. The narrative follows a Russian literature professor working at the University of Havana, who is enlisted as a translator for child victims flown into Cuba for treatment in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
Green is a non-binary screenwriter from Toronto who graduated from Ryerson University’s Film Studies program. They have written for ‘Popularity Papers,’ ‘Open Season: Call of Nature,’ Max’s ‘Sort Of,’ ‘Corner Gas Animated,’ and ‘Versus Valerie.’
‘Neverman,’ Barriuso’s sophomore directorial work, received a grant worth €75,000 from the New Dawn Fund alongside three other projects. “The committee was impressed by this unique point of view combined with the motivation of the team: offering a layered and authentic perspective via representations both in story and crew,” wrote the independent committee in their declaration. “The seamless way in which the film interweaves Lucia’s states of lucidity, her statutes of confusion, and the vividity of her flashbacks is a testament to filmmaker Rodrigo Barriuso and co-writer Kyah Green’s storytelling skills. Thoughtful, humanistic, and poetic, orchestrating a cast of characters whose relationships are memorable and deeply moving,” the statement further reads.
Ontario, the country’s most populous province, is home to an array of popular filming destinations. Among the notable drama films and shows with themes of identity shot in the region are ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ ‘It’s a Boy Girl Thing,’ Max’s ‘Sort Of,’ and HBO’s ‘Euphoria.’
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