About the film
An existential comedy following a year in the life of the folksy locals and esoteric outsiders in the petite hamlet of Bugarach, France, purportedly ground zero for those looking to survive the Mayan-predicted apocalypse.
Bugarach
— BY Ventura Durall
status
Completed
type
Nonfiction
year
2014
director
Ventura Durall
producers
Sergi Cameron, Ventura Durall, Salvador Sunyer
Synopsis
In 2011, a mysterious news story goes viral: the tiny bucolic village of Bugarach in southern France will be ground zero for surviving the apocalypse foretold by the Mayans on December 21, 2012. The 194 residents take it as a joke, yet within months, the charismatic mayor sees his quaint village transformed into a hive of quirky characters seeking answers to their respective inner voids as they ride out the apocalypse: tourists, dodgy journalists, speculators, hippie communes and cults from around the world. Property prices quadruple. RV communities spring up in the surrounding woods. Soon, there are more outsiders than townspeople. There is fear of mayhem and mass suicides on D-day. And the nagging question remains of how this viral claim began in the first place.
Filming for over a year, this character-driven countdown follows disparate participants who are united by a date that will change their lives forever as it delves into the subject of the apocalypse to reflect on the fears and coping strategies of humankind in times of deep material and spiritual crisis. But between the farmers, store owners and lumberjacks, and the healers, new agers and end-of-the-worlders, La Fin du Monde is really an existential comedy.
About the team
Sergi Cameron (Director) Graduated from the ESCAC film school in 2007, Sergi has focused his career on directing movies such as Cosas extrañas que brillan, OVIS, How great it is to have a moustache and video clips for many bands. Additionally, he has worked as an editor in movies like The 5th Chromosome, The Afterlife, Le Cordon, Limbo Starr: Diez cuenta atrás and commercials. He combines his work in the visual field with musical projects, he composes and records soundtracks and he dedicates himself to music journalism.
Ventura Durall (Director) An established director and producer, Durall’s latest film, The Wild Years premiered at IDFA in competition. His short film, The Hidden Smile, was at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded Best Short Film in more than 15 international film festivals. In 2009, his feature-length documentary The Forgiveness was selected in such festivals as IDFA, DOKLEIPZIG, THESSALONIKI and DOCSDF and awarded Best Documentary at the Belgrade International Documentary Festival, the Audience Award at the Mon-doc International Documentary Festival, and the Silver Award Winner at World Media Festival. His fiction feature The Two Lives of Andrés Rabadán won the Best European Independent Film in 2009 at the ECU Festival in Paris, the Grand Jury Prize at the Annecy Spanish Cinema Biennal in 2010, three Gaud√≠ Awards from the Catalan Film Academy in 2010, and screened at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Durall produced the above and other projects under the banner of Nanouk Films, the production company he founded in 2000. He also teaches at the Barcelona film school ESCAC where he is Head of the Documentary Department.
Salvador Sunyer (Director) Graduated from ESCAC specializing in documentaries, Salvador has directed short films and artistic advertising which has received numerous awards. He has a close relationship with the world of international theatre and circus and has made several audiovisuals for the works of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Pau Miró and Alex Rigola, the director of the Venice Theatre Biennale. He directed several documentaries such as Veïns, Porcs, Migranland which is currently in the editing room, and Conquering LA which is currently in production.
Bugarach is a Cinereach grantee.
