Cast
Crew
Carlos “Fagua” Medina
FAGUA Carlos “Fagua” Medina is a Colombian actor and actor coach. He studied with Adrienne Weiss at Columbia University in New York. He also studied Fátima Toledo’s acting method (CITY OF GOD) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. LA FORTALEZA is his first feature film as an actor.
Leudys Naranjo
LEUDYS Leudys Naranjo is a Pemón cook working in the gold mines of southern Venezuela. She is Yoni’s niece and LA FORTALEZA is her acting debut.
About Breaker
Founded in 2016, SingularDTV launched its content-driven entertainment platform Breaker in January 2019. Built with creators in mind, Breaker empowers content owners with blockchain tools for rights and revenue management. Audiences from all over the world can find bold independent content on Breaker’s mobile and 09 desktop apps. www.breaker.io.
Jorge Roque Thielen
JORGE Jorge Roque Thielen is the father of Venezuelan director Jorge Thielen Armand. He lives and works in Caracas. He previously performed in his son’s debut feature LA SOLEDAD (2016), which premiered at the 73rd Venice Film Festival. He is the main character in Thielen Armand’s second feature film LA FORTALEZA, a film inspired by Roque’s true adventures and in which he plays a version of himself.
Yoni Naranjo
YONI Yoni Naranjo is a Pemón fisherman from Arekuna, a remote village in the Amazonian region of Venezuela. Yoni has been a friend of Roque for twenty years. LA FORTALEZA is his first film.
Jorge Thielen Armand
SCREENWRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Jorge Thielen Armand is a director and producer. In 2015, Jorge founded La Faena with Rodrigo Michelangeli, a production company dedicated to art-house films. His debut feature LA SOLEDAD (2016) premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and garnered over a dozen awards across a 50+ festival run, including the Miami Film Festival’s Audience Award and the French Critics’ Union Prize in Biarritz. The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and MUBI released the film theatrically in the UK. Jorge’s documentary FLOR DE LA MAR (2015) won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, and was exhibited at many festivals around the world including Margaret Mead, Sarasota, and RIDM. He holds a Communication Studies BA from Concordia University, and is an alumnus of the Venice Biennale College, TIFF’s Writers Studio, and the Berlinale Talent Campus.
Rodrigo Michelangeli
SCREENWRITER/PRODUCER/CINEMATOGRAPHER
Rodrigo Michelangeli is a Venezuelan filmmaker based in Toronto. He is the co-writer, cinematographer and producer of the feature film LA SOLEDAD (2016), which premiered at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. His short experimental documentary about student protests in Venezuela, BULLETS OF PEACE (2014) premiered at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (Jayu Human Rights Film Festival 2014). As a Cinematographer Rodrigo has worked in several projects including the hybrid documentary ‘Leftover,’ which won the 2014 Toronto Film Critics Association Award; He’s an alumnus of RIDM’s Talent Lab, Hot Docs Accelerators Program, Venice Biennale College and BAL. He founded La Faena Films with Jorge Thielen Armand.
Felipe Guerrero
EDITOR/CO-PRODUCER Felipe Guerrero is a Colombian producer, director, and editor. As a producer, he has produced all the films under his own direction (OSCURO ANIMAL 2016, CORTA 2012, PARAÍSO 2006, and he has often obtained international funds and co-productions in Europe and Latin America. He has a two-decadelong career as an editor for films widely awarded and exhibited. In 2012 Felipe founded mutokino, a company focused on exploring the diverse aesthetic practices in contemporary cinema, such as LA FORTALEZA (2020), LOS CONDUCTOS by Camilo Restrepo (2020) and MARIANA by Chris Gude (2017).
Leila Bordreuil
COMPOSER Leila Bordreuil is a Brooklyn based cellist and composer from Aix-en-Provence, France. She works in the realm of Noise music, improvisation, New Music and sound-art. Her cello playing is often improvised, and mainly focuses on texture variations and a collage of phantom overtones and pitched utterances. Through an original vocabulary of extended techniques, preparations, and imaginative amplification methods, her instrument is used as an abstract resonant body to challenge conventional cello practice. Her composed works draw from a similar texture-based musical aesthetic, but also focus on the relationship between sound and space. In her site-specific electro-acoustic compositions, architecture is the foundation of the piece and musicality arises from an organized spacialization of sound.
Rodolfo Cova
PRODUCER Rodolfo Cova is a producer of more than twenty feature films. His projects have visited Cannes, Venice, Berlin, San Sebastian, Toronto, Karlovy Vary, Mar del Plata, among others. His most recent films are APRIL’S DAUGHTER by Michel Franco (Special Jury Award Un Certain Regard Cannes 2017), LA FAMILIA by Gustavo Rondon (Semaine de la Critique 2017) and FROM AFAR by Lorenzo Vigas (Golden Lion, Venice International Film Festival 2015). Rodolfo produced the 2014 Goya Best Ibero-American winning film MY STRAIGHT SON and was nominated again in 2017 with FROM AFAR.
Manon Ardisson
PRODUCER Manon Ardisson is BAFTA-nominated producer and managing director of Ardimages UK. She produced the BFI-backed feature film GOD’S OWN COUNTRY (2017) by Francis Lee, which premiered at Sundance, winning the Special Jury Award for Directing in the World Dramatic competition. GOD’S OWN COUNTRY won 4 British Independent Film Awards in 2017, including Best Feature, and was BAFTA nominated for an Outstanding British Film Award in 2018. Manon also co-produced LA SOLEDAD (2016) by Jorge Thielen Armand, the first feature about the current Venezuelan crisis. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released in UK theatres by the Institute of Contemporary Arts and MUBI.
Marleen Slot
CO-PRODUCER Founded by Slot, Amsterdam-based Viking Film makes high-quality films for Dutch and international audiences with a special focus on arthouse and animation. Most recently, DIRTY GOD competed in Sundance in 2019 and opened IFFR. ROJO premiered at TIFF and San Sebastian in 2018. Viking Film coproduced OSCURO ANIMAL by LA FORTALEZA editor and co-producer Felipe Guerrero (IFFR competition 2016).
Louise Bellicaud & Claire Charles-Gervais /In Vivo Films
CO-PRODUCER Founded in 2015, In Vivo Films aims to support directors and writers from various backgrounds and countries. In Vivo Films produced THIRST STREET (2017) which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and Venise Days. Recent productions include ABOU LEILA (2019) competed in the Cannes Critics’ Week, LA FORTALEZA and LOS EUROPEOS, both to be released in 2020.
Kim Jackson
PRODUCER After launching a producing career working with Universal Pictures on Steven Spielberg’s (MUNICH) and Spike Lee’s (INSIDE MAN), Kim Jackson began championing independent filmmaking. Her critically acclaimed production BLUE CAPRICE premiered at Sundance and opened New Directors/New Films at MoMA. Kim was nominated for a Spirit Award for producing. She has been the driving force behind more than a dozen award-winning and theatrically released independent films including CHILDREN OF GOD and GUN HILL ROAD. She executive-produced KING COBRA, starring James Franco and Christian Slater. As the co-founder of SingularDTV which launched the blockchain- powered entertainment studio Breaker, she produced Alex Winter’s feature-length documentary TRUST MACHINE: THE STORY OF BLOCKCHAIN, THE HAPPY WORKER by Duwayne Dunham, and Keith Bearden’s ANTARCTICA with Chloë Levine and Kimie Muroya.
Zach LeBeau
PRODUCER Zach LeBeau is the co-founder of SingularDTV (2016), which launched its content-driven blockchain-powered entertainment platform Breaker in January 2019. Zach has traveled and lived in over fifty countries, working extensively in entertainment, finance and technology along the way. When Zach discovered blockchain, he realized he could combine this innovation with his previous experience to create a global, decentralized entertainment industry. Zach is an artist himself, having penned the novel MONKEY ME and written and directed the sci-fi feature THE SCIENTIST, starring Bill Sage.