‘Simón:’ Director Diego Vicentini Talks About His Controversial Film Not Selected As Venezuela’s International Feature Oscar Entry

Diego Vicentini’s Simón takes on Venezuela’s totalitarian government by creating a taut and visceral non-linear cinematic experience, based on factual accounts, about one young man’s harrowing journey from organized protester to prisoner to U.S. asylum seeker.

Simón (a fierce Christian McGaggney) is haunted by past events in his native Venezuela where he and an organized group of students protested the growing lack of freedom and increase in poverty in their country. Simón and a fellow compatriot is betrayed by one of their own and both are captured, tortured and threatened unless they sign a statement asking fellow student protesters to stop. We witness the cruelty through flashbacks peppered into the narrative.

Now in Miami, hoping for political asylum, Simon is guilt, angst and anxiety-ridden. Jana Nawartschi plays a paralegal who tries to help Simón attain asylum.

The film is a potent chronicle of atrocities being committed in the Americas right now. The film’s end scroll states that over 7.1 million Venezuelans have left their home country in the largest exodus in the history of the western hemisphere. Strangely, the film was released in Venezuela (after some pushback) and is the highest grossing Venezuelan film in the last 6 years. It was in contention with The Shadow of the Sun for the country’s International Feature Oscar submission but was not chosen. Rule violation claims have gone virtually unanswered from the selection board (known as ANAC).

The Venezuelan Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (a very different group than the one that selects the Oscar submissions) selected Simón to represent the country at this year’s Goya Awards where it did, indeed, receive a nomination for Best Ibero-American Film.

Vicentini emigrated to the U.S. with his parents when he was 15.  The 26-minute version of Simón was part of his thesis for a master’s in film at the Los Angeles Film School.

Simón, the feature, has played many Festivals worldwide and had an Oscar-qualifying run, in Miami-Dade County in September so it is eligible for this year’s awards in all categories, except International Feature.

Awards Daily had a conversation with Vicentini about his daring new film.