05/11/2012 - The Cantabria-born director's third feature, currently being shot in English and starring Elijah Wood, is to add a twist to the genre by telling the story via a computer screen

Despite director Nacho Vigalondo several days ago endlessly tweeting (quite cryptic) photos from the set of his new film Open Windows, it remained quite a secretive project. Nobody knew the film's plot or its cast. (We knew that it would be an international film shot in English, but not much else.) Now, with shooting ongoing since a week, the film's producers have revealed a few more details, starting with the film's cast, to be led by Elijah Wood, Sasha Grey (both in the photo), and British actor Neil Maskell.

The story is to be told in real time via the screen of a laptop connected to the Internet through various formats (that have required up to 12 different types of cameras, such as webcams, tablets, mobile phones, 3D cartography cameras, security cameras, traffic cameras, and satellite cameras), which has meant using software specially designed to coordinate all windows on one screen.

There is no doubt that Open Windows is a complex and special project, yet, according to the director, its plot is very simple: "As in Brian de Palma's Blow Out, the girl (Grey) is kidnapped and the hero (Wood) has to use all means available to discover where she is and save her from the villain (Maskell) before it is too late".

Producer Enrique López Lavigne (Apaches) has stressed that Open Windows "is essentially a 90-minute chase, a continuous climax of relentless tension," while Vincent Maraval (Wild Bunch) has said that is adapts "the essential elements of 1970s paranoid thrillers to the environment of computers and today's online world."

Vigalondo, who enjoys a great reputation despite his previous films Timecrimes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alejandro Miranda
interview: Nacho Vigalondo
film profile] (2007) and Extraterrestrial [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nacho Vigalondo
film profile] (2011) not quite managing to take off at the box office, started to develop this project for his production company Sayaka and Apaches Entertainment three years ago. Antena 3 Films and the French Wild Bunch later joined the project, with the latter in charge of international sales.

(Translated from Spanish)