In this documentary/fictitious film, the famous singer Mauricio (Pepe Lorente) travels Argentina looking for a new sound, falling in love with the folk music like tango or chacarera. At the beginning of the movie, Mauricio is watching on TV a documentary about Atahualpa Yupanqui of which he confesses to being a profound admirer. At early 90s Mauricio, a Spanish rock and roll musician trying to reconnect with his vocation travels through Argentina, where he meets an elderly musician (Cuti Carabajal) going through hard times and they create a Quixote-like musical couple. Mauricio coming back to Spain in an effort to export it these catching sounds, there he meets up with his girlfriend (Bruna Cusí) who no longer wants to have relations with him. I had lost the North and I went to find it in the South !
An interesting and engaging film that has been compared to the Oscar-winning documentary 2021 ¨Searching for Sugar Man¨ by deceased director Malik Bendjelloull, dealing with a young singer who joins forces with Don Carlos, an aging musician who's struggling despite having composed some of his country's most famous folk songs. Carlos, like a musical Master Miyagi, takes in the visitor, and together they form a quirky duo destined for commercial failure. This surprising debut film by Javier Macipe recreates the journey through Argentina of Mauricio Aznar, a 'Rockabilly' composer of ¨Apuesta por el Rock and Roll¨ (song made popular by the band Heroes del Silencio), he was a major artist who nevertheless died in anonymity.
This is an Ibero-American co-production between Fernando Bovaira's Mod Producciones of Spain ("Biutiful"), Macipe's El Pez Amarillo, Cimarrón ("Society of the Snow") and Prisma, Argentina. According to the director Macipe himself: The film is a universal and emotional story of a man in crisis with his vocation, and who ¨he wants to rediscover what motivates him. And for this he makes a journey in search of a dream, that Star, which is the image of a guide¨. The film is based on actual avents, in fact it's a biographic story about Mauricio Aznar (1964 - 2000) was the lead singer and composer of the Zaragoza rock bands Golden Zippers, Más Birras and Almagato,; after the band Más Birras split in 1993, Mauricio traveled Argentina . It mixes professionall actors as Pepe Lorente, Bruna Cusí and non-professionals , including some members of the Carabajal family played their own relatives at the time when they met Mauricio.
The film shows reality and metafiction to give the viewer a portrait of an entire generation, as well as a look full of light, illusion and the quixotic ideas with which Mauricio lived, a life story that the also Aragonese Carlos Saura wanted to shoot at the time but could not due to his death. The film had its world premiere at the 2023 San Sebastian International Film Festival, where it received the Young Jury Award. Since then, it has been selected at various festivals, such as the Seville Film Festival, Warsaw, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, Uruguay or Victoria (Canada). The motion picture was well directed by Javier Macipe, although it feels somewhat overlong and overrated. It was released in cinemas on February 23, receiving a warm reception from both critics and audiences.
La estrella azul(2023) won the Youth Jury Prize at the San Sebastian and in 2023 Spain's Academia de Cine has unveiled its list of nominations for the 39th Goya Awards, the country's equivalent to the Oscar. Leading the field is Marcel Barrena's biographical drama El 47, with 14 mentions. It's followed by thriller La Infiltrada (Undercover) at 13, also in the mix is Segundo Premio (Saturn Return) with 11 nods and La estrella azul (2023) nominated for 8 awards (including best film and new director) at the Goya 2025.
