Abel DVD
Directed by Diego Luna and executive produced by Gael Garcia Bernal and John Malkovich, Network Releasing is delighted to announce the UK DVD release of the critically acclaimed Mexican film ABEL (15), a darkly funny and poignant fable about a child who thinks he is an adult on 25th April 2011, RRP £19.99.
Christopher Ruiz-Esparza (a mere 9 years of age at the time of filming) stars as Abel, a young boy whose confounding behaviour and refusal to speak has landed him in a mental health facility.
His single mother is convinced that a reunion between Abel and his younger brother and older sister would be the answer to repairing his condition, so she arranges for Abel’s doctor to release the boy for a single week. Abel starts speaking the day after returning home but the joy of the mother quickly turns into confusion as the child starts speaking and behaving as a fully-grown adult- her missing partner.
Not wishing to worsen his condition the mother and the siblings go along with Abel’s unorthodox, strange behaviour. But then his father decides to show up…
Disturbing, surreal and darkly funny, ABEL follows in a great tradition of fabular film-making associated with the likes of Guillermo del Toro and deals with an important issue in Mexico – parental absenteeism -- increasingly common as many Mexican men abandon their families to find work in the United States.
Abel is released 25th April.