Iñigo Apestegui debuts as director of 'La hoguera'

The Spanish filmmaker Íñigo Apestegui begins filming his debut film in Santo Domingo. 'La Hoguera' is a co-production between Spanish production companies Creation Factory y Shift Dif, and the Dominicans Güasábara Cinema and Retama Studio.

It is a thriller full of tension that explores, among other things, the impact of tourism on the island and the roots of the Chinese communities, where the Spanish actor Diego Anido also participates. In the film, on the Dominican coast, Wan, a young Chinese-Dominican man who works in a motel part-time, accidentally witnesses a murder committed by a foreign tourist. When trying to report what happened, he discovers a network of violence, prejudice and institutional silence. Tension grows until Wan is forced to take matters into his own hands.

Filmed entirely in the Dominican Republic, La Hoguera establishes a transnational cinematographic dialogue, a direct reflection of the experience of its director, a Spanish filmmaker trained in Madrid and residing in Santo Domingo.

As for its director, Iñigo Apestegui, graduated in Cinematography from the TAI School in Madrid, has built a solid career between Spain and the Dominican Republic. His works have been at festivals such as Alicante or D'A, and he has directed projects such as the documentary Quicksilver Galleons by Duho Cinema and Güasábara Cine and the pilot episode of the series Threads de Sony Pictures.

He has also worked in the directing department alongside internationally renowned filmmakers such as David Fincher and Doug Liman. After settling in Santo Domingo, he founded Retama Studio, a production company specialized in Caribbean-Spanish co-productions.

The film has the participation of the renowned Galician actor Diego Anido, whose career has made him one of the most powerful, unique and celebrated presences in Spanish audiovisual production today. The Dominican Jason Cao, of Chinese descent, plays Wan, the protagonist of the story.

As for the photography direction, it is in charge of Javier of the Church, one of the youngest looks in Spanish cinema. Also trained at the TAI School, where he met the director, and with experience with directors of photography such as Javier Aguirresarobe, José Luis Alcaine or Alex Catalán. Among his works as a director of photography, the feature film stands out somewhere else, by Jesús del Cerro, in addition to advertising for brands such as Disney, Loewe, MAPFRE or Casio. He recently completed his third feature film as DOP, Hour and Twenty by Marc Romero, with actors of the caliber of Roberto Álamo, Macarena Gómez and Emma Suárez. In The Bonfire, its visual style, raw but careful, builds the aesthetic identity of the film and reinforces the character of a Caribbean thriller.

Finally, it should be noted that Ibermedia's financing has been key to consolidating its co-production structure and its international positioning.