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Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Spanish comedy FACE LOVE, directed by and starring Gerald Fillmore, won the Fusion Feature Audience Award at the 2026 Dances With Films Festival in Los Angeles. The FACE LOVE premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre was attended by the Executive Director of the Cervantes Institute of Los Angeles, Javier Muñoz-Basols, and the Consul General of Spain in Los Angeles, Gerardo Fueyo, who joined the cast and crew for a very special evening. The film emerged as the audience favorite at the festival, which celebrates its 29th edition this year and showcases more than 300 independent productions from around the world. Producers Andrés Sánchez, Jorge Alonso and Víctor Corrales also attended the premiere. Carlos Santos, Rafael Sigler, Laura Patalano, Vanessa Benavente, Mika Kubo and Beau Bowker joined Gerald Fillmore on the red carpet. Created as a unique parallel production and filmed twice with the same cast in English and Spanish, FACE LOVE and its Spanish-language counterpart, Amor en toda la cara, explore the challenges of modern relationships in a world increasingly shaped by technology, distance, and digital communication. Shot across Los Angeles, Madrid, London and Tijuana, the film follows Daniel, a Brit-Spaniard living in Los Angeles, who travels to Madrid to renew his visa just as a global pandemic brings international travel to a halt. Suddenly stranded thousands of miles away from his new girlfriend Ana, a Mexican-American living in Los Angeles, Daniel must navigate bureaucracy, cultural displacement, and the uncertainty of a relationship sustained entirely through video calls. Inspired by the award-winning short film Hold for Applause, which screened at more than 100 festivals worldwide and received 27 awards, FACE LOVE expands the concept into a feature-length story told entirely through simulated video calls, transforming digital limitations into a distinctive cinematic language.

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Transcript
00:16How do you feel premiering Faith's Love in one of the most iconic theaters in Hollywood?
00:24Well, it is pretty amazing because I grew up with films like Singing in the Rain that starts with the
00:29TCL theater and Gene Kelly saying dignity, always dignity.
00:33So to have the chance to actually be here premiering a movie, that's all I could think of, of watching
00:39that movie with my family and having that Gene Kelly moment. It's such a bliss. I'm free.
00:47What was the biggest challenge making this film?
00:53Making it. That was the biggest challenge. I wouldn't say there was one particular challenge that was bigger than the
01:00others because a lot of situations arise because it's such a complicated film because of the structure, the dynamic of
01:09the video, of course, of filming in LA and in Madrid and in English and Spanish.
01:13So, but we went, you know, step by step. We were very fortunate because we had a great crew and
01:19an amazing cast of actors who were so involved and gave us all their love, all the time and all
01:25the talent that, you know, a lot of planification and rehearsing and stuff that made it possible.
01:31And, just as you know, the fact that we're not.
01:33You have to be here but we'll always be here.
01:41We've got a piece of food with this.
01:44We've got to be here.
01:49You want to have to be here.
01:51We'll be here.
01:54Is that a little bit of a piece of food?
01:59Yeah.
02:00Okay, so I have my five years here.
02:01Are we going to be here?
02:01Tell me, how do you feel being here, supporting, of course, your movie,
02:07Facelove, and being premiered in an iconic place like the Chinese Theater in Hollywood?
02:15For us, it's more or less like a dream, okay? Coming here, we were talking about it before,
02:20it's like, this is the first movie that we have seen here, it's our movie. So for us, it's like
02:25overwhelming, we're very, very happy with the festival, we're very happy with the reaction of the
02:33people around us, they have approached us with a super nice comment at the end of the movie,
02:39that we heard like a super fun, fantastic job, so now we're like with top energy,
02:46because everything went very, very well, more than we expected.
02:51Tell me about your next project.
02:53Well, I think that we have like a couple of projects right now going on,
02:58but we are in negotiations, and they're going very well, so I cannot, we cannot
03:05give an spoiler right now, but we are going to have like similar models,
03:10like Facelove, and looking at the international markets, the states, and the local markets,
03:17and Spain as well, but until now, we cannot see anything more.
03:20Hey!
03:47How do you feel premiering Facelove here in the heart of Hollywood?
03:54Super excited, I have, I cannot tell you how many times I've been to this theater to watch movies
04:00and other festivals, and it's like, it's literally one of my favorite places,
04:05just because of how special and iconic it is, and it's just such a surreal moment, and it really is
04:15an exciting day.
04:33How do you feel being here supporting Facelove?
04:37It's great, my name is Javier Muñoz Basolz, I'm the executive director of the Instituto Cervantes in Los Angeles,
04:44and it's great to support our artist in residence, and it's great to support our artist in residence, Gerald Fillmore,
04:49he's our first artist in residence at the Instituto Cervantes in LA, and it's great to support a film that
04:56is about diversity, it's fun, it's about relationships, it's about intercultural relationships too, and I would recommend everyone to watch
05:10the film.
05:23So tell me how exciting it is to be premiering the movie in Hollywood.
05:29Well, I can tell you, it's a dream come true, definitely, and especially working with Gerald, and the whole movie,
05:34the movie's amazing, it's so funny, and playing along this beautiful lady, who's my wife in the movie, unfortunately, not
05:40in real life, but it was such a pleasure to work with her.
05:43Oh, it was a lot of fun, honestly, and to be in this specific theater, it is, like you said,
05:48a dream come true, so it is, we are so excited about it.
05:52Yeah, it's lovely, and especially with all this crowd and this festival, everybody loves and, you know, and attends, so,
05:58so it's definitely something that we didn't expect to happen, but it's happening and we're enjoying it.
06:03Yeah, and what attracted you to this project in the first place?
06:07Well, I gotta be honest with you, Gerald, you know, asked me if I wanted to be, I read the
06:12script, and I found it really funny, to be honest, when he told me we were gonna shoot in two
06:17languages, I was like, okay, no pressure, and we did one verse in Spanish, one verse in English, and it
06:22was fantastic, and then he asked me, do you have a wife for the movie?
06:25And I said, like, yes, and I called this lovely lady, and she played my wife.
06:29Yeah, that's how it happened, so thank you.
06:31No, it was my pleasure.
06:39No.
06:40No.
06:51Video.
06:52Hey!
06:53Hey!
06:55I want to go back!
06:57Congrats, how do you feel being here tonight?
07:00I'm super excited, you know, it's finally out there, you work on a project, and the best part about it
07:05is sitting with an audience, so they can get a feel for what you've been working on, and we've seen
07:09it a couple times, we've got the Spanish version,
07:10and now we're starting to premiere the English version of Face Love, so we're really, really happy with how it
07:16came out, and we just want to, you know, want to share it with the world, so that's where we're
07:19at, right here, against the films.
07:21What attracted you to this project?
07:24Well, I know Daryl for a long time, and when he told me the idea, he wanted me to jump
07:29aboard, it was more than just acting, it was actually being able to work with the comedy, and being able
07:35to change it from English to Spanish, you know, it's shot in two different versions,
07:39but I love the challenge of, like, bringing the same idea, but having to do it way differently, so that
07:44was very exciting, and the whole process of making it was really fantastic, so I, you know, the whole process
07:48itself, without even, without even starting to shoot it, was just amazing, so I really loved working with Daryl, as
07:54always, he's amazing, and he's a good friend.
08:11How do you feel being here in Hollywood, presenting the movie?
08:15Oh my gosh, this is, being at the TCL Chinese Theater is an absolute dream come true, it's one of
08:23those things that's not even on my bucket list, because I didn't know it was possible to come here, and
08:29premiere a movie that I love, and we love so much, in front of an audience, at an amazing film
08:36festival, I'm so grateful, and so excited for everybody to see this film.
08:40What can the audience expect?
08:43The audience can expect to really get involved in the lives of lovable, affable, heart-centered characters that are trying
08:55to figure out their lives, especially in a global pandemic that is so obviously relatable, we all went through it
09:03together, and now we get to look back at what life was like, and we get to laugh, and maybe
09:08possibly cry about what those experiences were like.
09:13Three, two, one, three, two, one.
09:30Oh, I never do.
09:31I'm very proud of you, never do.
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