The first trailer has dropped for “Sleepless City” (“Ciudad Sin Sueño”), the hauntingly lyrical debut feature from Spanish director Guillermo Galoe, which will have its world premiere on May 19 in the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival.
Set in the crumbling edges of Madrid’s La Cañada Real, the largest informal settlement in Europe, “Sleepless City” follows 15-year-old Toni, a Roma boy grappling with the loss of childhood and community as bulldozers close in on his home. Galoe’s film is a poignant and visually arresting portrait of adolescence on the margins, rooted in six years of deep collaboration with the real-life inhabitants of La Cañada.
The film’s trailer offers a glimpse of the world Toni inhabits, one of vivid colors, ghostly legends and tender, unflinching realities. “The characters in the film face the loss of a way of life,” Galoe explains. “Despite being completely displaced, they uphold their values and myths, almost in a quixotic manner.”
A former documentarian, Galoe embedded himself in the community for years before turning on a camera, running filmmaking workshops with local children and teens. “I was making a film with the community, not about the community,” he tells Variety. “Cinema gradually filled a cultural void there, as the neighborhood lost access to both electricity and public cultural spaces.”
What began as a shared act of storytelling evolved into a cinematic partnership; many of the actors, including lead Tonino Fernández Gabarre, are non-professionals from La Cañada. Galoe recalls first meeting Toni while the boy was fixing his bike, “He was a kid hungry for adventure. He jumped in without hesitation and ended up becoming an incredibly gifted natural actor.”
As “Sleepless City” heads to Cannes, it carries the spirit of a disappearing world. “The film vibrates with the same energy as Toni’s eyes,” Galoe says. “It cries out for freedom.”
“Sleepless City” is a Spain-France co-production between BTeam Prods, Sintagma Films, Buena Pinta Media, Encanta Film, Les Valseurs, and Tournellovision. It premieres May 19 at the Espace Miramar and will have additional screenings throughout the festival week. Best Friend Forever is selling the film internationally.