Versus, the documentary about the life of Chilean tennis player Nicolás Jarry, will premiere in Chile during Santiago International Film Festival (SANFIC).
This was confirmed to CLAY by its director Raúl Cuesta. On Wednesday, August 21st, at 8pm in Santiago de Chile, the first of four chapters of the docu-film series by Amaina Films will be shown at the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM).
The documentary explores the pressures, frustrations and mental struggles Jarry went through before he made it to the pros, as well as a pivotal moment in his career: when he had to set limits for his grandfather, former world number 14 tennis player Jaime Fillol.
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‘I sat down with my grandfather and told him in tears that I wanted him to be my grandfather, but not to talk to me about tennis anymore,’ Jarry reveals in the series. ‘I was already very tired between what my grandfather, my dad, and Martin (Rodriguez, then his coach) told me. My grandfather knew an infinite amount of things and every day I realise that more and more. But I wasn’t understanding him and I couldn’t go on having two different voices in my head. It wasn’t doing me any good.
‘Everything was tennis, everything was for tennis… and I was moving away from everybody,’ explains Jarry.
Versus collects in-depth testimonies from Jarry himself and his inner circle, shows the Chilean tennis player in shots that reveal the intimacy of the story, and exhibits audiovisual archives of the family that have never before been publicly revealed. Cuesta’s work succeeds in communicating the Chilean athlete’s most honest feelings up close.
The project was accepted by Jarry during the time he was suspended for testing positive in an anti-doping test, which he would later prove was due to cross-contamination in the lab where his supplements came from. It was a significant part of his process of accepting his reality away from the tour.
The work was then filmed in 2022 when the tennis player was making his comeback to his best level.
Versus recently participated in Los Cabos International Film Festival in Mexico and in Docmontenvideo in Montevideo, Uruguay. The producers have not yet defined on which platform the series will be permanently available.
