Os Fortes

Saw this movie during the 2020 Chicago Reeling Virtual Film Festival. The movie has a slow but steady pace. The director took great shots to document the beautiful city of Valvidia. I feel that the cinematography enhanced the story - like a supporting actor. This is a short yet sweet romance: boy meets boy, boys falls in love, boys realizes the difference in their lives However, life steps in and realities must be faced. The chemistry between the main characters is solid, supporting cast gave good performances. Overall a pleasing movie.

I just love this movie, a touching love story, very good acting and amazing cinematography. Also, this movie really inspires to visit Valdivia, Chile one day! To sum up, it would be an excellent movie choice for yourself or maybe with your love ones in a weekend night.

Los Fuertes (2019) is a Chilean film written and directed by Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo. It was shown in the U.S. with the translated title The Strong Ones.

Samuel González portrays Lucas, a young student of architecture who visits his sister in the Valdivia region of Chile. It's there that he meets Antonio, who works on a commercial fishing boat. Antonio is played by Antonio Altamirano. The men are gay, and are attracted to each other.

The plots plays itself out as the men come to terms with their relationship, prejudice against gays, and the fact that Lucas is leaving Chile to study in Montreal.

This is a film that cries out to be seen on a large screen because the Chilean landscape is so beautiful. However, it's a movie about relationships, so it worked well enough on the small screen.

We saw Los Fuertes via ImageOut, the wonderful Rochester LGBTQ Film Festival. (Virtual this year.) The movie has a solid IMDb rating of 7.2. I though it was even better than that, and rated it 9.

The beauty of cinematography, the precise acting, the shadow of history, the reactions of community, the realistic portrait of family are the basic virtues of this bitter- sweet film , a love one but , more important, a honest, direct image of loneliness, adulthood basic, fundamental traits , beauty of dialogue and the feel to be part of story for viewer. A film about honesty to become yourself with entire soul.

I have watched this wonderful film several times. Just far apart in time to make it new and fresh. But the depth of the story, the acting and the cinematography is such that new things are discovered each time. This takes place in a wet place, lots of rain. Cold. I can feel it as I watch. And so on. This is not just another gay man love story although heaven knows we can use as many as we can get. There are many kinds of relationships shown and once again we find the difference between they that stay and they that go. As one who left I feel the pain of both sides.