Simón (2023) on Netflix
Simón joins the protests in Venezuela and is arrested and tortured with others. In Miami as an asylum seeker, he weighs a new life against going home to the fight.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.5/101,969 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Simón is a young man from Venezuela who takes part in the protests against the government there. He and the people demonstrating alongside him are arrested, and he is tortured in custody. He leaves the country and requests asylum in the United States, settling in Miami. Officials tell him that asylum, once granted, would bar him from going back to Venezuela. What he carries with him is the trauma of what was done to him and guilt over the decision in front of him: whether to remain in Miami and begin a new life, or to return home and take part again in a fight that is being lost.
Cast
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Simón (2023)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Two days before Simón's Venezuelan release, outlets reported a complaint had been filed with Venezuela's Public Ministry to block its screening, accusing it of promoting violence. Director Diego Vicentini said the following day that he and his team had received no notification and the premiere was still set for the same date.
- The film includes a character inspired by Rufo Chacón, a 20-year-old protester who lost both eyes after police shot him in the face with pellets.
- Because of the risk that lead actor Christian McGaffney would get sick, a scene set in a crowded Miami nightclub was modified, reducing the number of extras from 250 to 30.
- For the lead, director Diego Vicentini needed a bilingual Venezuelan in his twenties, which limited the options, so he cast Christian McGaffney, the same actor he had used in his short film.
- Simón was not chosen as Venezuela's candidate for the Academy Awards, in a vote of 10 in favour, 12 against and two abstentions, which proved controversial at the time.
- Franklin Virgüez used the Stanislavski method for the interrogation scene, calling on the phobia of rats he developed while living in a shanty house in Monte Piedad, and imagined rats on Christian McGaffney to evoke the emotion.
- Diego Vicentini wrote 18 versions of the script before choosing a final one; Simón is his debut feature film.
- Simón grew out of a short film of the same name that Diego Vicentini made in 2017 as his master's thesis at the Los Angeles Film School; the short was released in 2018 in eight countries and its unexpected reception led him to turn it into a feature.
