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One-Armed Trick (El truco del manco)

Santiago Zannou
Spain / 2008 / 100 min. / Spanish with English subtitles

Paralyzed in half of his body from childhood, Cuajo has a single dream: to succeed in music. Together with his friend Adolfo, he attempts to set up a studio while gathering some of Barcelona’s freshest hip-hop talent. One-Armed Trick features some of the hottest stars of Spanish rap—among them Elio Sagues, Ovone Candela and La Mala Rodriguez and El Langui, lead singer of La Excepción, recently voted the best Spanish-language rappers on MTV.

Santiago Zannou (Madrid, 1977) made an impressive feature film debut with One-Armed Trick. He studied cinema in Barcelona, at Centre d’Estudis Cinematogràfics de Catalunya (CECC). He wrote and directed the short films Cara sucia (2004), which was nomminated to Best Short Film at Goya Awards, and Mercancías (2005). After meeting Juan Manuel Montilla “El Langui”, frontman of the rap band La Excepción, he decided to write the script that would become later his first feature film, One-Armed Trick. In 2009 he directed a documentary, El alma de la roja, about the centenary of Spanish Football Selection.