Javier Polo, a graduate of Campus Gandia in Audiovisual Communication, is the director of Shitty Therapy, an irreverent documentary short film that has been nominated for the 38th Annual Goya Awards.
The award ceremony will be held on February 10, 2024, where the winners will be announced. He will attend the event with great pleasure, but with realistic expectations, because, according to Polo, “all the shorts are really good”.
Anti Paeudotherapies
Shitty Therapy is a funny and scathing parody based on a true story: about two biology students who invented fecomagnetotherapy in 2012, which they assured that could cure diseases using fecal samples and magnets. The aim of the student inventors, Mariano Collantes and Fernando Cervera, was to show how easy and dangerous it is to normalize non-science based pseudotherapies.
A Great Run
One to be proud of. Shitty Therapy has garnered important awards and nominations in 2023, including a Premio Feroz, a Berlanga Award and a nomination to the Fugaz Awards. The short was published on the YouTube channel of the well-known creator Tamay, where it racked up 100,000 views in the first 24 hours. The film is available for streaming on Filmin.
Reaching the General Public
Javier Polo got involved in this film project through the developer and screenwriter, Juanjo Moscardó, who he had already worked with on the documentary directed by Javier, The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo. Polo added more comedy to the short film, as well as his distinctive raunchy style. “We wanted to appeal to a mainstream audience through humor, but without sacrificing rigor.”
The Polo Brothers
Javier and his brother Guillermo Polo, who also studied Audiovisual Communication at Campus Gandia UPV, are the founding partners of the production company Los Hermanos Polo, that produces advertising content as well as their own productions. “We work together, though one of us takes the lead in each project.” Now they are both finishing their first two fiction feature films.
Their Time at Campus Gandia
Javier has very good memories of his years as a student at Campus Gandia UPV. “I was there from 2005 to 2010 and my brother was there three years before me. I think we’re proof that you can reach your goals.”
The Polo brothers also maintain friendships from their days at Campus Gandia, such as Abdón Alcañiz, Art Director and Visual Designer of series such as The Money Heist and Sky Rojo: “We really admire one another, we’re from the same cohort at school; we stay in touch and we’d like to work on something together one day. Abdon has had tremendous success and he’s an example we look up to.”
Javier Polo advises Audiovisual Communication students to “work hard, experiment and leave home” to make their projects come true.
Source: Sandra Barrancos. Journalist. Office of Communications (UPV)