Not every day one has the luck to witness Willem Dafoe uninhibitedly dancing Greek folklore. The Host, an adaptation by Miguel Ángel Jiménez of Panos Karnezis' biographical novel, offers the viewer not only the juicy opportunity to share intimacies and drinks with the iconic American actor, but also proposes a hypnotic island journey in which the cinematic device surrenders to both a liquid and feverish atmosphere and the irregularly hieratic performances that conceal the protagonist.

Willem Dafoe (Appleton, 1955), the star guest of the edition of the BCN Film Fest that kicks off this Thursday at Cinemes Verdi, attends the group of journalists with a warm smile that illuminates his angular and expressive face, one of the most fascinating in world cinema. The Host, the film by Miguel Ángel Jiménez that he presents at the festival, is a Catalan co-production with an international cast filmed in Greece in which the American actor plays a powerful Greek magnate with shady dealings who, in the mid-70s, gathers family and friends on his private island to lavishly celebrate his daughter's birthday and plan her future, whether she wants it or not. “The problem with wanting to control everything is that it ends up destroying everything you love – the actor points out. He always thinks about his past, surely because he has humble origins. But what defines him is, above all, power and the loss of his son”.