By Juan Ramon Peña

MEXICO CITY -- "Rudo y Cursi," a Mexican film directed by Carlos Cuaron and featuring actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in the starring roles, will have its first of four screenings Friday at the 25th Sundance Film Festival.

Three of the film's co-producers - Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuaron (Carlos' brother), Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu and Guillermo del Toro, known as the "Three Amigos" in their homeland - expressed their confidence in the film during a telephone interview with Efe.

"We had a lot of confidence in the film because it has a very powerful, everyday-person streak, and, although it has certain local aspects, that doesn't prevent it from being universal," said Gonzalez Iñarritu, who is currently filming "Biutiful," starring Javier Bardem.

"Rudo y Cursi" is a tragicomedy that tells of the rivalry between two soccer-playing brothers in rural Mexico who are discovered by a talent scout. Their success on the field gets them off the banana ranch but also forces them to confront their personal demons.

Garcia Bernal (Cursi) and Diego (Rudo) play two characters "from the sticks, but without making fun of them, with heart," Gonzalez Iñarritu said.

The image of Garcia Bernal being catapulted to fame as a soccer star and then making another jump to become a beloved norteño singer, combined with the comical verbal outbursts of Rudo, have already entertained thousands of cinema-goers in Mexico.

In one scene, Luna's bragging and defiant Rudo says in his peculiar accent of a banana plantation foreman: "I have more of a pistol here (while gesturing between his legs) than you have on the table."

"Rudo y Cursi" brings Garcia Bernal and Luna together as sidekicks for the first time since the 2001 smash hit "Y tu mama tambien" (And Your Mother Too). They were reunited by the screenwriter of that previous film, Carlos Cuaron, who made his directorial debut with this latest project, which he also wrote.

"Sundance was the platform for the first films of Alfonso, Alejandro and myself. It's a very important stepping stone," said Del Toro, who will be at the first screening of the film - which is not in the world cinema dramatic competition - along with Garcia Bernal and Carlos and Alfonso Cuaron

Although Sundance - which begins Friday and runs until Jan. 25 in Park City, Utah, and is considered a premier international showcase for independent cinema - will give the film even more visibility, even before "Rudo y Cursi" was completed its distribution in foreign markets was virtually assured due to the star power of its lead actors and heavyweight team of producers.

The "Three Amigos" lent support to Carlos Cuaron but also made sure not to interfere with his vision and let him make all the final decisions regarding the film.

"I've had the fortune and perhaps also the lonely disadvantage all my life of having been my own producer; I would've liked to have had someone supporting me," Gonzalez Iñarritu said.

For that reason, the director of "Amores Perros" (Love's a Bitch) said he gave Carlos Cuaron the creative freedom "to make the mistakes he had to make," but also was there for whatever he needed.

"Anything we felt could be improved we let him know by e-mail, but we respected what he wanted to do differently," Del Toro said.

According to the director best known for "El laberinto del fauno" (Pan's Labyrinth), many of the correct decisions that were made in the end were due to the fact that "Carlos knew when to be sufficiently stubborn."

"They treated me as producers in the way they would have liked to have been treated. I was very sheltered; they're like my 'big brothers,' one by blood and the others through cinema," Carlos Cuaron said.

From this point forward, the 42-year-old filmmaker said that he plans to continue to direct and that he will likely become "more selfish" about his screenplays.

"I'll try to work and write more for myself, although I'll also work with people with whom I have a (common vision)," such as the Three Amigos, he said.

"I can't watch it anymore because the only thing I see are the mistakes, things no one will probably notice," Cuaron said about "Rudo y Cursi." "It's ironic, it's like life, you'd like to have lived the experience you had in a different way," he said.