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In the last investiture debate, Unamuno's most celebrated pun, that of the University of Salamanca paraninfo, was quoted from the tribune of Congress twice. And from positions it would be said that irreconcilable. And from contradictory intentions by force. But always, yes, from the deep conviction that, like Latin in Divine words , after pronouncing the holy verb there is nothing left to say. Unamuno illuminates, Unamuno sana and Unamuno, in addition to convincing, even expires . No one seems to resist him. Not even the cinema. On Saturday, at the San Sebastian Festival, Unamuno can do everything: headlines, rants, reflections and, above all, memories.

While the war lasts , Alejandro Amenábar , reconstructs with wisdom and clarity what was that controversial, discussed and mythical despite his moment of October 12, 1936. In passing, the legendary episode returns to the center of a present policy committed to repeating mistakes with a stubbornness that someone with a taste for topics might qualify as Bilbao. " Qui sine peccato est vestrum, primus in illam lapide mittat ", which is heard in precisely Divine words . At 47, this prodigious man who was once a young prodigy of Spanish cinema, returns to put himself at the center of the debate as he did long ago with Mar in . And he does it without alibis. Whether we want it or not, the Civil War never ends.

This is not a personal film, however historical, but somehow it is linked to your biography, you are, so to speak, son (or consequence) of two coups and two dictatorships ... All with nuances, that yes. I never thought that the Civil War affected me directly or indirectly. However, a few years ago through a cousin I knew that my mother accompanied her sister, who had married a Republican from Barcelona, ​​in her flight from Franco's Spain to Chile. Over time, we made our way back to Spain precisely because my mother feared a new civil war shortly before the Pinochet uprising. We arrived in Spain 15 days before the coup at the Palacio de la Moneda when Franco still had two years to live. Somehow, yes, my life has been a round trip marked by two coups. The film began to think years ago and reaches theaters and public debate in the most appropriate way ... I imagine you can There is some unconscious connection. We started thinking about the movie just after the end of Regression (2015). The delay in funding has made it coincide in time with this political moment so ' unamuniano '. Maybe it's pure chance. Or not. It is as if we were always engaged in the same debate. I think about the war of symbols and the flags from the balconies, for example ... The more I developed the project and the more I inquired, the more I realized that it is a film about Spain. And I think that one of our great conflicts has to do precisely with the symbols that, in the end, is with the identity. I grew up in the Transition, but I, like everyone else, have lived that the Spanish flag has always been associated to the right. What we have intended in the film is to face the Spaniards with themselves, that the film works like a mirror. This is our flag and this, our anthem that, because it does not have, has no letter. How irresoluble is this conflict of symbols in your opinion? I am naturally optimistic and, although it may sound good , I am convinced that we live in a common space and we have no choice but to agree. This is a community of neighbors and we have to understand that in this common space it is impossible for everyone to think the same. The film is all a vindication of coexistence. Otherwise, we are going to a new Civil War. We have to learn to live together and discuss. We don't seem to be programmed for it ... Play against our temperament and our passion. Something so valuable for artistic creation is not recommended in politics, perhaps everything has to do with, first, the need to remember first and then with forgiveness. But is it possible to forgive or is forgiveness nothing more than a forced oblivion? That is the eternal conflict after any brutal regime. How do you close an episode as traumatic as Franco's dictatorship? Do you close in false? A little Transition was that: law of oblivion and blur and new account. But that never works and they end up emerging from the dead in the gutters and the blood from the wounds. Another option is to reach the end as it may have been after the Holocaust in Germany or with the trials in Argentina. Each process has its advantages and disadvantages, but I do believe that we must close the wounds and I agree with the Law of Historical Memory. Returning to the question, is forgiveness possible? I will always advocate for that . It makes us human. It insists that 'As long as the war lasts' it is not a revenge film, but there is an intention of compensation. Every memory of a humiliation carries with it the vindication of the victim ... My film is neither neutral nor equidistant. I don't see myself ideologically or morally at the same distance from Franco as from Unamuno. But I do believe that I am equanimous. Franco is the bad guy in the movie, but he is not a devil who foams at the mouth. I tried to get into his head. Unmuno did something unforgivable in Spain: change his mind. Can you change your mind and be innocent? Or, vice versa, is every change of opinion guilty? He was the father of the Republic and at the same time he was the first to question her and take out the colors. To me, that seems to me the less interesting. He was convinced that the army was coming to order. That pushes him to say yes, but I think he immediately realized his mistake and so on until he reached the act of paraninfo. How is he living the controversy, since there are no totally unquestionable records, about what was really said and not was said in the act of the Paraninfo? The funny thing is that the controversy reaches the Parliament where you see that two opposing political groups use the same words to say the opposite. But it is not so difficult to define what happened and what was said by the testimonies of both a sign and the other. Mine is a dramatic version true to the spirit of what happened and was said. Suddenly, in San Sebastián, two films about the Civil War and nothing else is released. Why now? My personal case, I do not know that of others, is that of a student who in secondary school and university has gone through the Civil War on tiptoe. That has made me reflect on why something so fundamental and present in our society is not studied. On the other hand, as a citizen things happen that give you what to think. If there were a situation like the one Unamuno experienced, what would I have done? And that's why I felt so questioned. Could it be that a new generation is surprised at how little it knows about the recent past? Yes, it can be. We are a generation to which the Civil War has been hidden. And there is the germ of problems that we have now.In addition, it is used almost as an insult to Spanish cinema to make films about the Civil War ... It is rare all because it is a fact that financing this film has been very complicated. Franco's ghost is more present than we think and presenting in a movie a character who represented him was very suspicious. What kind of financial problems? It is not a film that has been financed by the usual channels of private television. And it has a lot to do with Franco's presence. Develop that idea. Well, Franco floats there like a ghost and today's Spain is the one he devised. That he found the crown in the river and put it on whom he decided. The issue of territorial integrity is a topic of yours. The king emeritus recently confessed that the last words Franco told him were about this matter. Franco, although it sounds fatal, is very present. And the exhumation controversy proves it. How do we bury Franco? It's hard to do things and not bother anyone. And more in this country that we bother about everything. For me it has been a bit like discovering that Darth Vader was my father. There is something of a father in Franco. Does the new political landscape, with new parties, help or prevent rethinking the past? I think we all saw the entry of new actors into politics as something positive. However, there is something that worries me. Personally, that Citizens put the red carpet to the far right, which was what Unamuno feared most, worries me. And the film is about that, about that cyclical commitment to history to repeat itself. We seem to forget, but Trump's forms remind us a lot of the most tragic past. And yes, I am worried that a center match is the one that opens the door to the far right. The Millán-Astray Foundation has made a complaint before watching the movie. How do you imagine receiving 'While the war lasts'? We did not expect it to happen so soon, but it was planned. All I can say is that I have prepared the film conscientiously and I have written it in conscience.

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