- Albert Serra. With fantasy, against the shabby
- Víctor Moreno. Through the sewers
Every year, with the list of laureates, there is also the list of casualties, that of the scorned . Due to carelessness, forgetfulness, neglect or simple laziness -of everything there is-, the Film Academy ignores some of the most notable films of the year. The reason may be that you vote by ear, or not vote, or vote advised by a producer . Of the three options, the third is the worst. However, beyond chance or farewell, there is a type of cinema that, directly, never enters. It is the cinema ignored by the Goya. It is that area of production that is not understood by the industry. "I have the impression," Eloy Enciso takes the word, "that the Goya represent only one part of the cinema, and that part is closely linked to a hegemonic style that has to do with naturalistic interpretations and structures in three acts. The problem is that by selling that like Spanish cinema, everything else that is done in Spain becomes invisible. If this is added that the bulk of voters (402 of 1,768) are actors, method or methodical actors ... the conclusion is drawer, bad.
The speaker, to place us, has turned his latest work, Longa noite , into one of the events of the year. The film, as before he did Bresson, the Straub-Huillet couple or even Pedro Costa, uses interpretations-masks to offer a journey between illuminated and only deep through memory. The characters declare texts by Alfonso Sastre, Max Aub, Ramón de Valenzuela, Luis Seoane or, and above all, Rodolfo Fogwill to build, by the hand of the implacable photograph of Mauro Herce, the closest thing to a state of the soul that is also complaint, claim and injury. Amazing by trip the trip through the night forest that presides over the last third of the tape. The traces of the Civil War are talked about in the most recondite and at the same time evident of all of us, and it is done from the possibility and demand of a new language . The proposal, like it or not, never leaves you indifferent. This has been demonstrated by his time at the Locarno International Festival. And from there, cruelty and even stupidity of disdain.
«I recognize that from time to time there are exceptions. I remember the year of La soledad , by Jaime Rosales, or, right now, What burns , by Óliver Laxe. But they are that, exceptions, that do not cease to consolidate and promote the taste of the majority that, by definition, need not be consolidated or encouraged. I get the impression that evil is general, that what is rejected in the cinema and in other fields of culture and politics in Spain is diversity , the possibility of new voices, ”insists Enciso. Beside him, both Albert Serra and Víctor Moreno agree with him. Each in its own way and for reasons to the contrary.
The first is one of the few Spanish filmmakers who can boast of having been awarded at Cannes. His film Liberté , which was cited by the jury of Un Certain Regard last May, is and represents that part of the cinema that makes research and risk its way of being in the world. It is cinema foreign to taboos, free, dirty, terrible and irresistible. Everything at once.
« If something is the Goya they are mediocre », starts the Catalan director. And it continues: «The nominated films except for cases like those of Almodóvar or Laxe are not of sufficient quality nor have they had an international impact anywhere . Most of them are absurdly local. And I say more: its lack of relevance is even industrial. That is, neither as commercial products are they minimally interesting when it comes to special effects or photography or whatever because of their innovation or technical perfection. I would save Bayonne, of course. Who said war?
Serra, despite the angry clarity of his words, does not show instead hurt or resigned or quite the opposite. Just assume it. «I understand that they are a private association to which I will never belong and can do whatever they want . May they reward their mediocrity. Seem right. Now, what is already uncomfortable for me is that they lie, that they colonize with their lies the imaginary of the public; that they present themselves to others as what there is or, worse, as the best of what there is. No, they should accept that they are bad and say so. They lie saying they are important. And there he leaves.
Victor Moreno is not so radical. And that despite the fact that his voice probably represents the worst represented category of all; the most damaged and even repeatedly outraged. For years, the documentary epigraph, of which we speak, is literally taken by proposals that are either close to the journalistic report or are simply light years away from the new non-fiction cinema that is precisely the one that is most It does in Spain and the one that is most encouraged from film schools, any of them. The hidden city , the last work of this canary, is perhaps the most awarded film that has gone through more festivals of all the productions of the season. Up to 60 contests he has visited. Well, nothing.
«I do believe, unlike Serra, that the Academy serves. In fact I think I should do a pedagogical work. What hurts is that it works with the same parameters as TVE that understands the documentary exclusively as a biography of a famous character . My previous film, Edificio España , was nominated and I feel very grateful. She made many people see her and end up identifying herself with another type of cinema, ”says the director from now on the far side of the Goya. Literally. He is in Chile, in the Atacama Desert, preparing his next project. And one more: «The Oscars, which are the rule, have renewed the category of documentaries . Two years ago they included one produced by someone as suspicious of conventional as Apichatpong Weerasethakul . I think that since we copied them, it would be good to do what they do well.
In effect, everyone has the right to include the movies they want in the list of those absent. Why doesn't Boi , by Jorge M. Fontana, probably the most promising and original debut of the year? And what about La virgen de Agosto , by Jonás Trueba, the confirmation of one of the most interesting and personal voices of current Spanish cinema? And what has had to happen so that the days that will come , by Carlos Marqués-Marcet , will be ignored despite highlighting and dazzling in every event that has trodden? And January , of Ione Athena? In one way or another, they are joined by quality, recognition and the obligation to be seen. If possible far from a producer.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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