The Goyas of the new Spanish cinema: "Making films is no longer a matter of the rich upper class"

• LUIS MARTINEZ

  Madrid

Updated Friday, February 3, 2023-23:22

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Cabal pessimists tend to be, by pure logic, staunch defenders of joy when it occurs.

And this for a simple reason: you never know when fate will grant us the grace to feel happy again.

The reflection is not so much from a follower of Spanish cinema who has suddenly witnessed the miracle of a strange year, precisely because it was blessed, as from Schopenhauer, the greatest and most steadfast of pessimists.

Next Saturday, February 11, a new Goya Awards gala will be held.

The one that makes number 37 and everything indicates that there is a lot to celebrate.

The numbers that place the share of the screen (the number of viewers of Spanish cinema with respect to that of all the rest) at around 22% say it;

The recovered visibility at international festivals says so;

says a new way of looking at the world;

The irruption of the woman with up to three candidates in the best film section for the first time in history says it, and why not, even Schopenhauer says it: «Instead of doubting, we must open the doors to joy wherever we go. this one is presented, since it never arrives at a bad moment ».

Amen.

If back in the remote past (in the 50s and 60s) the so-called New Spanish Cinema opened the doors of reality to a stuffy, airless and somewhat cloudy cinema, and the 90s brought by its hand the rereading in its own key of the cinema of genre with Urbizu, De la Iglesia or Medem, everything indicates that what is coming now with

is, once again, something new.

To know more

Goya Awards.

List of nominees for the Goya 2023

• Writing: THE WORLD

List of nominees for the Goya 2023

Theater.

Candela Peña: "If with three Goyas I eat shit from pipes, imagine the girls that come from behind"

• Drafting: PABLO R. ROCEMadrid

• Writing: PHOTOS: ANTONIO HEREDIA

Candela Peña: "If with three Goyas I eat shit from pipes, imagine the girls that come from behind"

As is already a tradition (or even a hobby), EL MUNDO brings together the directors whose films (in order,

and

compete for the highest and most desired award.

And since it is completely new, the issue to be dealt with is not how to manage the umpteenth crisis, but, even more difficult, how to understand and help sustain this anomalous refutation of Schopenhauer himself over time.

We are in a moment of historical reparation.

In the early days of cinema, there were women directors and as soon as a space from which to exercise power was revealed, they disappeared

Carla Simon

For Simón -the first to speak as the brand new Golden Bear in Berlin after more than three decades away from the windows of Spanish cinema- perhaps everything that is happening is nothing more than the result of a confluence of factors at the same time deep, because they are structural, and arbitrary, just because.

«Something is happening because the first thing to take into account is that the big names in our cinema are not the protagonists now.

But, on the other hand, much of the responsibility lies with the pandemic that created a bottleneck.

Perhaps the confinement gave us more time to reflect », she says.

Next to her, Sorogoyen prefers to aim higher and is left with a generational change that affects everyone in her opinion transversally, including those who pay:

People like María Zamora [producer of Simón's film] are closer to our way of seeing cinema and that can be seen throughout the chain.

My previous films were made differently.

I won't say better or worse, but different.

Now there is more awareness that the result belongs to all of us."

For his part, Alberto Rodríguez is clear that things are happening that have never happened before.

Without daring to offer a reason or cause, if he outlines what can be understood as a regret: «The truth is that there are at least

and that is rare not only for Spanish cinema but for any cinematography.

I am convinced that if what is happening here were happening in France, we would be talking about a New Wave.

I don't know if there would also be demonstrations on the street, but it is strange how difficult it is for us to recognize something so obvious.

Series simplify language.

In a meeting they told me that in a series there had to be something significant every three minutes and memorable every six.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen

The question is to find the key to what is different.

Can one really speak of a new time?

Are we not falling into the Adamist temptation of believing that cinema has just been invented?

Palomero, who already knew what it is to win the Goya with Las niñas, firmly believes that there is something and that something is as evident as reality itself: «I think that a way of approaching our work from reality unites us.

I'm not saying it hasn't been done before, just that it's now the central concern.

There is a desire for authenticity, to open castings not only to actors».

And in his affirmation perhaps the key is gone or, to go back to the beginning, the reason for happiness.

The case of Ruiz de Azúa does not seem very different.

«My search has always been for a story that directly appeals to me.

I don't want to talk about the much maligned autofiction, but there is something of that.

To a large extent, Cinco lobitos was born as an exercise in answering the stories of families that he saw and read and with which I did not identify », he says.

For Sorogoyen, one step further, what is lived is something like the bankruptcy of the principle of, once again, reality.

It sounds tremendous and it is.

«I remember when I first saw movies like

or

, the two of León de Aranoa, seemed to me the maximum of realism.

And right now you see them and they talk about something that is no longer.

What has changed is not only the world but the way we identify and narrate that world », she reflects.

And Simón agrees with him and dares to point out a milestone: «For me, seeing

was a true revelation.

I said to myself: 'It was this!'

That way, if you want a documentary, of making fiction is, I think, the definitive thing and what unites us».

We are united by a way of approaching our work from the real.

There is a desire for authenticity, to open castings not only to actors

Pilar Palomero

And at this point with an aspect of conclusion, Carla Simón herself points out one more idea: «On the other hand, it is insisted that the concern for the same issues as, for example, the return to the rural .

And I think that has to do with the democratization of cinema.

Many of us who lead come from the middle classes and have grown up in small towns.

We don't make films about empty Spain because it's fashionable.

Many of us are simply village filmmakers ».

Either way, we're getting close.

Both the argument (the return to the rural and the illusory search for an essence that may not even exist) and the intention (the questioning of patriarchal ways of solving problems) would be characteristics that seem common and that can be traced in each of the nominated films in addition to, for example,

And then there would be the verista grammar that everyone refers to.

That and the diversity of approaches and themes that equally dare to travel to Bora Bora (

, by Albert Serra), than to reconstruct the Bataclan attack in Paris (

by Isaki Lacuesta) than to propose the darkest descent into hell (

, by Carlos Vermut).

I am convinced that if what is happening here were happening in France we would be talking about a New Wave

alberto rodriguez

Anything else?

"We all understand cinema not as an individual act but a collective one," says Palomero.

«I think that what is breaking is a unique and established way of doing things.

I've worked in advertising and there everything is very hierarchical and it gives you an idea of ​​how things were before.

That is over and it is increasingly common and interesting to work from doubt”, adds Alauda.

In this sense, Carla remembers when she faced her debut in

and over and over again she came across the indisputable statement: "This is how it is done."

«The relevant thing is to assume that as a filmmaker you have to resist.

Each project needs its time and must find its way.

That is what I call working from the resistance... How many times have I come across the recrimination:

remember.

Perhaps not by chance, the ones who speak in the last paragraph are the three directors.

What does the irruption of women mean? would now be the question in its most robust naivety.

Alauda, ​​to start at the top, stops at Agnès Varda.

«She explained that she was a filmmaker who was a woman.

And not the other way around.

It is clear that she conditions everything that we are: being a woman, being from Barakaldo... I do not deny my condition as a woman, what happens is that I also claim more aspects of myself », she says.

Carla Simón, in a more general way, insists on the idea of ​​before: «Before, men were afraid to doubt, now they accept and direct themselves from doubt.

There are definitely other ways of looking at femininity and masculinity."

I am a filmmaker who is a woman.

And not the other way around... The problem is that it seems that the only thing that conditions your look is the fact of being a woman

Alauda Ruiz de Azua

For her part, Pilar records how things are changing and the perplexity that this transformation brings: «It strikes me how in many colloquiums after the screening of La maternal there has always been someone who has missed men in the film.

And yet there are.

But you live with tension that the protagonist is not a man.

Something that had never happened in the historic absence of women.

And at this point, everyone agrees on the importance of quotas and on the importance of management no longer being seen by those who come after as a male trade.

And obviously, both Sorogoyen and Rodríguez enter the 'everyone' category.

In the early days of cinema, there were women directors and as soon as a space from which to exercise power was revealed, they disappeared.

I am tired of being asked about this topic, but I am clear that I have to keep talking so that those who are now studying can see us.

It is impossible to repair if you don't talk about it, "concludes Simón.

It is clear.

For the end would be the appearance of the platforms and how they have changed the landscape.

Are they part of the change?

«It is clear that they give more work options, but they also simplify the language.

In a meeting they told me that in a series there had to be something significant every three minutes and memorable every six.

If you get used to this, how are you going to understand a long shot?», comments Sorogoyen.

," adds Rodríguez.

"What is relevant is that each project has the time it needs and that does not always fit into the TV plans," Palomero and Simón comment to one.

Alauda, ​​who has just finished a project on Netlfix, remains more cautious on the other hand: "Actually, it depends on the moment and you shouldn't close the door on anything."

And so.

And at this point, who knows, a new time begins... of happiness perhaps.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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