Pablo Scarpellini Los Angeles
The Angels
Updated Friday, March 8, 2024-22:54
There are times when life allows you to stop and reflect on what you have achieved.
A few hours away from what could be one of the highlights of his career,
Juan Antonio Bayona
can't help but look back and think about his father, the painter of buildings from a working-class neighborhood in Barcelona who instilled in him his love for cinema. .
On Sunday,
at 83 years old, this painter with the soul of an artist will be able to walk the Oscars red carpet dressed in a tuxedo.
And that, probably, is the biggest award that can be awarded to this director who loves stories to the limit, regardless of whether or not
The Snow Society
wins one of the two awards to which it aspires.
"That's what I'm most excited about, by far," he says in a meeting with Spanish media at Teleferic, a Spanish restaurant in Los Angeles.
The 48-year-old director arrives at Sunday's gala with the caution of someone who knows that
the odds are against him.
The favorite in almost all the pools is
The Zone of Interest
, the British film also nominated in the best film category.
But the now famous story of the plane crash of a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes in 1972 has the support of a giant like Netflix and
more than 200 million views on the platform.
"We have already won a lot, with or without the Oscar,"
says Bayona, flanked by his two producers,
Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida,
and the three fellow Oscar nominees for best makeup,
Montse Ribé, David Martí, Ana López-Puigcerver.
"I'm left with the idea that this film will be remembered. With
The Impossible
(2012) we realized that almost no one had seen it, and I think that ten years later everyone has seen it."
That hasn't happened
with
The Snow Society .
It has even become a teenage phenomenon.
"It's something we didn't expect at all."
Bayona is left with what the film has given "and what it will give us," for the impact it will continue to have for years, a story that arose during the filming of
The Impossible
.
Pablo Vierci's book about the air tragedy in the Andes was among the material he used to tell what a Spanish family experienced during the tsunami in Thailand in 2004.
"There are important people in Hollywood whom I greatly admire who have told me that "It's the best movie they've seen in a long time.
That means a lot to me," he explains.
Nor does it have an easy time for the film's extraordinary makeup team that helped transform the Latin American actors, telling the story of hunger and desperation after 72 days trapped in the mountains, forced to practice cannibalism to survive.
They compete with
Maestro
and
Poor Creatures
, a priori the favorites.
The Barcelona native from Nous Barris is left with the fact that they have nominated "a choral work" over "more effective" works from other films.
Just being on the list is already a huge triumph, he reasons.
"When you see the list of films that have been left out, which is the majority, it is impressive. It is very difficult to enter Hollywood with a film in Spanish, basically because you compete on equal terms with Scorsese, Nolan, Greta Gerwig, and you have "You have to make your film visible when at the same time they are showing theirs.
It is difficult to compete with a casting of unknown actors and myself as a director.
We take the recognition with a great triumph."
Even so,
he is not sure if it is his best film.
"Yes, it is a film in which I have reconnected with the kind of director I want to be, after two interesting projects with Hollywood studios. It was a reaction to those projects, to find myself as a director, with a much freer, more open style. to exploration," he alleges.
He openly admits that he is worried about the possibility of winning and having to give a speech.
"The good thing about not winning is not having to go on stage at Dolby,"
she says.
She has nothing prepared, except a shower of thanks.
"I don't think about the speeches because if I prepare them it's worse."