Pablo Scarpellini Los Angeles

The Angels

Updated Friday, March 8, 2024-9:35 p.m.

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Pablo

Berger

likes risky bets and swimming against the current.

Some would say that it is a somewhat suicidal formula in the film industry, but it has worked for him.

There are few Spanish directors who can boast of having achieved an Oscar nomination and having represented Spain to opt for another.

And if we add to that that he has only made four feature films in 61 years of existence, the merit is even greater.

When they remind him that he

has also achieved this with two films without any dialogue

, the smile that appears on his face is one of absolute plenitude.

What this director from Bilbao, a lover of Chaplin, paellas and the skyscrapers of New York, is pure audacity.

With that enthusiasm he arrives at the Oscar gala in Los Angeles on Sunday.

In 2013 he was halfway to the statuette for best international film for

Snow White

, a black and white title starring Maribel Verdú and Angela Molina.

Now the dream has culminated with

Robot Dreams

and competes in a very different category, that of animated film.

Berger is aware that there are two titles better placed in the pools,

The Boy and the Heron

of a legend like

Hayao Miyakazi

, and

Spider-Man: Crossing the Multiverse,

with two giant labels behind them, Sony and Marvel.

But since "you can't go to a game thinking you're going to lose, I go to Sunday's game thinking about winning," he tells EL MUNDO in the cafeteria of a Beverly Hills hotel.

To know more

Cinema.

Robot Dreams, best independent film at the Annie Awards, brings Pablo Berger closer to the Oscar

  • Editorial: EFE Los Angeles

Robot Dreams, best independent film at the Annie Awards, brings Pablo Berger closer to the Oscar

Cinema.

Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger's silent cinema is heading towards the deafening noise of the Oscars

  • Editor: LUIS MARTÍNEZ Madrid

Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger's silent cinema is heading towards the deafening noise of the Oscars

Berger does not rule out surprises because they always exist.

"I experienced it at the Goya with the best adapted script, because Bayona won all the awards except that one. I

am visualizing my speech

when they say '

and the Oscar goes to

'," he shares, convinced of his options.

As a cinema purist who is passionate about Fellini, Wilder and Berlanga, Berger does not, by any means, enter into the game of ordering the candidate films from best to worst.

It does highlight the factor that makes yours different from the others.

"It is the most exciting film,

the one that touches the heart the most

because it speaks directly about feelings and emotions and, as it is without dialogue, where the music is very present, it makes the raw emotions come out. That is the reason why it is nominated without having been released in theaters in the US," he explains.

The story of

Robot Dreams

, based on the graphic novel by Sara Varon, is that of a dog who buys a robot to avoid the loneliness of a big city, which in his case is

New York in the 80s

.

An emotional connection will soon emerge that no one would have thought possible.

Berger was that "lonely dog" in Manhattan, and he also found love and had his heart "broken" before finding the love of his now-wife, Yuko Harami, photographer and executive producer of Robot Dreams.

"Of all my films, this is possibly the most personal."

Berger went to live in the Big Apple in the 90s when everyone thought he would start making feature films after the overwhelming success of his first short,

Mama

(1988).

After 10 years there and when

it seemed that he would stay to make films in the United States

, he returned to Spain to film a comedy,

Torremolinos 73

, a box office success.

What I said, against the current.

"I have always done the opposite of what I was supposed to do," he analyzes.

"Going against it, curiously, has worked for me. I have taken very few hits but they have had an effect because

they have worked well at the box office

and have given me continuity as a director, which is what it is about in the end to be able to make the next film ".

He could also have ended up in Hollywood, something his body asked for when he was young.

"In his early twenties he wanted to come study film at UCLA," he recalls.

He ended up in New York.

"I have been tempted on several occasions, but so far I have never taken the Hollywood bait. I feel very comfortable as a European filmmaker."

And what will the next movie be about?

"Who knows," she replies.

"My films

are born from the subconscious

, as images, ideas, visual obsessions and the theme comes to mind later. I never start with a fixed idea from the beginning. The next one may be a

western

... or an underwater musical."