Achero Mañas: "Two television channels decide how, when and what type of films are made in Spain"

Movie theater

Achero Mañas at one point in the filming of 'A normal world'.

The Madrid-born director directs 'A normal world', a dramatic comedy that marks his return to the cinema after ten years of absence

To what extent are we capable of doing what our heart dictates and not what we should?

With that idea in mind,

after having spent a long time away from the media spotlight.

In this film, Ernesto (Ernesto Alterio) is a theater director whose mother, Carolina (Magüi Mira), always educated him to be free and not stick to conventions.

Waiting for a job and having separated from his wife, the protagonist of this

not going through his best moment.

So, when Carolina dies, she doubts whether or not to fulfill her mother's last wish: that her body be thrown into the sea.

An

(Gala Amyach, daughter in real life of Achero Mañas) and that will be closely followed by the police, who chase them down the road to prevent that from happening.

Ten years after premiering

, the Madrid director,

(in 1998, Best Fiction Short Film, for

; and, in 2001, Best Original Screenplay and New Director for

) , returns to direct a film.

participated in the last Official Section of the Malaga Film Festival.

Ernesto (Ernesto Alterio), the protagonist father of the story, and Cloe (Gala Amyach), his daughter.

Everyone wonders why it has been so long since your last premiere.

But has your head been in the movies all these years? Yes, I have never left the movies.

I've written a lot and actually have six scripts on my table.

has taken me three years.

And the rest ... well, I've tried to build stories that I knew would be impossible to shoot in Spain.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

But it is not something that only happens to me, but it happens to many in my profession.

Something has to change in the industry.

Authors and directors cannot be allowed to not work in ten years. What is the risk to which you expose yourself when something like this happens? That you lose your identity and do not have the natural ability to be on the scene and shoot something every two or three years.

And for the record, everyone has the right to make a mistake with a tape.

But there are authors whose projects are doing well, they get an impact ... and they don't manage to direct either.

We are under the rule of two chains that eat up all the aid from the Ministry and decide how, when and what type of films are made in Spain.

To one side I would leave TVE, which is obliged to cultural diversity.

The truth is that the aid has been commercialized and industrialized.

And I think that, in addition to commercial cinema, you can also make auteur cinema. How have the public and the people who know you better received you? With regard to the public and after having been in Malaga, I will tell you that I am very happy for your reaction.

As for who I have more contact with, many have asked me why I was not directing.

At first, when three years had passed since my last movie, it seemed normal to them.

But when they were six, seven or eight years old ... not anymore!

(laughs).

And they even thought that he was never going to direct something again.

I told them that it was difficult to build a project.

But nothing. Do you think this story has the merit of combining humor and drama and that it manages to reach a wider audience? The truth is that I always end up talking about family.

That is, of different topics within family ties in the middle class.

too and I am happy that people can laugh and get excited about it.

That is priceless when you go to the movies.

When talking about death, I think that here the shadows and lights appear in a continuous and drastic way and you go from laughing to crying with absolute speed.

Come on, as it happens in life ... Doesn't it seem tremendous to you that a son wants to take his mother's body to the sea despite not being legal? If you think about it, it may be ... I am left with the background of the matter : to what extent we are able to maintain our integrity by renouncing our essence.

Also how can we maintain our differences and achieve what we would really like to do.

Not to mention the fear of the dictatorship of the majority, in which customs prevent us from being as we really are.

Here, the character played by Ernesto Alterio does what he should do and attends to the uniqueness of his mother, who is embodied by Magüi Mira.

But also yours.

Thus, when he acts in this way, he manages to meet many unique people, people who are different and who have not given up being so.

Carolina (Magüi Mira) is the mother of Ernesto (Ernesto Alterio).

Gala Amyach, Magüi Mira and Ernesto Alterio will have required great complicity on their part in a project as unique as this one ... Let me tell you that the script is not an end in itself for me.

It is more of a tool.

I like to take the script, which I have built in my solitude, and see how to put it on stage.

Check what works and what doesn't with the actors.

That is why I like to rehearse for a month and a half or two months.

To some, something like this seems like a luxury.

Not me.

Before it was always done like this and I think that is what should be usual.

The abnormal should become the normal.

More or less like what this film tells. Would you give up working that way if someone asked you? I don't like to stick to one way of doing things.

I prefer to be more democratic.

If not, I don't think I could get involved in anything.

Moreover, I do not choose an actor because she is good, but for many more issues: get along, be able to build something together, see if she is a participatory person or how we will both withstand the stresses of a shoot ...

But the truth is that she has had a very bad time.

We had high hopes for this project and I have already told you that nothing worse will ever happen than what has happened to you.

I don't know if it was something similar to what Werner Herzog suffered in

(laughs), but with

there has been everything: it has suffered delays, the financial aid did not come out at the time, we had to shoot in two parts, the premiere was stopped due to a global pandemic, the Malaga Festival was postponed days before the film was to be screened ... I keep that it was not an evil eye that someone has cast me, but that it has affected everything the world.

And I think that all the people who have had a bad time. Would you like the public to be able to open their eyes to the diversity that surrounds you thanks to your feature film? Many things can come up after seeing it.

But, if anyone opens their eyes to this story, welcome.

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