Ian de la Rosa, the one Spaniard on the Berlinale: “I need to see films where being trans is not a conflict” | Cinema: premieres and critiques | EUROtoday

When Ian de la Rosa (Granada, 38 years previous) was little, he was not referred to as to be a movie director. “But I do remember that with my father I watched the trilogy of The godfather, and that united us,” he remembers in Berlin early on Friday morning, dressed to the nines as a result of the gala premiere of his first characteristic movie, Ivan & Hadoum, It is well known at 2:00 p.m. “I’m not even complaining, I’m happy with everything that’s happening with the film,” which is able to transfer from the Panorama part of the Berlinale to the Official part of the Malaga competition, in a journey that’s now frequent in Spanish cinema, earlier than reaching industrial theaters on June 19. De la Rosa, who grew up in Níjar (Almería), was going to be a health care provider, the son of social employees; He is now the Spanish consultant within the German capital.

Iván & Hadoum is a romantic comedy within the Almeria countryside, with its epicenter in a tomato packaging manufacturing unit. The new parts are supplied by its protagonists: if Iván (performed by Silver Chicón) is a transsexual who has by no means had the necessity to go away his city, Hadoum (performed by Herminia Loh) is a Moroccan educated in Spain who has returned to the city simply lengthy sufficient to regain momentum. “Each one has a clear horizon. One is more family-oriented, she is more adventurous in looking for her life. So they are going to be consistent with what they have seen in life, even though love crosses their path,” explains its creator. “Because it is clear that my film is a classic love story with characters and bodies that are not. The theme of desire and bodies, trans representation beyond tragedy, as we experience it in my generation, seemed very important to me.”

De la Rosa studied movie at Escac, the Catalan movie college, as a result of he had household in Barcelona. At the age of 24, she started to transition in her gender. In 2015 it participated within the Cannes competition, within the part devoted to movie colleges, with Victor XX. “I remember it as very distant. Because traveling generates a toll in many ways. In many moments of those years I suffered a social and economic toll. It is difficult to work, it is difficult to feel comfortable,” he smiles quietly. “Now I see it as something from the past, actually as something very distant. I also want to point out that the industry is not what it was then. It has changed a lot. Now I have the feeling that there is more space for everyone, that they have opened up to new voices and representations. A film like this would not have been possible 10 years ago. It has been made when the time has come.”

Although he needs to level out a reference that lived in his unconscious and that he not too long ago rediscovered. “I saw again Belle Epoque, and I rediscovered Violeta, Ariadna Gil’s character.” A 1992 film with a story dated 1931 spoke directly to a filmmaker in 2025: “The dance sequence is clearly showing a sex change. “I remembered that when I was a child, Trueba’s film was the only reflection that I found in popular cinema of transsexuality.”

Spanish cinema has also improved in its representation, for example, of rural Spain. Sandra Romero dazzled at the end of 2024 with Where the silence passes, and De la Rosa adds that view of the countryside from creators born there. “That’s why I feel that the industry is opening up and new perspectives are being added. I don’t come from a film or artistic family or anything. My parents are social workers, my grandfather didn’t know how to read or write. I have studied film direction with a lot of effort and I have also transitioned.” And he takes the opportunity to include a demand: “When will there be a public film school? I edited the film in Brussels and the editor, Yannick Leroy, had studied at a public university. Why is it so expensive in Spain? I have been lucky that my family, not at all mega-privileged, has been able to support me on an emotional level even more than on an economic level, and that is often essential to gain momentum.”

In 2022 De la Rosa was a candidate for the Goya awards and won the Gaudí with his short film Farrucas, in which it showed the lives of four teenagers proud of their Moroccan and Spanish roots from El Puche, a peripheral neighborhood of Almería. The filmmaker shot it twice, because the first time did not leave him happy. “I learned a lot from that effort.” And a lady already participated in that journey, Hadoum Benghnidira Nieto, now a supporting actress in Ivan & Hadoum, who has additionally lent his identify to the title. “I didn’t write thinking about anyone. I Googled the Spanish-Moroccan Andalusian singer and Restinga, Herminia’s stage name, came up. That’s clear. I was excited, she was perfect, although my producers asked me to be careful. I was right. Silver was a friend of some friends, and I contacted him.”

Curiously, Loh and Chicón come from music, “an echo of their artistic souls and their generosity”, crucial for a filming carried out in simply 5 weeks. “Oh, and we didn’t show them the scripted ending until the night before. I asked to shoot the conclusion of the film on the last day, so that their bodies would have felt the journey of their characters.”

Ending the dialog, De la Rosa confesses a want that he fulfills Iván & Hadoum: “I need to see movies, at least one, where I understand that my body can be desired, that being trans is not a conflict. Obviously, when you start to transition, a bomb explodes in your foundations, you have to rebuild yourself completely. Doing so is hard, but also wonderful. I would repeat the process.”

The filmmaker remembers different Spanish trans figures such because the thinker Paul B. Preciado or the actress Karla Sofía Gascón to elucidate that “each person is different, just as each transition is different.” Although, ultimately, he assures: “Both labels and flags are very necessary for visibility, but they also have a double edge, right? They make us believe that a person, by belonging to a minority, represents their group. At the same time, let’s take advantage of the opportunity. Society can learn a lot from our experience, I mean from the point of view, because we can enrich the view towards the heteropatricate. The important thing is to contribute.”