Alberto Rodríguez, the filmmaker who compresses all of Spain on the San Sebastián Festival | Cinema: premieres and criticism | EUROtoday

At the start of 2015, through the ultimate dash of the Goya Awards, a ceremony during which The minimal island He gained ten trophies, its director, Alberto Rodríguez (Sevilla, 54 years previous), spent many days in Madrid. He did all of the promotion and marketing campaign they despatched him, however those that know him indicated that his head was in Seville, attentive to his kids and his attainable barrabasas. The anecdote exemplifies the care of the filmmaker for its folks and its group, which has remained devoted movie after film, collection after collection. And that skilled growth has exploded at this San Sebastián Festival, the place he introduced Saturday on the competitors the movie The tigers And subsequent Friday the collection premieres Anatomy of an immediate. He is the primary director who faces double measurement within the Zinemaldia (he was additionally the primary collection scheduled within the contest, To the fish), Highlighting Rodríguez’s expertise as soon as once more. He, shy, simply factors out: “I go, as always, delighted from life to San Sebastián. I particularly believe that we are going with a good movie and a very interesting series. That is what I’m going to try to enjoy.”

However, it’s not one of the common filmmakers, regardless of its impeccable profession and having as much as three Goya awards in your hand: two for the scripts of The minimal island y The man of the thousand faces, and one other by the route of The minimal island. It could also be for staying in Seville or for its artistic coherence, which takes you away from extra colourful adventures. In return, he has the respect of your entire business and the press and affection of his group, who by no means says something unhealthy about Rodriguez.

His look in Zinemaldia with two works so completely different, that they got here to overlapping for the dates during which the Congress of Deputies allowed the group to report its recreation of the 23-F coup, additionally confirms that Spain is defined via Rodriguez’s work. Yes in The tigers The narrative engine is the connection between two Buzos brothers (Bárbara Lennie and Antonio de la Torre, the title refers back to the household nickname) that they don’t elevate the pinnacle both economically or emotionally, and those that a coca stash can save their lives or burst it; in Anatomy of an immediate The homonymous novel by Javier Cercas adapts, which dissects the 23-F and deaches those that lived that second. Rodríguez begins with the size, born of what he noticed as a toddler when he went on trip to Mazagón (Huelva). “Even now, when I still go in summer, Petrochemistry fascinates me. Sometimes I have almost had an accident because I stay hooked looking. I thought there was a story, I asked, they let us visit it and there I learned about the divers.” Rodríguez refers back to the discharges of big oil tankers are carried out on the excessive seas, and the issues and faults are confronted there, by specialised divers. “We talked to some of them and we found it so amazing that we started writing the text.”

By “us” refers to his artistic associate, the screenwriter and now director Rafael Cobos. The Sevillian additionally collaborates with Rodríguez since his third movie, 7 virgins (2005). “Alberto is two years older than me. I was 29 years old when we met in a mythical bar in Seville, La Sirena, where a common friend presented us because he knew we would fit. I came from doing a project similar to the project that he wanted to develop, and we leave all night speaking,” recalls Cobos, who has locked with other directors, although he always returns to Rodriguez. “Over the years, as director, Alberto has misplaced modesty. Before he had many reluctance when he entered the emotional facet of the characters, and has already found that he favors them and advantages them the wrong way up, which is the evil in favor of emotion as a result of I feel it’s extra favor of his approach of getting the cinema. And each individual? As an individual I consider that as we’re all changing into previous, we’re forgiving ourselves, accepting. That journey is necessary.

In The tigers, Cobos and Rodríguez constructed in a short time the character of the older brother, for whom they didn’t eat their heads: they known as him Antonio as a result of it could be for Antonio de la Torre. According to Rodríguez, “he is a character who does everything is the other way around. And everything is wrong. That seemed very attractive. And we compensate for the balance with someone who was seeing so clear that he was making mistakes and that he still loved him, a sister, Barbara Lennie.”

From the tower he jokes with what picture his two buddies have of him in the event that they write such a disastrous character in life. Malaga mudadado to Seville, turned a part of the Rodríguez clan with a failure. “I did a test with Juanjo Ballesta to make his brother in 7 virgins, And Rafa and Alberto told me that they were looking for something else … but that they stayed with my registration. I went a climb, I lived with it a healing process, it was worth it. “They remembered. And they called him to Group 7, and for The minimum island, And they have written this diver for him. “Alberto has always been demanding and obsessive, but in good ways. He remains the same with his essays with the script, with his constant ‘less is more’. Although I think where he was very much cane, now there is some calm. He does the same, but more relaxed,” he explains.

In the Rodríguez Clan there are more repeaters: the director of photography Álex Catalán (now, by dates, he has made the series; the film, with a spectacular and absorbent underwater photography, has fallen to Pau Esteve Birba), the composer Julio de la Rosa, the mount José Mg Moyano, various technical leaders … and Yolanda Serrano and Eva Leira, responsible for the distributions of all their work. Both underline that they love him. And then they explain: “It has matured. It is still incredible as it takes gold from anything you give, but has won in security. It trusts that it surrounds and listens and listens to it, although the proposal sounds like crazy. In that it is very brave.” And they point out a curiosity: “He is seen thinking. When you let go of a bomb, he starts thinking, the silence is made, the curls are touched, and meditates. He has a great intuition, so he successfully builds great stories of great risks.” How would they define him? “As a calm with forcefulness.”

The two directors of casting They point out a aforementioned idea: through the filmography of Alberto Rodríguez Spain is explained. The aforementioned laughs: “Ok, can. On previous occasions we have made films in which the social or political component was the central issue. Here, under the drama with touches of thriller This social portrait is more buried … although there is: the spaces that inhabit, the precarious job – brutal in the case of the divers, which for health retire much earlier and is a profession with many deaths -, the woman forced to be an eternal very subtle caregiver, and also supposedly subtle. All the elements, the spaces that she is occupying, which have to do over time and spend time to another. ”

Of course, in Anatomy of an instant There is no possible dribble: it is the history of Spain. Finished the film, many team members ran to the series because Congress only let them roll in the record of sessions last January. We had to close the cast to the race. Only a friend made the trip upside down. Rodríguez had called Raúl Arévalo so that his voice was the omniscient pseudocercas narrator who contributes all his sharpness and underlines the contradictions of what is seen, the clashes between official and true history. And of addition, he made a father (only with his voice) in the homemade recordings that the Buzos brothers keep from their childhood. Arévalo had already worked with members of this clan when he put himself before his cameras in The minimum island, And it is clear about what Rodriguez has changed: “It is safer. In return, he has not misplaced that keenness for preventing for each factor and each element. Notice, once I recorded the voice of the collection, Rafael and he mentioned the phrases till verbal instances, as a result of even these nuances are necessary. Alberto retains the will, that are often misplaced with age.” For him, “that obsessive and meticulous factor could be very stunning to see; as if you happen to watch a carpenter working the wooden.” Therefore, “Alberto is the perfect factor that may be: a craftsman.”

That is why Rodríguez, in the interview, remembers every phrase of Anatomy of an instant, like the one that affects in a painful way “the gratitude of Spain” with some of the prebostes of the transition. “The book of Cercas fascinated me by how I create a fiction with history with capital letters. That’s why I accepted the order, because I saw clear the hypnotic power of the three traitors [Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, Adolfo Suárez y Santiago Carrillo] and that Rafael Cobos and Fran Araújo would know how to put it in the scripts of the episodes. ”

The review of her team ends with the production director (Goya winner in this category with Model 77) And now Manuela Ocón producer: not only is he an artistic part of that clan, but is his wife and mother of his two children. “With the confidence he has won in himself, I think he is now happier. He has always been solid, I now see 7 virgins And it seems like a movie. I agree with Yolanda and Eva what he thinks, what he listens and dialogues. ”There was a time when the couple, a long time ago, was considered moving to Madrid. They did not.“ It was risky, because we feared staying out of the industry. For family life it has been very good, and for work … not wanting to participate in a certain noise has helped in creativity. ”

The tigers It opens in Salas on October 31; Anatomy of an instant, That has ended just for its projection in the Zinemaldia, it will be seen in Movistar Plus+ throughout the fall. Rodríguez explains that the road has been strenuous: “I didn’t need to know the place my restrict was and that of the group. But by chance, for a way we needed to match the calendars, we needed to overlap each tales. Now it touches, somewhat than relaxation, take pleasure in.”