Three years ago the actor Alex Garcia was representing Fires in Tenerife when he felt the call of the management. It was a silly detail, which probably another actor would not have given importance, which made him embark on the short film that now competes in the Goya Awards in the short documentary category.
“The mother of my partner, Berna, came to see the performance [Bernardo Rodríguez, director de fotografía y montador de Incendios, más allá del teatro] –The actor tells us Riot gear by phone-. He had warned me that she was going to fall asleep, and yet the opposite happened. The play moved him deeply ”.
A Alex Garcia he was not surprised. After many interpretations throughout Spain of the work directed by Mario Gas, He was used to having viewers share at the end of the performance how much the play had impressed them. The text of Wajdi Mouawad has been thrilling viewers around the world for years, even in its film version directed by Denis Villeneuve.
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Although Bernardo Rodríguez’s mother was one of those spectators touched by Fires, For Álex García it was the beginning of a new adventure in directing. “A week later I called Bernardo and told him: ‘What happened to your mother has been happening to us since day one that we represent this show. I have to immortalize it ”, he remembers.
And what better than to ally with the friend who had originated it all? One as director and the other as director of photography took advantage of the seven days in which the show was held in Valencia, shots that turned into more than 30 hours of material that included scenes from Fires and behind-the-scenes moments, plus interviews with the actors –Laia Marull, Núria Espert, Ramón Barea… – and members of the technical team who get excited talking about the impact that the work has had on them.
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“My intention is that the short would be seen by a spectator who did not frequent the theater and wanted to get closer, who seemed to him that what happens inside those buildings is interesting and beautiful”, reflects Álex García about his main motivation for directing Fires, beyond the theater, an impulse that has nothing to do with presenting himself as a director.
The short film, that can be seen in Filmin, It also comes at a particularly tough time for theaters, whose programming has suffered greatly during the pandemic. “I did an online pass in March with the Abadía Theater and there I was aware of the impact it was going to have on the pandemic. I thought it was worth taking three years to put together. “
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But, above all, it is a love letter to acting. In the theater and also in the cinema. Something that the actor has not only felt in Fires but in works like Pack or series like Riot gear. “I have done it so that we do not forget why we dedicate ourselves to this. Suddenly you work with Núria Espert, with more performances behind her than anyone else, and she has the same illusion as you. That is why it seems a luxury to have recorded it” .
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