– How about three weeks ago in Berlin?
It was a blast. It came together that it was the premiere of the film, that we had never shown it to an audience before, and on top of that, it was on that stage made it super intense and super emotional. The reception from the public was incredible and they gave us warmth and love in that final applause after the screening that we all disarmed there.
– Is the atmosphere in Berlin similar to that of the Malaga Festival?
Absolutely. The setting is completely different; obviously at the climatic level… and then, it makes it like being at home for me, being in Malaga. It gives you closer to the public due to the language barrier, which is not there… But in terms of the quality of the films, it seems to me that Malaga is a reference festival and that the films that are being screened both this year and in the past editions are of a super interesting level.
– You explained that the story is inspired by a tragedy that happened a few years ago. Besides, did he have any film references that have served him for “20,000 species of bees”?
Well, I am very attracted to Latin American cinema in general. This cinema is also about social themes, which I don’t know if by choice or by conditioning the available resources, is very direct, very committed, with naturalist aesthetics in many cases… Julia Solomonoff, Pepa San Martín, Alessia Chiesa, Lucrecia Martel… then also, at a European level, Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, both Romanian. That cinema is also committed, as a real director, to super truthful performances… They are cinemas that interest me a lot and that I have also tried to carry out in my film because I precisely needed it to be a story that was true for the public; a natural reality of the diverse factor that is the human being and try to avoid all the artifice that could separate the viewer from what I am telling.
– How do you present this naturalistic style?
Well, on the one hand, they are decisions that have a lot to do with the technical, in terms of the size of the filming device that I want to take so that it does not interfere, so that it is not the film at the service of the device, but rather the device at the service of the film. and of the actors… Or also questions of the type of camera, directing, absence of extra-diegetic music… and then, at an acting level, working a lot with the actors to try to get to the truth of their characters, their psychology, and work on the background of those characters more than the literal text, so that that truth transcends and sneaks through the lines of text. Working both with non-professional actresses in my short “Ropes” and with children in “20,000 species of bees” has also been something that has favored that code of naturalness.
– And what would be the drawbacks or limits of these non-professional actors?
Well, more than a limit, it is a necessity that they impose, and it is that they still require more rehearsal work at a previous moment, on the one hand so that they understand the language of cinema: the requirements of working with a camera in terms of continuity issues , of respect for brands… and on the other hand, the naturalization of having a camera attached to your face. That has to be worked on beforehand, but basically it is not a limit, but rather a necessity imposed by working with these people, but which for me also reverts later on in other values that are reflected on the screen.
– How do you conceive the generational and cultural gap that is manifested in the film?
Somehow, I do believe that it is a film full of gaps, wounds and borders, which talk about separations, divisions, the impossibility of getting closer to each other… And wounds that speak of painful aspects that we have tried to address. hide to continue building and remain. I find it interesting that the character of the mother, trying to be modern and not look like her mother, inadvertently continues to reproduce many of the patterns, schemes and dynamics of projecting onto the other who you want to see and not who they are per se same. And this realization that the mother has, of how that external gaze that has to do with her parents, Cocó’s grandparents, also operates and weighs and conditions in her, leads her to understand many things about herself that she needs to be able to accompany the mother. best possible way also to his daughter in this process. So, it is a detonation that arises from what Cocó’s character puts on the table in this family, and that provides that rapprochement between family members. Somehow, they overcome that gap, that border, that limit, to get closer to seeing each other in a closer, more authentic way.
– What do you think of the current state of Spanish cinema, which has had good international recognition for a few years? Could one speak of a “new wave”?
I think we are living a special moment that has to do with many measures that have been taken in previous years; It is not a mushroom that is coming out now, but it has to do with greater support for independent cinema, for cinema directed by women, both institutionally and academically, and through writing residencies, projects and others, which They mean that today we can talk about a “new wave”… which is not a wave either; Hopefully it’s sea level, and not a wave that comes and goes, but something that comes to stay and that has to congratulate all of us because it seems to me a super diverse cinema, super interesting in proposals, in styles and in themes, and that can only be good for the story of a country and for culture.
– And now, do you have something in mind, are you working on something…?
I am going to rest a bit, because on the one hand there is the end of this process of the film, which is five years, and on the other hand the process of the short film “Cuerdas”, which overlapped a lot with the start of the film and that he has had the last fifteen months completely energetically and mentally at his disposal for these projects, and right now I think it is time to celebrate the start of the film, the start of this new phase, and also wait for all the speed and noise in which we are immersed right now with all the promo come down and we can rest and make silence and space so that new projects can sprout.
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