The champions walk as dejected as disintegrated. They managed to win the basketball championship against all odds, but because of an incident they were disqualified and punished with two years of expulsion from the competition. Now they can go back. A new coach, played by Elisa Hipólito, has the mission of bringing the whole team together again. But the girl is a bit clueless (and they say quite jinxed) and she enrolls him in the athletics trials.
This is how CampeoneX starts, the sequel to Campeones, which will hit Spanish screens on August 18. A film directed by Javier Fesser that is as emotional as it is funny that includes the signing of Brianeitor, a young man who suffers from degenerative muscular atrophy, and who is quite a discovery for the team and for the cinema. In this interview with La Vanguardia, Fesser explains the ins and outs of filming this new installment of the Champions saga.
Brianeitor is the great novelty of CampeoneX ...
The novelty is that we have introduced functional disability and put a person on an athletics team who cannot run or jump or throw anything and, nevertheless, demonstrates that he can become a fundamental part of the team and of the group. As the movie tells it, no one will question or say, but what is a guy with muscular dystrophy doing on a track team?
Brian is very smart...
He is a brilliant being and his character is a reflection of him, as is the case with the rest of the protagonists, because the script adapts to the actors. Anyone would want Brian on his team.
How did you meet him?
In the initial script, the character was a girl named Martina, but we couldn't find the actress I was looking for, so we widened the range. Then the son of Athenea Mata, the co-writer, told us about a gamer, a youtuber he follows, Brianeitor. I saw it on Tik Tok and within five minutes I called the casting director to track it down. We had been looking for the character for months, and I spoke to Brian for two minutes and knew we had the movie.
CampeoneX plunges into the world of videogames. What did you know about that before shooting the film?
We have invented the video game for the film. It's called Real Runner and we intend to make it a real video game, because that's its essence both in terms of its visual universe and its rules and gameplay.
Have you had help from someone wise in the matter?
Yes, of many wise in the matter. There are already physical video game competitions, although they do not reach the level that the film proposes, but it is possible that it will only be a few months for that idea to materialize. Virtual reality will soon be a second home for all of us.
Most of the actors in the film have some kind of disability. How have they adapted to these novelties?
Even if you put something very amazing in front of them, they adapt quite naturally. They always try and that is the background of the film, to show that nothing is impossible. That is the spirit of people with intellectual disabilities, with disabilities in general.
This year the American remake of Champions will be released with Woody Harrelson as the protagonist. Have you seen it yet?
Actually it is already the third remake, one was made in Germany and another for the Arab world. Of course I've seen the American. I am one of the producers. I was at the premiere in New York with its director, Bobby Farrelly, and with the actors, Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson and the whole team of champions who came from Canada, where it was shot. I'm not a big fan of remakes, but this one made sense, because when you make movies with people with intellectual disabilities, each version is unique and original.
And your champions, how are they? Have you noticed any evolution compared to the first film?
Champions made everyone very happy. But since they don't handle the ego thing, that happiness has nothing to do with what happens when you become super famous overnight. It has to do with the joy that they feel that they are capable of doing a new job, of being actors and of seeing that people have been moved and have had fun. That resumes the idea that nothing is impossible, because I have demanded them like any other actor and even more. In addition, five years after Champions, we come with a film that brings many new things and that delves into the issue of disability. We have made the best possible film, it is not a second part, we have not stretched the gum.
Francisco Ibáñez recently passed away. He said that you were the only one who had made a great adaptation of Mortadelo y Filemón, what do you remember about the cartoonist?
I have the memory of having immersed myself in the universe of a genius who didn't know he was a genius, of an enormous artist who never worked as an artist, who only worked as a hard worker and a good person. He gave me absolute freedom. He told me: "Make the film that you want, because I also draw how I want."
